Part 15

“School!” said Aunt Fanny.

“Yes, they wanted to try it at the Dwight, where I was. So they got some benches put into the Ward Room, which is in their building, and is only used by the voters twice a year. They had a first rate teacher, Mr. Batchelder. We had one lesson a week. They would not let us go on unless we kept up in the regular school lessons. So it made the fellows spur up, I tell you, because we all liked the shop, though that was extra.”

“How many lessons have you had?” said Aunt Fanny.

“Oh, I was in the first class, and so I had only one year’s course. It was eighteen lessons. The first day we tried to strike square blows with the hammer. Some of us did not strike very square, I tell you. All the beginning with nails came the first day. The last lesson was ‘planing and squaring, marking, making tenon, making mortise, and fastening mortise and tenon.’ I wrote a letter to another fellow, and I copied it from the school regulations.”

So Nahum went out to his own work shop in the shed, which, as it happened, Aunt Fanny had never seen before, because Nahum kept it under his own key. In the afternoon the tray was made.

“This will make you no end of comfort in Wisconsin, Nahum.”

“But if I am to do carpenter work, really,” said the boy, “I ought to go to the Technology.”

He meant to the Institute of Technology.

“Would you like to go there?”

“Of course I would. Why, if I went there I could make the frame of my own house, and raise it, if the neighbors would help.”

Nor was the boy wrong. And his Aunt Fanny and Uncle Asaph determined he should go, and go he did. He spent three months of that winter there, four days of every week; and worked steadily eight hours a day. Still it was different from what it would have been had he gone to a carpenter as an apprentice. For then he would have had to do whatever the carpenter was doing; and he would have had to take his chance for instruction. But at the Technology he had regular teachers and regular practical lessons. Of course he needed practice, and in the long run, it is only practice which makes a first rate workman. But at the end, he had seen every important part of a good carpenter’s work done, he knew why it was done, and had had a hand in the doing of it.

The Institute of Technology is not a public school as the Dwight School is, where Nahum had picked up his elementary instruction; and for his lessons here they had to pay thirty dollars. But when, the next summer, all the barns on his uncle’s farm in Harris were carried fourteen miles by a tornado, and Nahum found himself directing the framing of a new barn, and doing half the work, he and his aunt thought that those thirty dollars had been well invested.

She took very good care that George should go into the carpenter’s class at the Dwight School while they staid in Boston. He would not have been obliged to go. No scholar took this course, excepting as an extra, but _he_ took it because he wanted to. And, as Nahum had said, they were obliged to keep in good standing in their other studies.

As for little Sibyl, Aunt Fanny judged, after full consultation with her confidential adviser, Belle, that Sibyl had better stay where she was—at the Grammar School. Aunt Fanny went down and made a state call on Miss Throckmorton, the teacher of the school, and also saw Miss Bell, the sewing teacher. She explained to them that while she did not want to break any school rules, she should be well pleased to have as much attention as possible given to Sibyl’s sewing. Miss Bell was really pleased with the attention. She said a good many parents did not seem to care anything about it. But if Sibyl would really give her mind to it, she would see that she was able, before she left them in the spring, to cut and fit a frock for Aunt Fanny or for her sister. And before they went to Wisconsin, it proved that Miss Bell was as good as her word to her little friend, and Sibyl made a very pretty dress for Aunt Fanny, before she left school.

III.

As Aunt Fanny herself made her inquiries into these practical matters, she resolved to try an experiment, which she would have laughed at when she left Wisconsin. She was asked to a lunch party of ladies one day, and was a little amused and a little amazed at first, when she observed how much they said about what they had to eat. Aunt Fanny had been trained to a little of the western ridicule of Boston, and had supposed that a bubble rechauffée or a fried rainbow was the most material article that anybody would discuss. And here these ladies were volubly telling of the merits of oysters in batter and oysters in crumbs—of one and another way to serve celery—in a detail which Aunt Fanny found quite puzzling, and, indeed, quite out of place in the manners to which she had been bred, which had taught her never to criticise what was on the table.

Perhaps her silence showed her surprise. This is certain, that all of a sudden a very pretty and gay Mrs. Fréchette turned round and said, “Here is Mrs. Turnbull, horrified because we talk so much of what we eat. Dear Mrs. Turnbull, it is not what we eat, it is the cooking we care for. You must know we have all been to the Cooking Schools—all who are not managers.”

Aunt Fanny confessed that she had been puzzled a little, and Mrs. Fréchette and Mrs. Champernom, her hostess, explained. In point of fact this very lunch had been cooked, “From egg to apple,” as the Romans would say, by Mrs. Champernom and her two daughters. It may be worth while, therefore, to give the bill of fare:

Raw Oysters on the shell. Bouillon in cups. Scalloped Lobster in its own shell. Quails on Toast, with White Sauce. Sweet Breads, with Green Peas. Capons, with Salad. Ice Creams. Frozen Pudding. Jelly. Fruit. Coffee.

How good cooks the mother and daughters had been before, they did not explain. But these particular results were due to their training at the Cooking School. They had made the rolls as well.

“I came out of it so well,” said Mrs. Champernom, laughing, “and Mary Flannegan approved the results so well, that when I told her and Ellen Flynn, my waiter girl, that if they liked to go to the cooks’ class, which is a class for special instruction to servant girls, I would pay half, they both consented to go; Mary Flannegan to keep Ellen Flynn company, and to see that she was not taught wrong. The cooks’ class is twelve lessons, and costs three dollars each. I shall pay a dollar and a half for each of them, and as Ellen Flynn is a bright girl, I shall have four good cooks in the house instead of three. For really,” she said, “there is nothing that Hester and Maria can not do. They went down to the beach with their father and the boys, and for a week they cooked everything that was eaten. They made the boys wash the dishes.”

This started Aunt Fanny herself. She found there were four classes she could attend:

1. The Cooks’ Class, for people who had some experience. Twelve lessons would have cost three dollars.

2. The Beginners’ Class of twenty lessons, for which she must pay eight dollars. Here she would be trained to make bread, and to prepare the ordinary dishes for family use at breakfast and dinner and supper.

3. The Second Class, also of twenty lessons, but more advanced. Here she must pay twelve dollars. But here more elegant dishes, what Mrs. Fréchette called “company dishes,” were part of the program.

4. What Mrs. Fréchette called “The Swell Course.” Here every lady paid fifteen dollars for her twenty lessons. _Per contra_, they had what they cooked, and very jolly parties they seemed to make, when they dared ask their friends to their entertainments.

Aunt Fanny was a good housekeeper, but she thought she should like to astonish her friends at Harris with some of the best seaboard elegancies, so she and Belle entered the “second class.” And pleasant and profitable they found it.

IV.

“Sibyl, my dear,” said Aunt Fanny one morning, “I have only just found out that you and Belle make my bed. You need not do it again; I always make it at home, and I should have done it here, but you have been too quick for me.”

“We shall not give you a chance, Aunt Fanny; we shall not let you.”

“But when do you do it, you little witches; you are always at breakfast and at prayers; and when I go up into my room, it is all in order. I supposed Delia did it while we were at breakfast.”

Then, with much joking, it was made clear that every day, while Aunt Fanny saw George and Nahum off, and spoke to the butcher in the kitchen, Sibyl and Belle slipped up stairs, and “did” her room.

“That is a piece of your dear mother’s training,” said Aunt Fanny, as she patted Sibyl’s head.

“As it happens, it is, Aunt Fanny,” said Belle. “But dear mamma said even she got points from Miss Homans, and I am sure Sibyl and I both learned the reasons of some things at the Kindergarten that we did not know before.”

“Reasons for making a bed,” said Aunt Fanny. “Why, you do not tell me that you learn to make beds at school.”

“We did not, because mamma had taught us. But the kitchen Kindergarten was such fun that we liked to go; and if you like to see it, we will take you.” So Aunt Fanny was taken to see that very pretty sight. And she understood at once, how even very little children can be taught housework thoroughly, and taught to like it too. Each child had a doll’s bed to make, and to unmake; and each child, in unison with thirty or forty others, made it and unmade it, singing little songs and going through other such exercise as made the thing amusing, while it was methodical. In the same way each child set a baby house table with the most perfect precision, and swept a floor, and dusted a room. It was play to them, but they learned what they never forgot, as Aunt Fanny had occasion to see every day in the neat order of her dear brother’s orphaned household.

Thus was it that it happened that when Aunt Fanny took home in April her little flock of orphans, she did not bring to their wholly new life four mere cumberers of the ground.

NOTE.—In preparing this little sketch of “Industrial Education in Boston,” at Dr. Flood’s request, I have selected what seem to me, on the whole, the most important branches of such education for illustration. It has not seemed advisable to introduce too much detail.

1. The instruction in sewing is given in all public schools to all girls.

2. The instruction in carpenter work has been attempted only in two public schools. A central school is now to be established, where classes of volunteers from the different grammar schools will be received. The full course described, of eight hours a day, for four days a week, of thirteen weeks, is one of the Technology courses, and there is a fee for instruction.

3. The Cooking Schools are under the direction of a society for that purpose. It also maintains Normal Classes for teachers of cooking. Different churches and charitable societies maintain free cooking classes, and free carpenter classes.

4. Drawing is taught in all public schools.

5. Schools of design and of carving are maintained by different societies.

I have confined myself to instruction which is to a certain extent training in handiwork, and in this I have not included musical or other artistic performance.

ECHOES FROM A CHAUTAUQUA WINTER.

By REV. H. H. MOORE.

Now that winter is gone and the time for the singing of birds is near, the readers of THE CHAUTAUQUAN, especially those who have spent a summer at this place, will inquire: “How does Chautauqua appear in autumn, with flowers withered, trees naked, and not a robin or thrush to be seen or heard? What a contrast must be the sudden change from a summer world to the wild desolations of a semi-Arctic winter!” and perhaps it seems to them that the place was dead and buried beneath a monument of snow and ice. A feeling of chilliness comes over them, and possibly they half resolve never to visit these groves again. Pity, and possibly a prayer are indulged for the poor unfortunates resident here. Lonesome things, shut up in the woods, how can they stand it? With all respect and due thanks for good intentions, we will excuse the pity, that it may be bestowed where it is more needed, and will be better appreciated. If contentment, good cheer, and the elements of good society can be found anywhere, it is at Chautauqua.

Let man’s environments, duties and responsibilities be what they may, if his mind and heart are in harmony and sympathy with them, he is satisfied, and at rest.

If Chautauqua is stirring and rosy and beautiful in summer to all people, to a nature that can appreciate it it is gorgeous, savage, grand and thoughtful in winter. At the one season we float carelessly along in the midst of scenes of sunshine, loveliness and gaiety; at the other we are more, alone with God, we commune with the stars, and become familiar with the sterner aspects of life. The change from one season to another is simply turning over a leaf in the book of nature, and receiving additional instruction, but of equal value. To our astronomers, the heavens, whenever they could be seen, have presented an aspect of surpassing beauty. Just after sunset in the west, Venus, from beyond the sun has been seen climbing toward the zenith, and is now rapidly approaching the earth, dropping down between it and the sun; we have swept by fiery Mars, which has been nearly over our heads during the winter; further to the east, Jupiter and Saturn have held high court; over the southern heavens has swept Sirius, the brightest star to be seen; to the north and northwest, Vega, the largest of the stars yet measured, has been steadily looking down upon us, and to crown all, Orion, the most magnificent of the constellations has illumined the southern sky.

January was a month of storms, and often did we contrast its desolations with the excitement of a summer Assembly, but such was our satisfaction with the present that we were in no haste for a change. The wild, weird elements of the season interested us; the opportunity afforded for reading, rest and recuperation was what was needed, and we felt that these things could not be too long continued. What, have the beautiful lake ice-locked for months, and used as a public highway? Listen day and night to the moaning and howling of the winds as they swept through the branches of the naked trees, often threatening to tear them up by the roots? Live weeks together without sight of the sun by day, or of a star by night? Yes, for all these things accorded with each other, and with the general aspect of nature. The music was of a _class_, and each note was in harmony with the general movement of the grand anthem. When nature had savagely arrayed itself in frost and snow and cloud and tempest, hiding the earth and filling the heavens, had the sun put in an appearance what a ghastly display would it have made! But in the midst of this desolation the snow-birds appeared, and they were beautiful, for they were the flowers of the season. We realized that the power of harmony could be heard in a tempest as well as in a seraph’s song. It is the extreme of folly to waste a winter watching for the coming of spring. The soul that is free from shams and is a pure part of nature itself, is attuned to the real and the true, and accepts the nature that is as the best, and would resolutely resist a change.

Our snow storm continued about twenty-eight days, and its coming was heralded by the play of lightning and the music of thunder. It never ceased to be a pleasure to watch the falling of the snow; to see the curiously wrought crystals drift out of the sky down among the branches of the trees, filling the air till it seemed mantled in white—a new creation. As an aid to the expression of our feelings we read the poem of Emerson. We quote a few lines:

“Come see the north wind’s masonry, Out of an unseen quarry evermore Furnished with tile, the fierce artificer Curves his white bastions with projected roof. Round every windward stake, or tree, or door, Speeding, the myriad-handed, his wild work So fanciful, so savage, naught cares he For number or proportion. Mockingly On coop, or kennel he hangs Parian wreaths. A swan-like form invests the hidden thorn, Fills up the farmer’s lane from wall to wall Maugre the farmer’s sighs; and at the gate A tapering turret overtops the work, And when his hours are numbered, and the world Is all his own, retiring, as he were not, Leaves when the sun appears, astonished Art To mimic in slow structures, stone by stone Built in an age, the mad wind’s night work The frolic architecture of the snow.”

Had the storm completed its work in a day, the snow at Chautauqua would have been from six to ten feet deep; but as it extended over the most of a month, changing occasionally into rain, it became so packed that at no time was it more than three feet deep. On some of the buildings, where two roofs met at right-angles it was six or eight feet deep at the angle. But we suffered no inconvenience from the long storm. Our stalwart young men, with heavy teams and strong-built snow-plows, kept the streets open to all parts of the grounds. For a short time, as our greatest trouble, in common with other places, we were a little vexed because of the irregularities of the mail.

But in our safe retreat we could but think of the time when this immense mass of snow would melt away, perhaps attended by falling rain, and of the suffering which the floods would cause in the valleys below. Our gravest apprehensions have since been more than realized. As the snows disappeared the waters of the lake began to rise, and the low lands about Ashville, the Narrows, Griffiths, and other places were flooded, and the area of the lake was sensibly enlarged. The upper dock at Chautauqua stood out at least two rods in the lake, and in the baggage room, by actual measurement, the water stood fourteen inches deep. As the stage of water was unprecedented, we intend to sink a stone at high water mark as a monument of the phenomenal flood of the year 1884.

Up to the 15th of January the game laws permit our fishermen to take with spear pickerel from the lake, through the ice, and the time was well improved, but with poor success. An almost air-tight house, about four feet square, is placed on the ice where the water is from twelve to fifteen feet deep. Brush and snow are packed about the base of the house, and not a ray of light is allowed to enter; then the fisherman, closely shut inside, can see into the clear water, but the fish cannot catch a glimpse of anything in the house. Having thus taken all the advantages to himself, he keeps a decoy chub moving about in the water, and as the pickerel comes in sight to seize its prey, it is saluted with the deadly spear. One year ago tons of pickerel were taken from the lake, and many of them were shipped to distant cities as rare luxuries; but this has been a very unfavorable season, for which all Chautauquans should be thankful. During the legal fishing season, the wind was in the north, and at such times, the fishermen say, the fish keep in deep water, and will not “run.” However, some were taken, and those left we may troll for during the August Assembly.

When the ice in the lake was at its best, the Assembly ice house and many individual houses were filled, and in that respect we are prepared for a long, hot summer, and for supplying the wants of the thousands of people who may visit the place in July and August.

Late last autumn, quite a company of old Chautauquans repaired to Florida to spend the winter; but fifty-nine families remained, and some that left us have returned, so that the place is blest with the elements of good society. The Sabbath services are largely attended; a choir of excellent singers adds much to the interest of the occasion. The average attendance at the Sunday-school was about ninety-six during the winter. It is thoroughly manned and well supplied with lesson helps. The assistant superintendent, A. P. Wilder, deserves much credit for the prosperity of the school. The social and devotional exercises of the church are spiritual, and special attention is given by competent teachers to the religious education of the children. Thus an intelligent and Christian class of people are keeping watch and ward of Chautauqua interests in the absence of the Assembly authorities.

The local C. L. S. C. is under the direction of Mrs. Sarah Stephens, a lady graduate, who brings to her duties, ability, culture, and the ardor of woman’s heart. She follows closely the prescribed course of study, and by the general circulation of written questions, endeavors to reach and interest the entire community. The meetings are held Tuesday evenings, in the chapel, and are largely attended by enthusiastic students. Most of the people here live at their leisure, and much of their time is given to reading and study. I have noticed that subjects discussed at the C. L. S. C. meetings often come up for further examination in shops, stores, on the street, and in the family, and these discussions I judge go far to fix in the mind the subjects discussed. At any rate they are a splendid substitute for the empty or slanderous gossip which is bred in minds that have nothing else to do.

The Good Templars hold their meetings on Friday night and occasionally favor the public with a lecture. Sometime in the winter, under the auspices of the order, an oyster festival was given which brought together a large crowd. The evening was devoted to feasting, music, gossip and addresses. It was really an enjoyable occasion, without any discount. The addresses were so well received as to elicit, in miniature, the “Chautauqua salute.”

To accommodate the little folks who were not able to go outside the gates to the public school, Miss Carrie Leslie has kept a private school, and given entire satisfaction.

Not much has been done during the winter in the way of building and improvements. Late in autumn, A. Norton, Esq., commenced the erection of a fine cottage, at the corner of Vincent and Terrace Avenues, which is now nearing completion. He is building a private cottage for a permanent home, and will expend upon house and lot from $2,500 to $3,000. The Rev. Frank Russell, D. D., of Mansfield, Ohio, has under way a unique cottage, a little back of the Amphitheater, which, when completed, will present a fine appearance. The prospect from his upper verandas will be the widest and best on the grounds, away from the lake.

The Sixby store, embracing dry goods, groceries, drugs, and hardware, under the management of the gentlemanly and accommodating Mr. Herrick, has been open during the winter, and has done a good business.

We have had some sickness and one death since the Assembly. Mr. Crossgrove, a very good man, came here some two years ago, the victim of consumption, and passed away in September last, leaving a widow and other friends to mourn their loss.

The first notes of preparation for the next Assembly have been heard. The appointment of Mr. W. A. Duncan as superintendent of grounds gives entire satisfaction. A modification of policy in some respects is anticipated, which will reduce expenses and work general improvement.

We feel that we are nearing the time when a large group of boys will be on the ground, receiving an education according to the _enlarged_ Chautauqua Idea.

I am here interrupted by the tolling of our bell, reminding us of Longfellow, and one of our Memorial Days.