WINTER TEACHING IN THE 70'S

The following extracts are from a pamphlet written by Lewis G. Farmer '72 describing some of the experiences of Dartmouth undergraduates who spent the winter terms in teaching and referring especially to episodes in the experience of Lewis W. Holmes '71, "Weeder". The pamphlet is entitled "A Winter with Weeder on Cape Ann" and these extracts are of interest as an account of the winter life familiar to many Dartmouth undergraduates before the days of the Outing Club..

I began by boarding with an old couple at East Gloucester, but I couldn't stand it very long, principally because the old man used to like to take out his false teeth and lay them on the dinner-table, so that he might the better enjoy his dish of tea. He was a temperance missionary, by the way, and the fields of Gloucester were "white unto the harvest." He also used to ask me what I thought about the "ancients", which he pronounced "annshunts", and told me terrible stories about the Eastern Point boys throwing the schoolmasters into the snowbanks, winding up by saying, Mr. Farmer, you will find it's 'knock down and drag out' (bis)." However it was with other masters, it wasn't so with me or with Littlefield of '69 either, and before long the boys were after me to give sparring lessons(?). What do you think of that? Some of them are prosperous business men now, and I see them often. They have told me many things about what happened that winter that I had clean forgotten. I am proud to say that though I had sixty-three boys in one small schoolroom, I never touched but one of them, and I did that in a moment of' irritation just before the noon adjournment, and I have been sorry for it ever since. He lives there yet, and I have often thought I would like to hunt him up and apologize to him. All this leads up to 'Weeder," however. Atkinson, also of 71, aught the Washington Street School (now he Grand Army headquarters), which had a dreadful repute for fights between the master and his pupils, but one look at "At s Herculean proportions was sufficient to permanently discourage any attempts to create a disturbance in that school. Riverdale was a small place, and there weren't a great many boys there, but such as there were shared in the general reputation for toughness; so 'Weeder," wishing to make a strong impression at the beginning of the term, entered the schoolroom one morning, jumped up, and, grasping the door-jamb with one hand, "dangled there, half arm' for some time, which also was rather discouraging for trouble-makers. Altogether the boys did not get much amusement out of the three Dartmouth schoolmasters that winter, and the attendance dropped off proportionately.

One evening there were theatricals at the bouse of one of these young ladies, and "Weeder" appeared as a Puritan youth, with a paper collar which she cut out and adjusted, and he certainly looked the part. I had charge of the curtain, and the red fire (which I had in a pan at my elbow), and as it was something of a job to raise and lower the curtain with one hand and set off a pinch of red fire with the other, I managed to set off the whole supply at once, which filled the house with smoke and nearly drove everybody into the street. In such amusements and making calls, etc., we got through the evenings very well, but once a week or so we would go to the billiard saloon and roll the balls around. It was a long room on the second floor, with a bar at one end; and one terrible cold night we were playing at the farther end of the room when we noticed a disturbance near the bar at the other end, and, dropping the game, we we went to investigate and found that there had been a fight between one Murphy, a fishing-skipper, and a Gloucester man named Elwell, a rather dissipated chap, in the course of which Murphy received a cut in the arm with a knife. I recollect just how it looked when he pulled up his shirt-sleeve. At first he charged me with having done it, because I had pulled him off from the other man, who, by the way, had taken advantage of the confusion and escaped by the back door, and I had a good deal of difficulty in convincing him to the contrary. Elwell spent some time at Salem, however, in consequence. Well, the alarm was given, and soon, in came the night watch, muffled up to the eyes and carrying lanterns and staves. "Here's Dogberry and Verges and the good men and true," said "Weeder," and we had a good laugh in spite of the seriousness of the situation. Of course the Cape Ann Advertiser had the story the next afternoon, with an editorial note, advising the winter schoolmasters to keep out of such places; and our social position was sadly damaged for quite a while, but was regained by subsequent good conduct. The next morning we appeared as witnesses at the hearing in the police court, and I can see now how my boys looked lined up against the rear wall of the court-room to hear the schoolmaster testify.