Sword and Pen Part 7

CHAPTER X.

THE SOLDIER SCHOOL-MASTER.

From boy to man.--The Lyceum debate.--Willard speaks for the slave.--Entrance to the State Normal School.--Reverses.--Fighting the world again.--a.s.sistance from fair hands.--Willard meets Allen Barringer.--John Brown, and what Willard thought of him.--Principles above bribe.--Examination.--A sleepless night.--Haunted by the "ghost of possible defeat."--"Here is your certificate."--The school at Schodack Centre.--At the "Normal"

again.--The Edwards School.--Thirty pupils at two dollars each.--The "soldier school-master."--Teaches at East Schodack.--The runaway ride.--Good-by mittens, robes and whip!--Close of school at East Schodack.

Although a very boy in years, young Glazier felt himself already stepping upon the boundary line of manhood and, luckily for his future welfare, comprehended the manifold dangers and mentally realized the responsibilities which attend that phase of human existence.

Upon the fifth of February, 1857, the dull routine of a teacher's duty was varied by a visit made to Edwards by Willard's uncle Joseph, and his sisters; and, after closing his school, the former went home with his visitors, and thence to a Lyceum which had been established in the Herrick School District, where a debate was in progress as to the relative importance, in a humanitarian point of view, of the bondage of the African race in the Southern States, or the decadence of the Indian tribes under the encroachments of the Whites. The "question"

a.s.sumed that the Aborigines were most worthy of sympathy; and young Glazier, being invited to partic.i.p.ate in the discussion, accepted, and spoke upon the negative side of the question.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Gouverneur Wesleyan Seminary.]

He little dreamed upon that winter's night, when, in the small arena of a village debating-club, he stood up as the champion of the slave, that the day was not far distant when he would ride rowel-deep in carnage upon battle-fields which war's sad havoc had made sickening, fighting for the same cause in whose behalf he now so eloquently spoke.

No prophetic vision of what fate held in store for him appeared to the ardent boy, speaking for those who could not rise from the darkness of their bondage to speak for themselves. No glimpse of weary months dragged out in Confederate prisons--of hair-breadth escapes from dangers dread and manifold--of hiding in newly-dug graves made to a.s.sist the flight of the living, not to entomb the dead--of lying in jungles and cypress-swamps while fierce men and baffled hounds were panting for his blood--of vicissitudes and perils more like the wild creations of some fevered dream than the plain and unvarnished reality: nothing of all this came before him to trouble his young hopes or cloud his bright antic.i.p.ations of the future.

He spoke of freedom, and had never seen a slave. He pictured the cruelty of the lash used in a Christian land on Christian woman, be she black or white. He spoke of the deeper wrong of tearing the new-born babe from its mother's breast to sell it by the pound--of dragging the woman herself from the father of her child and compelling her to mate with other men--of the fact that such wrongs were not alone the offspring of cruel hearts, nor of brutal owners, but arose from the mere operation of barbarous laws where masters, if left to themselves, would have been most kind. He spoke of such things as these, and yet he never dreamed that his words were but the precursors of deeds that would make mere words seem spiritless and tame.

Young Glazier spoke well. The little magnates of the place,--the older men, after this, talked of him as of one likely to rise, to become a man of note, and their manner grew more respectful towards the young school-master. His occupations and amus.e.m.e.nts at this period of his existence, though simple in their character, were considerably varied.

Among other entries in his journal about this date, is one that so commends itself by its brevity and comprehensiveness that I quote it _verbatim_.

"Having," he says, "received an invitation upon the twenty-fourth of December, I attended a party at the residence of Jeptha Clark, whose excellent wife received me very kindly; upon Christmas day I visited T.

L. Turnbull's school at Fullerville; upon Monday last called at Mr.

Austin's school in the Herrick District; Tuesday, dropped down for a moment upon the students at Gouverneur; on Wednesday, returned home; and on Thursday, for the greater part of the day, a.s.sisted uncle Joseph in hauling wood from the swamps on the Davis Place."

Thus the time slipped rapidly by and his first term of teaching drew to a close. In the spring of 1859 he again became a member of the Gouverneur Wesleyan Seminary, and in May of that year, made the following characteristic entry in his diary:

"'Order is Heaven's first law.' A time and place for everything, and everything in its time and place, was the rule of conduct I adopted some time ago. In accordance with this determination I have laid out the following routine of occupation for each day. I intend to abide by it during the present term. I will retire at ten o'clock P. M., rise each morning at five o'clock, walk and exercise until six, then return to my room, breakfast and read history until eight, then repeat what the English call a 'const.i.tutional,' viz.: another walk until prayers, devoting the time intervening between prayers and recitation, to Algebra. After recitation, I will study Geometry for three-quarters of an hour, Latin for half an hour, and be ready for recitation again at two o'clock. This will complete my regular course of study, and, by carrying out this routine, I can dine at noon, and also have a considerable amount of time for miscellaneous reading and writing, to say nothing of my Sat.u.r.days, upon which I can review the studies of the week."

To this plan young Glazier adhered conscientiously, and hence made rapid progress and very soon found himself in a condition to take another forward step in the pathway of learning. That step was the entrance to the State Normal School at Albany. To go to West Point and receive the military training which our government benevolently bestows upon her sons at that inst.i.tution, had been his pet ambition for years--the scheme towards which all his energies were bent. But failing in this, his next choice was the Normal School. Accordingly, on a certain September afternoon in 1859, he found himself in the capital city of the Empire State, knocking for admission at the doors of the Normal School.

He was alone and among strangers in a great city, with a purse containing the sum of eight dollars! For a course of seven or eight months instruction this was certainly a modest estimate of expenses! In fact, young Glazier had based his financial arrangements on a miscalculation of the amount furnished by the State. He did not then know that the only provision made by the body politic was for mileage, tuition and text-books. But on Monday morning, September seventeenth, 1859, he signed his name to the Normal pledge, and at the conclusion of the examination--which continued until September twenty-third--was a.s.signed to the Junior Cla.s.s--there being at that time four cla.s.ses: the Senior and sub-Senior, Junior and sub-Junior.

The next step was to find lodgings at a weekly or monthly price more suited to his means than those which he had temporarily taken at the Adams House on his arrival there the previous evening. Always frugal in regard to his personal expenditures, he knew that, in order to eke out the full term with his scanty resources, he must carry his habitual thrift to its fullest extent. He therefore scoured the town for apartments, aided by references from Professor Cochran, princ.i.p.al of the Normal, and finally obtained a room on Lydius street, almost within shadow of the Cathedral, and at the certainly reasonable rate of "six shillings per week." This room he shared with Alexander S. Hunter, from Schoharie County, and a member of the sub-Senior Cla.s.s. For several weeks the young students boarded at this place, buying what food they required, which the landlady cooked for them free of charge.

Seventy-five cents a week paid for their cooking and rent!

But even this small outlay soon exhausted the meagre resources of young Glazier and, at the end of the time mentioned, he went over into Rensselaer County, to look up a school, in order to replenish his well-nigh empty purse, and to enable him to continue in his efforts to acquire an education. It was a bright clear morning in November when he left his boarding-place on Lydius street in quest of his self-appointed work, and, crossing the Hudson on a ferry-boat, walked all the way to Na.s.sau by the Bloomingdale Road--a distance of sixteen miles. His object was to find Allen Barringer, School Commissioner for Rensselaer County, who, as he had been told, lived somewhere near Na.s.sau. On the way to that village he pa.s.sed two or three schools, concerning which he made inquiries, with a view to engaging some one of them on his return to Albany should he be so successful as to obtain a certificate from Mr.

Barringer. At about two o'clock in the afternoon of this, to him, eventful day, young Glazier had arrived at the residence of Harmon Payne, near East Schodack, or "Scott's Corners," as it was sometimes called. He had been referred to this gentleman as one likely to a.s.sist him in his endeavors to obtain a school. He had eaten nothing since morning, and, having walked a distance of nearly sixteen miles, as may be imagined, was somewhat faint and hungry. But the good wife of Mr.

Payne showed herself not lacking in the kindly courtesy belonging to a gentlewoman, and, with true hospitality, placed before the young Normal student a delicious repast of bread and honey.

To this youthful wayfarer, with a purse reduced to a cypher, and struggling over the first rough places in the pathway of life, the simple meal was like manna in the wilderness. After chatting pleasantly with the family for an hour or more, he started again on his journey.

But this time not alone; for Mr. Payne very kindly sent his niece with the boy teacher, in whom he had become so much interested, to show him a shorter route "across lots" to East Schodack. This village, two miles farther on, by the traveled highway, was only three-quarters of a mile distant by a pathway leading across the pasture lands of some adjoining farms. In the fading November afternoon the young lady and her _protege_ walked together to East Schodack--a walk which young Willard never forgot, and out of which afterwards grew a fairy fabric of romantic regard glittering with all the rainbow hues of boyish sentiment, and falling collapsed in the after-crash of life, like many another soap-bubble experience of first young days.

But he did not succeed, at that time, in securing the East Schodack School, as he had hoped to do. Nothing daunted, however, he trod reverses under foot and pushed on towards the residence of the School Commissioner whose _ipse dixit_ was to award him success or failure.

Allen Barringer lived one mile from the village of Na.s.sau, in Rensselaer County, and it was nearly nightfall when, with an anxious heart and weary with the day's journey, he knocked at the door of the comfortable country residence which had been pointed out to him as the one belonging to the School Commissioner. That gentleman himself came to the door in answer to his knock, and upon Willard's inquiry for Mr.

Barringer replied:

"I am Mr. Barringer, sir; what can I do for you?"

His manner was so pleasant and his face so genial that young Glazier, at once rea.s.sured, had no difficulty in making known his business.

"I have come out here from Albany," said he, "to see if I could pa.s.s examination for a certificate, to teach in your district."

"Well, come in, come in," said Mr. Barringer, cordially, "and I will see what I can do for you. You are not going back to Albany to-night?" he asked.

"No, I shall not be able to do so," replied Willard.

"Have you friends or relatives here with whom you intend to stay?"

"No, sir."

"Then I shall be glad to have you stop with us to-night. I am a young man like yourself, living at home here with my parents, as you see; I am fond of company, and will be happy to place my room at your disposal.

And as there will be no hurry about the examination, we will talk more about it after supper."

Young Glazier thanked his host for the kind proffer of entertainment, and of course acquiesced in the arrangement.

Accordingly, after the physical man had been refreshed at a well-spread supper-table, Mr. Barringer conducted his young guest to his own apartments, where they drew their easy-chairs before a comfortable fire, and entered into conversation.

"I am considerably interested in politics just now," said Mr. Barringer, and then he asked abruptly, "what is your opinion of John Brown?"

At this time the first red flash of the war that swiftly followed, had glowered athwart the political horizon, in the John Brown raid at Harper's Ferry, and against this lurid background the figure of the stern old man stood out in strong relief. It was at the period when, shut up in prison, he was writing those heroic words to his wife, those loving words of farewell to his children; when pet.i.tions poured in pleading for his life--though they were pet.i.tions all in vain--and when, naturally, partisan feeling on the subject was at its height. Willard felt that in expressing his candid convictions he might be treading on dangerous ground, and perhaps endangering his chances for success, yet he held principle so high, and honest sentiment so far above bribe, that if his certificate had depended on it he would not have hesitated to express his admiration for the brave old man who laid down his life for the slave, and whose name has since been crowned with the immortelles of fame. Therefore Willard replied with a frankness worthy of emulation that he looked upon John Brown as a conscientious, earnest, devoted man--a man whose face was firmly set in the path of duty though that path led to imprisonment and the gallows; a man much in advance of his time--one of the pioneers of free thought, suffering for the sacred cause, as pioneers in all great movements always suffer. He spoke with a modest fearlessness known sometimes to youth and to few men. Mr.

Barringer replied that, though he held different views, he could not but admire Willard's frankness in avowing his own political convictions, and that this independence in principle would in nowise detract from his previously formed good opinion of him. Afterwards, Mr. Barringer examined him in the common English branches of study, besides astronomy, philosophy and algebra--studies usually taught in the public schools of Rensselaer County. In this way, with much pleasant talk dropped at intervals through the official business of examination, interspersed with politics and concluded with social chat, an agreeable evening pa.s.sed.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Old State Normal School. Albany, New York.]

Mr. Barringer at last said good-night to the young Normal student, with the remark that he would see what could be done for him in the morning.

Not much sleep visited Willard's eyes that night, with the ghost of possible defeat haunting his wakeful senses, stretched to their utmost tension of anxiety.

Would he, or would he not, receive in the morning the certificate he sought? This was the thought tossed continually up on the topmost wave of his consciousness all the night long. Morning dawned at last, much to his relief. When Mr. Barringer came to his door to announce breakfast, he handed Willard the coveted piece of paper.

"Now then," said he, cheerily, "here is your certificate, and as I am going to drive over to Albany after breakfast, if you have no particular school in view, I shall be glad to have you ride with me as far as Schodack Centre, where I have some very good friends, and will introduce you to the trustees of the district, Messrs. Brockway, Hover and Knickerbocker."

Accordingly they drove over to the residence of Milton Knickerbocker, school trustee of District No. 7, of the town of Schodack.

That gentleman thanked the School Commissioner for bringing the young teacher over, said that he would be pleased to engage him, and that it was only necessary to see another trustee, George Brockway, to make the engagement final. Mr. Knickerbocker then accompanied young Glazier to the residence of Mr. Brockway, where arrangements were made for him to teach the school at Schodack Centre. He then walked back to Albany.

Willard had said nothing to his landlady, on Lydius street, concerning his intended absence, fearing he might have to report the failure of his project, and on the evening of his return to Albany--having been away for thirty-six hours--was surprised to find that the family were just about to advertise him in the city papers, thinking some strange fate had befallen him,--that he had perhaps committed suicide.

In just one week from the time Glazier engaged his school at Schodack Centre, he returned to that place, and taught the young Schodackers successfully through the specified term, after which he went to Albany and pa.s.sed the next Normal School term. On the twelfth of July following, he left Albany for the home farm, where he worked until the first of September. He then went on a prospecting tour out to Edwards, near the field of his former efforts, and canva.s.sed for scholars at two dollars each, for a term of eight weeks. His object was to teach during the fall and winter months and return to Albany in the spring. This energetic youth of eighteen succeeded in obtaining about thirty pupils, among whom were six teachers--one of them having taught four terms.

Among the incidents of his school experience at this time may be mentioned the fact of a series of drill tactics, originated by himself, with which he practised his pupils so thoroughly that they were enabled to go through all the regular evolutions set down in Hardee. Yet he had never seen the drill-book.

It may be regarded as one of those outcroppings of his natural bent towards the military art which he displayed from his very infancy; for true military genius, like true poetical genius, is born, not made. Of course our young tactician soon made himself known, and throughout the district he was distinguished by the t.i.tle of the "Soldier-Schoolmaster."