No change that has come to later times has been more radical than that in our schools. The discipline, management, method of instruction and general spirit of the school have all undergone a thorough transformation. In the early days, the old blue-back speller was a sine qua non in the elementary schools. Its columns and battalions of words, ranging from the least spellable words to those that are octosyllabic and even beyond, all of which had to be learned by rote, made many an excellent speller of the English. The modern method of acquiring ability to spell may be superior, but one who ever mastered the old blue-back was never known to be an indifferent speller. Consigned to the limbo of the junk heap, the blue-back may be, but to master it was to become the possessor of most of the words in common use, and more besides. In former days the location of a country school was selected with reference to the largest possible patronage, while many boys and girls were forced to trudge the distance of several miles each morning to attend, and return the same distance home every afternoon. The buckets with curved wire handles would contain the dinners of the children of a given family. School periods extended from eight in the morning till four in the afternoon, with three brief intervals of recess during the day. For a well-regulated school, the furniture comprised plain, unpainted seats, none too comfortable, and unpainted desks. Where not so well regulated the seats were of split logs, backless, with peg supporters, and no desks, save that of the teacher, which was used at different times by a given class of students in taking writing lessons from the teacher. This teacher sat on a platform, which was slightly raised, in order to give him complete oversight of each pupil. Within his desk were securely kept the sinews of discipline in the form of a number of well-seasoned hickories, flexible, tough, and just long enough for faithful execution. These were a source of terror to all alike, for under the nature of the discipline there were no immunes in view of certain infractions. The rules of discipline were generally harsh, hard and drastic, the very essence of the unreasonable. A pupil failing to spell a given number of words, or to give a given number of correct answers, was straightway drubbed. This was done in a most mechanical way, as the machinery of discipline must, of course, run regularly. Nothing was said, but the teacher would administer the flogging, and go straight on with his other work. The fear of punishment, so far from acting as a stimulus, was a barbarous hindrance. Study was not pursued so much as a pleasure, as it was from fear of punishment.