Many ingenious punishments were invented. A specially insulting one was to send the pupil out to cut a small branch of a tree. A split was made by the teacher at the severed end of the branch, and the culprit's nose was placed in the cleft end. Then he was forced to stand, painfully pinched, an object of ridicule. A familiar punishment of the dame school, which lingered till our own day, was the smart tapping of the child's head with a heavy thimble; this was known as "thimell-pie." Another was to yoke two delinquents together in a yoke made with two bows like an ox yoke. Sometimes times a boy and girl were yoked together--a terrible disgrace. "Whispering sticks" were used to preserve quiet in the schoolroom. Two are shown here, wooden gags to be tied in the mouth with strings, somewhat as a bit is placed in a horse's mouth. Children were punished by being seated on a unipod, a stool with but a single leg, upon which it was most tiring to try to balance; they were made to stand on dunce stools and wear dunce caps and heavy leather spectacles; they were labelled with large placards marked with degrading or ridiculous names, such as "Tell-Tale," "Bite-Finger-Baby," "Lying Ananias," "Idle-Boy," and "Pert-Miss-Prat-a-Pace." One of Miss Hetty Higginson's punishments in her Salem school at the beginning of this century was to make a child hold a heavy book, such as a dictionary, by a single leaf. Of course any restless motion would tear the leaf. Her rewards of merit should be also told. She would divide a single strawberry in minute portions among six or more scholars; and she had a "bussee," or good child, who was to be kissed. Many stories have been told of special punishments invented by special teachers. The schoolmaster at Flatbush was annoyed by the children in his school constantly using Dutch words, as he was employed to teach them English. He gave every day to the first scholar who used a Dutch word a little metal token or medal. This scholar could promptly transfer the token to the next child who spoke a Dutch word, and so on; thus it went from hand to hand through the day. But the unlucky scholar who had the token in his possession at the close of school, received a sound whipping. An amusing method of securing good lessons and good behavior was employed by old Ezekiel Cheever, and was thus told by one of his pupils, Rev. John Barnard:--