"Of inconveniences [in the schoolhouse] I shall mention no other but the confused and shattered and nastie posture that it is in, not fitting for to reside in, the glass broke, and thereupon very raw and cold; the floor very much broken and torn up to kindle fires, the hearth spoiled, the seats some burned and others out of kilter, that one had well-nigh as goods keep school in a hog stie as in it." This schoolhouse had been built and furnished with some care in 1652, as this entry in the town records shows: "The feoffes agreed with Daniel Welde that he provide convenient benches with forms, with tables for the scholars, and a conveniente seate for the scholmaster, a Deske to put the Dictionary on and shelves to lay up bookes." The schoolmaster "promised and engaged to use his best endeavour both by precept and example to instruct in all Scholasticall morall and Theologicall discipline the children so far as they be capable, all A. B. C. Darians excepted." He was paid in corn, barley or peas, the value of L25 per annum, and each child, through his parents or guardians, supplied half a cord of wood for the schoolhouse fire. If this load of wood were not promptly furnished the child suffered, for the master did not allow him the benefit of the fire; that is, to go near enough the fireplace to feel the warmth. The children of wise parents like Cotton Mather, were also taught "opificial and beneficial sciences," such as the mystery of medicine--a mystery indeed in colonial times. Puritan schoolmasters believed, as did Puritan parents, that sparing the rod spoiled the child, and great latitude was given in punishment; the rod and ferule were fiercely and frequently plied "with lamming and with whipping, and such benefits of nature" as in English schools of the same date. When young men were publicly whipped in colleges, children were sure to be well trained in smaller schools. Every gradation of chastisement was known and every instrument from "A beesome of byrche for babes verye fit To a long lastinge lybbet for lubbers as meete,"