Grey Hen's Well: Rambling Recollections of My Schools and School Days – Article I

Sunday, January 31, 2016

Rambling Recollections of My Schools and School Days – Article I – Part A

Article I Written by Alexander Gunn aka A Native of Badbea was printed in the Northern Ensign on 9 Sep 1880 – Part A

A Native of Badbea is back...

A Native of Badbea is back with a new series of articles about his schools and school days. My collection is incomplete and some scans are very hard to read. Article I starts with A.G. waxing rather philosophical, but considering the difficulties of Badbea children getting any sort of education he does well.

The Incorrigible by John Burr - 1879

Not sure that this mischievous boy is what A.G.had in mind.

Source: https://iamachild.wordpress.com/category/burr-john/

Few people forget...

“Few people forget their school days and great and good men frequently indulge in relating some incident in connection with them. The time of youth is a very important period in the history of man. It is in youth that we learn anything to purpose. "Learn young, learn fair," is a common and a true saying. It is wonderful how soon we begin to learn. In very infancy we commence our education; an infant of a few months old begins to learn. On that infant mind, which is a perfect blank - pure and undefiled, just like a pure sheet of white paper - impressions begin to be made. Very faint lines they are at first, but every succeeding or recurring impression becomes deeper and more distinct, and so they increase in number and distinctness as the infant grows into a child, and the child into a youth, and the youth into a full-blown man. Seeing that such is the case, how important that the impressions made should be of the right sort. Those entrusted with the upbringing of children have a great responsibility resting upon them."

Train up a child....

"The Wise Man said, “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it." Children are expert imitators, and the example set before them exerts a far greater influence than the command given them, just as we are told that "example is better than precept." Children are very close observers. A twinkle of the eye, or a twitch of the face, is observed by them when unnoticed by anybody else in the house. We can scarcely realise what influence we exert over those with whom we come in contact. Our influence for good or for evil reaches and extends beyond those with whom we come into immediate or personal contact. It extends from one another, widening and extending the circle, until it reaches the very limits of time - yea, it reaches into eternity.”

“If you are standing on the edge of a pond, and drop a pebble into the water, you would observe how the tiny wavelets spread and widen, till they exhaust themselves on the shore of the pond - a fitting but faint emblem of the effect of our conduct on the world around, and confirming the saying of scripture that "no man liveth to himself." everybody knows what influence mothers exert over their children for good or for evil, for weal or for woe."

Mother....

"Mothers are in more contact and closer contact with children than fathers, from the very nature of things. How often has the word "mother" touched and broken the heart of the prodigal son, or the wayward daughter, and been made the means of a change in the life and character of the erring ones? An ancient writer says "that with mothers rests the prosperity of a nation more than with its statesmen."