One class, of twelve pupils, read page 70th in
Willson's Reader, on "Going Away." They had not read the passage before,
and they went through it with little spelling or hesitation. They had
recited the first thirty pages of Towle's Speller, and the
multiplication-table as high as fives, and were commencing the sixes. A
few of the scholars, the youngest, or those who had come latest to the
school, were learning the alphabet. At the close of the school, they
recited in concert the Psalm, "The Lord is my shepherd," requiring
prompting at the beginning of some of the verses. They sang with much
spirit hymns which had been taught them by the teachers, as,--
"My country, 'tis of thee,
Sweet land of liberty";
also,--
"Sound the loud timbrel";
also, Whittier's new song, written expressly for this school, the
closing stanzas of which are,--
"The very oaks are greener clad,
The waters brighter smile;
Oh, never shone a day so glad
On sweet St. Helen's Isle!
"For none in all the world before
Were ever glad as we,--
We're free on Carolina's shore,
We're all at home and free!"
Never has that pure Muse, which has sung only of truth and right, as the
highest beauty and noblest art, been consecrated to a better service
than to write the songs of praise for these little children, chattels no
longer, whom the Saviour, were he now to walk on earth, would bless as
his own.
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