the water was over the road to the
depth of twelve inches or more. I concluded to wade across, which I
did. My mother was frightened, but I escaped without any serious ill
effect. My school-keeping days were over. My old teacher, Mr. Cyrus
Kilburn, had charge of the village school and I took my seat among the
pupils. I remained in the school about two weeks, and then my school-
days were over. Altogether I had the training of six or seven summer
terms in schools kept by women, supplemented two or three times by a
private school of a few weeks by the same teacher, and ten or eleven
winter terms. In reading, spelling and grammar I had had a good
training. To those branches Mr. Kilburn devoted himself, and I recall
his teaching of grammar with great satisfaction. He had no knowledge
of object-teaching as applied to grammar, but he was skillful in
analysis, and his training was methodical and exact. In fine, he was
so much devoted to the work of teaching, that the discipline of the
school was neglected. Of this there had been complaints for years. At
that time I had a good command of arithmetic, I knew something of
algebra, and geometry seemed easy from the start. In composition, so-
called, I had had no experience. Once only during my school life was
an attempt made by a teacher to introduce the exercise of writing, and
that attempt I avoided. In Latin I had not gone beyond the study of
the grammar, and the training that I had received was from persons
poorly qualified to give instruction.

Once or twice the teacher had been a college undergraduate, and
Kilburn's knowledge of the language was measured by his acquisitions
at the Groton Academy. Of knowledge wholly useless to me I had learned
to read the Hebrew alphabet from Dr. Bard's elementary Hebrew book.
The reading-books, especially Scott's Lessons, contained extracts from
good writers and speakers, with selections from the best of English
poets, and these extracts and selections, I had read and had heard read
so often that I could repeat many of them at full length. Worcester's
Geography, and Whelpley's Compend of History were among the books used
in the schools.

[* The Pound Hill schoolhouse has been sold to the owner of the Captain
Parker place and converted into a shop and tool-house. A photograph
has been taken of the venerable relic.]

V
GROTON IN 1835

In the month of February, 1835, I read an advertisement in the Lowell
_Journal_, as