Stories of Great Americans for Little AmericansEggleston, Edward
History
Stories of Great Americans for Little Americans
Eggleston, Edward
United States -- Biography -- Juvenile literature
He was born in France. But most of his life was passed in
Phil-a-del-phi-a before the Rev-o-lu-tion.
He was twenty-five years old when he became a school-teacher. He
thought that he could do more good in teaching than in any other way.
School-masters in his time were not like our teachers. Children were
treated like little animals. In old times the school-master was a
little king. He walked and talked as if he knew every-thing. He wanted
all the children to be afraid of him.
But Ben-e-zet was not that kind of man. He was very gentle. He treated
the children more kindly than their fathers and mothers did. Nobody in
this country had ever seen a teacher like him.
He built a play-room for the children of his school. He used to take
them to this room during school time for a little a-muse-ment. He
man-aged each child as he found best. Some he could persuade to be
good. Some he shamed into being good. But this was very dif-fer-ent
from the cruel beatings that other teachers of that time gave their
pupils.
Of course the children came to love him very much. After they grew to
be men and women, they kept their love for the good little
schoolmaster. As long as they lived they listened to his advice.
There were no good school-books in his time. He wrote some little books
to make learning easier to his pupils. He taught them many things not
in their books. He taught them to be kind to brutes, and gentle with
one another. He taught them to be noble. He made them despise every
kind of meanness.
He was a great teacher. That is better than being a great soldier.
Ben-e-zet was a good man in many ways. He was the friend of all poor
people. Once he found a poor man suf-fer-ing with cold for want of a
coat. He took off his own coat in the street and put it on the poor
man, and then went home in his shirt sleeves.
In those days negroes were stolen from Af-ri-ca to be sold into
A-mer-i-ca. Ben-e-zet wrote little books against this wrong. He sent
these books over all the world almost. He also tried to persuade the
white men of his own country to be honest and kind with the Indians.
Great men in other countries were pleased with his books. They wrote
him letters. When any of them came to this country, they went to see
him. They wanted to see a man that was good to everybody. His house was
a plain one. But great men liked to sit at the table of the good
schoolmaster.
There was war between the English and French at that time. Can-a-da
belonged to the French. Our country belonged to the English. There was
a country called A-ca-di-a. It was a part of what is now No-va
Sco-ti-a. The people of A-ca-di-a were French.
[Illustration: Departure of the Acadians]
The English took the A-ca-di-ans away from their homes. They sent them
to various places. Many families were divided. The poor A-ca-di-ans
lost their homes and all that they had.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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