He had worked on the farm and managed his own schooling when the only textbooks were the Bible and Catechism. “When the Spelling Book was first introduced,” he remarks dryly, “the good old ladies appeared to fear that religion would be banished from the world.” Hawes, however, undertook the pursuit of the higher learning, and once had a sum set him in the “Single Rule of Three” that cost him three days’ work in the solving of it. “I went often to the woods and gathered pine knots for candles,” he remembers. “At this time I lived with my aged grandfather, who had a liberal education, but was in low circumstances, and I could learn more in his chimney-corner with my pine candle, in one evening, than I could at school in a week.” Discipline was administered by means of an apple-tree branch, and “as soon as the master retired from school, every instrument of correction or torture would by the scholars be destroyed.” In the Bible class, “while each scholar would mention the number and read one verse,” the master would be making pens, and the other children most likely “playing pins, or matching coppers.” Hawes, at the age of seventeen, had “advanced in Arithmetic about as far as Square and Cube Root,” and by his own industry “gained some knowledge of Navigation,” when the Revolution interrupted his studies, and, promptly enlisting, he served in the land force for three years, and then took to the sea. He sailed in no less than five vessels that were captured, but remarks that he was never prisoner more than two months running; and at the close of the Revolution he felt qualified to set up as schoolmaster ashore. His account probably gives an accurate picture of the public education of the day. “I commenced teaching school in Yarmouth,” he writes, “at seven dollars per month, and boarded myself, which was then about equal to seaman’s wages in Boston; and I occasionally taught town and private schools in Barnstable and Yarmouth, when not at sea. The highest wages I ever had was thirty-five dollars per month; and the last school I taught was in Barnstable, and was then in my sixtieth year. Now I will state my own method of school teaching with from sixty to ninety pupils, viz: The first and last hours were generally spent in reading, the middle hours in writing. Those in arithmetic would read with the others when they pleased. Having one class in school, every scholar, at my word ‘Next,’ would arise and read in his seat, till I pronounced the word ‘Next,’ and I often stopped him in the middle of a verse. After reading around, I would order another book, more proper for the scholars present, as before, and then in four or five different books till the hour expired. Then I gave out the copies and made as many mend their pens as could. If they had no ink-stands, which was the case with many, I would send one after shells, and put cotton therein. The ink I found and charged it to the school. I likewise set at auction who would make the fire cheapest,