Recollections and Impressions, 1822-1890Frothingham, Octavius Brooks
Religion
Recollections and Impressions, 1822-1890
Frothingham, Octavius Brooks
Frothingham, Octavius Brooks, 1822-1895; Unitarians -- New England -- Biography
Of the primary schools it is unnecessary to speak. They were of the same
kind that were established in Boston at that period. Indeed I can
recollect but two, one, a child's school of boys and girls, kept by a
Miss Scott, at the corner of Mt. Vernon Street and Hancock; the other a
boys' school kept by a Mr. Capen, a poor hump-backed cripple who could
not get out of his chair, but wheeled himself about the room, and kept
on his table a cowhide, which was pretty generously exercised. The
school was on Bedford Street behind the "Church of Church Green." A
little alley-way ran along in the rear of the church through which I
used to go to the school-house.
The Latin School was an old institution brought hither by Rev. John
Cotton, who remembered the Free Grammar School founded in Lincolnshire,
England, by Queen Mary, in which Latin and Greek were taught. It was
established here, in 1635, five years after the landing of Winthrop, two
or three years before Harvard College. When I was there, it stood on
School Street, opposite the Franklin statue. It had a granite front and
a cupola. The head-master was Charles K. Dillaway, an excellent scholar,
a faithful teacher, an agreeable man. He had to resign in consequence of
ill-health. The tutors were Henry W. Torrey and Francis Gardner, who
afterwards became head-master. Both were pupils of the school. Mr.
Frederick P. Leverett, author of the Latin Lexicon, was chosen to
succeed Mr. Dillaway, but died before assuming the office. The next
head-master, during my course, was Epes Sargent Dixwell, a most
accomplished man, an elegant scholar, a gentleman of the world, very
much interested, as I remember, in the plastic art of Greece. He is
still living, and amuses himself by writing Greek. Mr. Dixwell held
office till 1851, when he established a private school. The discipline
of the Latin School was strict but mild. Corporal punishment was the
unquestioned rule, but it was never harshly administered, though the
knowledge that it might be undoubtedly did a good deal toward
stimulating the ambition of the scholars. Here and there no doubt a boy
exasperated the teacher by idleness or disorder; possibly at moments the
teacher was nervous and irritable. I recollect a single instance in
which he was over-sensitive, too prone to take offence, which fastened
suspiciously upon some individual scholar; but injustice was a very rare
occurrence. We learned Greek and Latin, the rudiments of algebra,
writing and declamation; but the best part of the education I received
in those days was an atmosphere of elegant literature, derived from
friends of my father. I used to see William H. Prescott taking his walk
on Beacon Street, in the sun, and have often sat in his study in his
tranquil hours, and heard him talk. The beautiful library of George
Ticknor, at the head of Park Street, was open to me, and I can see his
form now as he walked on the Common. George S. Hillard, the elegant man
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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