The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 71, September, 1863: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and PoliticsVarious
Religion
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 71, September, 1863: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics
Various
American periodicals
On the 8th of April, I visited a school on Ladies Island, kept in a
small church on the Eustis estate, and taught by a young woman from
Kingston, Massachusetts. She had manifested much persistence in going to
this field, went with the first delegation, and still keeps the school
which she opened in March, 1862. She taught the pupils their letters.
Sixty-six were present on the day of my visit. A class of ten pupils
read the story which commences on page 86th of Hillard's Second Primary
Reader. One girl, Elsie, a full black, and rather ungainly withal, read
so rapidly that she had to be checked,--the only case of such fast
reading that I found. She assisted the teacher by taking the beginners
to a corner of the room and exercising them upon an alphabet card,
requiring them to give the names of letters taken out of their regular
order, and with the letters making words, which they were expected to
repeat after her. One class recited in Eaton's First Lessons in
Arithmetic; and two or three scholars with a rod pointed out the states,
lakes, and large rivers on the map of the United States, and also the
different continents on the map of the world, as they were called. I saw
the teacher of this school at her residence, late in the afternoon,
giving familiar instruction to some ten boys and girls, all but two
being under twelve years, who read the twenty-first chapter of the Book
of Revelation, and the story of Lazarus in the eleventh chapter of St.
John. Elsie was one of these. Seeing me taking notes, she looked archly
at the teacher, and whispered,--"he's putting me in the book"; and as
Elsie guessed, so I do. The teacher was instructing her pupils in some
dates and facts which have had much to do with our history. The
questions and answers, in which all the pupils joined, were these:--
"Where were slaves first brought to this country?"
"Virginia."
"When?"
"1620."
"Who brought them?"
"Dutchmen."
"Who came the same year to Plymouth, Massachusetts?"
"Pilgrims."
"Did they bring slaves?"
"No."
A teacher in Beaufort put these questions, to which answers were given
in a loud tone by the whole school:--
"What country do you live in?"
"United States."
"What State?"
"South Carolina."
"What island?"
"Port Royal."
"What town?"
"Beaufort."
"Who is your Governor?"
"General Saxton."
"Who is your President?"
"Abraham Lincoln."
"What has he done for you?"
"He's freed us."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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