as his, at home or abroad, I have never heard.
Upon his tablet might appropriately have been inscribed:

"Sleep undisturbed within this sacred shrine,
Till angels wake thee with notes like thine."

To this old field school came in the early time the "scholars" for
many miles around. It was in very truth the only Alma Mater,
for that generation, of almost the entire southern portion of
the county. My father in his boyhood attended this school, as did
his kinsmen, John W. and Fielding N. Ewing; the last named of whom
was, at a much later period, the pastor of the First Presbyterian Church
of Bloomington, Illinois, and his elder brother was the Mayor of
that city.

At that early day, and later when I attended the same school, there
were no salaries provided for the teachers, The schoolmaster
visited the families within reasonable distance of the schoolhouse
with his subscription paper, and the school was duly opened when
a sufficient number of pupils had subscribed.

The ways of the old field school and the methods of the old-time
teachers belong now to the past. Once experienced, however,
they have an abiding place in the memory. The master, upon his
accustomed perch near the spacious fire-place, with his ever-present
symbol of authority, the rod--which even Solomon would have considered
fully up to the orthodox standard--in alarming proximity; the boys
"making their manners" by scraping the right foot upon the floor
and bowing low as they entered the school-room; the girls upon like
occasions equally faithful in the practice of a bewitching
little "curtsey" which only added to their charms; the "studying
aloud," the hum of the school-room being thereby easily heard a
mile or two away; the timid approach to the dreaded master with
the humble request that he would "mend a pen," "parse a verb,"
or "do a sum."

An hour, called recess, was given for the dinner from the
baskets brought from home, and then the glorious old games, marbles,
town-ball, and "bull pen," to the heart's content! At the sound
of the ominous command, "Books!" each scholar promptly resumed his
seat, the merry shout of the playground at once giving way to
the serious business of "saying lessons." In those good old days,
the slightest act of omission or commission upon the part of the
pupil was confronted with a terrible condition instead of a harmless
theory. In very truth the uncomfortable effect of the punishment
unfailingly administ