Front Matter

A Pupil's Recollections of Miss Andrews' School

One of my greatest delights while a pupil at Miss Andrews' school—and I remember my attendance there as one long delight—was the coming of December 1st, her birthday and mine. It was her custom to celebrate the birthdays of her scholars by allowing them to select in part the lessons and exercises for the day, a joyful privilege which was of course shared by all, though the pride of planning with her the session of our double anniversary was mine alone. All the birthdays were occasions to remember, for the final hour was pretty sure to be given up to a story. "Story" was what we always called it, though it might, indeed, be story, play, or poem, or selection from either, or a chapter from an unfinished book of her own. When it was the latter she used always to ask for our criticisms, which we were not at all afraid to give, though I never remember them as being anything other than enthusiastically favorable. But we appreciated the honor of being asked, and occasionally offered suggestions for further adventures of the "Seven Little Sisters," which were of too extravagant and thrilling a nature to be adopted.

Next to birthdays, the days which we most prized were the very stormy ones, when but few were present, for these, too, brought stories, geographical games, experiments, and other variations from the usual routine. There was an ardent rivalry between the pupils regarding these days, and few of us started for school on a tempestuous morning without reckoning mentally how many of our mates had timid parents who would be likely to keep them at home. Many a time, as I came panting up the stairs on a wild day in winter, have I glanced along the row of hat pegs, triumphant if most of them were empty, disappointed if they held a row of dripping hoods and mufflers. Once, in a storm so furious that I had remained over night at the house of a schoolmate, she and I started the next morning through drifts more than waist deep for school, where we were, naturally, the only pupils. She lived nearer than I, and struggled home again at noon, but Miss Andrews kept me over night, and I had the bliss of sleeping in the schoolroom itself, in a bed made up on two settees.

We were all too fond of school to lose more of it than could be helped. When Miss Andrews was called to Boston on business about her books she would leave us to keep school by ourselves, appointing a special scholar to the charge of each class. We wrote our report of the day on the blackboard for her to see when she got home, and we so felt the responsibility of being placed on honor that the day was more likely to be one of unusual good behavior than of disorder. Once, and once only, I was willfully late to school. Learning on the way that the ice had broken up in the Merrimac and carried away a span of the bridge, I turned aside and ran down to see the sight. I returned to school after having seen it, half an hour late, and very uncomfortable; not that I feared either punishment or scolding, but some expression of disappointment, which I should mind more than either. But Miss Andrews was greatly interested in what I had seen, said she was glad I went, and assured the school that if she had known of it in time she would have taken the whole of us down to the river herself.

Indeed, she often called our attention to matters of local or national interest, and kept us as wide-awake and with as broad an outlook as possible. During a presidential year she explained to us the chief problems at issue between the two parties, and there were few of us who did not become in consequence very ardent young politicians. The excitement and suspense of the Tilden-Hayes contest and the novel expedient of the Electoral Commission roused the warmest interest in school, and I remember running a half mile bareheaded, and leaving my supper standing on the table, to tell the final news to another girl as interested as I.

These are very trifling incidents, but, indeed, all the school incidents that I recall are so, for the history of a perfect school, like that of a fortunate country, leaves little to relate. One thing which was characteristic is that when one day we begged Miss Andrews to give us a motto, we found it shortly afterwards on the wall, done very daintily in gold and blue—the words which I am sure were the very best that could have been given to us, well-intentioned, careless, inconsiderate, exuberant youngsters that we were—Self-Control.

But it is not possible to give much of an idea of a school where the central spring of everything was the personality of the teacher. Going to school to Miss Andrews was much more going to Miss Andrews than going to school; and far more valuable than anything she taught us, well and wisely as we were taught, was the contact with her sweet and strong and noble nature. I think I can say that the public opinion of that school was of a higher standard than that of any school or circle I have since encountered. However faulty, mean, or childish the behavior of any of us, I do not think there was one who did not respect and admire what was good and fine, and often, if not always, aspire to it. A pupil of that school who left it with intelligence unawakened must have been dull indeed; a pupil who left it with no stirring of those finer guides to goodness, sympathy, and the sense of honor, must have been one in whom it was a task of little hope to try to rouse them.