The county school for professional training in teaching was an experiment, tried for the first time, at the time of my admission; whether or not it went into a second year I know not; perhaps our class became too notorious. Out of it one became an outstanding medical practitioner, one was sent to Australia as the representative of a leading Canadian Business House; I especially remember the Parker brothers, Fred and Gilbert -- the latter becoming famous as Sir Gilbert, the noted writer of Canadian historical stories. There were twenty-five in the class, three-fourths of whom were young women.
It was a great day for me when I took advantage of the Principal's assurance that whoever made the first attempt at teaching in any particular department would be marked in the records less severely than those who had the benefit of the mistakes of others. So when a volunteer was called for to stand in front of the twenty-four, and assuming that they were little children, to undertake to teach them to count, I made the venture with five pencils in hand; and I received from some of my fellows a reputation of being "conceited". It was good that the accusation came then, for I began to grow used to an imputation that often afterwards came upon me; in my own estimation I was instead "shrewd", taking advantage of what I knew would be my own weakness or fear in standing before such a class, and gaining an advantage over the weakness of others who hesitated to try.
Our training required of us studies in school law, school management, mental arithmetic, domestic science and hygiene, and attendance upon the various classes of the city schools with a view to taking observations on the methods of teachers, and as required to take our turn in teaching assigned subjects, with the teachers as reporters on our efforts. It was a good fellowship that we enjoyed with one another, and with Principal Irwin.
The training period was over. Our final examination required of us assembly with the northern division, and for the purpose we met in the village of Madoc. Madoc today is not like the Madoc of that period. At that time I walked its streets and my soul turned against it. It seemed that it had arisen out of the rough and tumble of an unplanned, uncivilised backwoods state. Hotels and hotel manners gave me a sense of repugnance -- I suppose because I was so unused to the world. It was the "end of steel", the railway penetrated no further into the country, and I dreaded what might be beyond. For a hundred miles and more to the north I understood that the forests were the scenes of workmen who were known as lumberjacks, and that all their living supplies depended on the teamsters who spent their time, one trip a week, caching the goods that arrived at this rail head. The hotels were their resorts, and much drinking and gambling was indulged in, fights often occurred. There seemed to be nothing artistic about the place; rather it suggested stories of the mining camp. I did not desire a large contact with the place; and yet as I found later on, this seemed to be the very road along which God was leading me.
I returned to my home in Belleville, and having a Certificate as a duly qualified teacher, the question arose "Where shall I teach". I would not touch upon trials and disappointments were it not that I may encourage some one who finds it hard to forge ahead through the competitions of life. There were six weeks available in which to find a school engagement and to be ready for the year beginning with January. The authority to whom to apply was naturally the County School Inspector; so to the Inspector I went. I had not stopped to reason then that as there were twenty-five new teachers on the market and no new schools were being opened up, some of those already teaching must either die, become married, or retire, or there could be no room for some of us. Then who would get appointments? Those who had best qualifications, and the most push. That simply came to the point of the survival of the fittest. I resolved to be fit.
In six weeks the Inspector recommended to me and put me on the search for thirteen schools. I had no means of conveyance and no money to pay for such; I had to employ the legs which had grown strong under farm culture. Under such circumstances I usually began my walk in the afternoon so that when the farmers were returning home from town I might have a chance ride; and the farmers were always good in this respect. Not only did the farmer thus accommodate me but I endeavoured to be useful to the farmer by conversation in the matter of personal religion, and thus I also cultivated my gift of dealing with individuals. I never received a rebuff. Getting out into the country on a chance ride involved staying, by the kindness of a farmer, at a farmhouse for the night, and I was never treated with anything but the best of hospitality. I always also remembered that I represented my Master Christ and therefore I took occasion to have prayer in the households before retiring.
Some of those walks were very long and lonely -- one of them began at seven o'clock in the morning, on a return to the city, and did not end until nine o'clock in the evening, during which time I had had nothing to eat, and walked thirty-five miles; no conveyance that could give me a ride had passed me all day, until as the city lights appeared in the near distance a farmer with a sleigh was passing me city-ward, apparently not inclined to stop, therefore I made one spring and rolled over in the bottom of his sleigh. He stopped then in a hurry. "Man", he exclaimed "what is the matter with you? I thought it was a burglar coming upon me". Sixteen and twenty miles were common walks, and easy. But the schools had all been taken before the Inspector had recommended me to apply; he was not a good intelligence department.
It had come to the last Saturday in December, and still I had not secured a school. For the thirteenth time I went to Mr Inspector's office. "Oh!" he exclaimed, "why did you not come sooner? Two Trustees have just been seeing me from Section Number Nine, twelve miles out. Their school is in bad shape; they have always had a female teacher, and I want them to make a change, and have a man. I want you to go out there early on Monday; tell them I sent you and that you must have that school". That was a commission!
Monday found me enjoying my twelve mile walk, which meant of course a return twelve. I found the school, and two out of three of a Trustee Board. Now it was close contact. The disposition was to postpone a decision. You are too young, and our school is too rough, they said.
"Something rough and tough is what I want", I replied. "I do not want a school which is perfect -- it would give me no chance to show what I am capable of, it would take me all my time to keep it up".
Finally I persuaded the two men to accept my application, and as they were agreed, the third man would have to fall into line. "You will have to take an armful of blue beeches with you", they said. To which I replied -- "I shall use no blue beeches, but I shall carry a strap in my pocket". The salary was to be Forty Dollars more than had been paid to previous teachers, and it represented more money than all I had received in eight years on the farm. More than that, by the grace of God, I was climbing to a position of social pre-eminence in the community, and would have usefulness as my greatest reward.
I returned to the city to make ready my move, and to rejoice with my friends that my station was so near that I would be able to visit "Home" often, which I did at least every two weeks and on special occasions besides. Indeed I was but in the suburbs of the city with two villages intervening. And as years passed on and my relations to the County became more established and extended, this school district was, of all that I had applied for, the most desirable from the standpoint of usefulness and influence. In time as a preacher I had calls into the other localities, and it seemed that my school was in the centre of them all. I felt assured that God had ordered my way once again.
Besides I soon discovered that my school district very much needed advancement in religious life. I arrived for my school on Saturday afternoon; found a comfortable boarding house in a farm home, and on Sunday morning saw the inside of my school house by attending a Methodist Classmeeting, which by the way was under the leadership of a man who could not read correctly either hymns or Scripture. He served to hold the members together and was known as "Father Paul Eggleton". As time passed into weeks and months it was found that we did not always see eye to eye; but how could it be expected that I, a young and ambitious growth should see with the eyes of an old grey beard, or that he should see with the eyes of a modern youth, for although that was more than fifty years ago, I felt quite modern. But on that first Sunday morning I soon found my opportunity and let the assembly know that I could sing, as I opened out, during one of the pauses between testimony with the hymn:- "Precious promise God hath given". The effort took splendidly, and I repeated it with the hymn: "Blessed assurance Jesus is mine". Then I came to "Jesus loves me this I know", and "O happy day that fixed my choice". This last hymn seemed to be the most familiar, and I could quite understand why it should be so -- this was a community shut in among the hills and its attention was confined for music to the Methodist hymn book; the people were strangers to "Sacred songs and Solos" -- it was for me to introduce that book. Father Paul, I learned had eleven children in his family, the oldest of whom was over twenty years yet none of them ever saw the city, twelve miles away, until the Marquis Lorne, when Governor General of Canada, halted his train at its station, and at that time two of the oldest of the family ventured in to see what a Governor General and Marquis might look like, as well as see that fearful thing called a City.
But the Eggleton family was powerful in the community, and Paul wielded an influence far beyond. That influence I had to recognise. At the conclusion of the morning meeting he made a glad announcement to the meeting folks that the school master would be a valuable acquisition and would help their young folks to sing. That gave me a suggestion which I gladly followed, and singing became a department of our school work; this in days when it was not in Canadian schools as it is today. For an hour on every Friday, singing was our order; and as a result the parents were soon commenting on the singing that was springing up in their homes. Then, in time Leader Eggleton announced on a Sunday that "House to house prayer meetings would be held, and the schoolmaster would bring along his young people to help by their singing". Another inevitable result, in a few months time was a revival meeting, and this was held in the schoolhouse, because as yet the locality had never had a church. The outcome of the revival was that a church built of wood was bought some miles away, taken to pieces, transported and rebuilt a few acres from our schoolhouse and closed in with brick, by which time the people among the hills began to think themselves getting on in the world.
My position became a very active one for Sundays as for other days. I was within two miles of the border line of two Methodist circuits, one having seven preaching places, and the one on which I lived having eight. I found myself recommended from the city as a local preacher. In the city I had been under the Chairmanship and superintendency of one of the greatest of Canadian preachers -- Wellington Jeffers D.D., a preacher who read much but boasted that he wrote nothing. He was an extemporaneous orator of the first rank, and I had rejoiced in his interest and friendship. I was proud indeed when in city days he suggested that I should call round and walk out with him; then to be seen by any of my acquaintances in such exalted company, did indeed stir my pride; and to give added distinction, this Doctor of Divinity always avoided the footwalks, and kept to the middle of the street where no one could interrupt him and where he was in possession of absolute freedom from professional duty. So when I went into the country and carried his certificate of my standing, it did indeed mean a standing in the sight of two circuit ministers and their congregations, so, as I have said, my Sundays were busy. To all of my appointments, and one of them was twelve miles away, I usually had to walk.
One day my minister called at the schoolhouse and addressed the children -- it was his first effort. At the dismissal, he announced to me that he had to be from home the next Sunday and he would wish me to fill his morning and evening appointments. I could do no other than agree, and economise my time in preparation. I must have two subjects, because the son who was much older than I, was to take me about, and I would not wish him to think that I had only one story to tell. The morning theme was from the gospel of John and dealt with the scene on the Sea of Galilee; this was for the village congregation. For the evening with a country congregation, I decided on utilising my most recent reading. Miss Bilbrough had given me a bound volume of Leisure Hour, I believe the date was 1871, and in it I found a series of articles by Sir William Dawson of McGill University, Montreal; these I had read with avidity, and they satisfied my reason and imagination.
I did not know what I was going into when I went to fill that appointment. My guide drove to the home of the dominant member of the church for tea. This man happened also to be the postmaster for the district. During the tea hour I sensed that something was wrong in the situation, for the old gentleman had nothing to say to me; and I became assured of the correctness of my impressions when in preparing to leave the house for church, the old lady, with her motherly way, helped me with my wraps, saying as she did so "My poor dear boy". I learned later that when we had arrived, the old gentleman had objected to the supply, saying "We don't want any boys to preach here".
It was evident that evening that the minister of the circuit was very popular, for the church was filled from the pulpit to the door; on the pulpit steps, inside the communion rail, and both aisles, these latter to such an extent that collection boxes could only be passed from individual to individual. A Sunday evening congregation came in from all the country around -- it was a fine drive in summer for young couples who liked to meet their friends, and the minister in charge always had a pleasant word for these. This night the packed church found a youthful stranger in the pulpit; and the stranger found himself very much in heat. His text was the first verse of the Bible, and the people never before had heard such astonishing things about the origin of things and the interior of the earth, as they listened to for fifteen minutes; the preacher had no misgivings for he rested for science on the authority of a Christian scientist, and he had no doubts to express, but spoke with all holy confidence on the creational power of God. Then he suddenly turned and for another ten minutes he spoke rapidly and enthusiastically on the new creation revealed in the New Testament, and went into personal testimony as he announced "If any man be in Christ he is a new creation". The youthful preacher found no difficulty in holding attention -- the silence was impressive. The preacher, up in his high pulpit was warm and would never forget his exalted sensations.
"Who is he, anyway?" asked the postmaster, of my driver after the service. "Well I told you, he is the teacher at Eggletons".
"Well, I did not think that you had much when I saw you driving into the yard; but I am beaten all out. I am an old man, and I have heard a good many preachers in my time, but I never before heard any one tackle that text. You can bring him around again when you like".
Meanwhile I was first and foremost the schoolmaster. And it was a school that taxed one's ingenuity. My school house was set back some distance from the street and a line of board fence formed the boundary of the playground in which the house stood. There was a gateway through which all must pass in entering the grounds; oh, yes! undisciplined youths might decide to climb over the fence, especially if they were fond of jumping, and this many of them at times decided to do. On my arrival, for my first morning, I found the whole of the fence on the street side occupied by children who sat on the top, mutely observing my walk; I learned later that it had been mutually agreed to take this position "and frighten the new teacher".
I did not frighten, but quietly passed through the gateway between the two sections of this school army, mounted the steps and entered my little kingdom. Taking in hand my bell I rang it; instantly a rabble of crowding, noisy children entered the doorway. I stood at my desk at the upper end of the room, and in firm but controlled voice commanded:- "Silence". An astonished crowd stood and gazed at me. "Out doors and fall into line", I ordered. When I reached the door I could scarcely refrain from a smile. These children had never before heard such a command, and while all were trying to form up in line, boys and girls, big and little were incongruously mixed. "Company, stand attention", I ordered, and all hesitated to move but gazed up at me standing on the platform, and their faces told their wonderment. I explained what was required, and soon had girls in the front line, boys in the rear, and ranged in order of size. Then I gave the order to number. This done I selected two from the head, stepped them to the front, and explained to them the steps and various movements; after that my whole army was put through drill for half an hour, and finally ordered "Forward" into school. I purposely kept myself in the rear that I might see what attitude would be taken when given over to themselves. And what an attitude it was! When I reached inside it seemed that bedlam was let loose. It all indicated to me the soft hand with which this little kingdom had heretofore been ruled. Closing the door, and placing my back against it I firmly ordered:- "Silence!" Then I added:- "There is to be no talking in school hours. The first one found talking shall be punished".
Every one sat up with folded arms for morning Scripture and prayers. It was eleven o'clock; as I was engaged in placing a lesson in grammar on the blackboard I detected the murmur of voices, and with a quick glance around I saw that the transgressors were the two tallest boys in school -- in fact they were young men, who came to school for the winter because there was very little to do at home; one of them was taller than myself and could easily have picked me up in his arm and put me out of doors. I went on with my work at the blackboard, but I said, as I wrote, "Those who are talking stand". It was my test of character. No one stood; but quietness ensued for the remainder of the day.
When 3.45 arrived, and it was time to call the roll and conduct closing exercises, and when every one had apparently forgotten the incident of the morning, I paused and called attention to it; then I added, without fixing my eyes on any one:- "Those who were talking this morning will please stand". There was profound silence, but no one moved. I became firmer, and said "The boys who were talking this morning, Stand" Still no one moved. I knew then my material. Gathering my courage and looking full at the two young men, I commanded:- "The young men who this morning were talking, Stand". They stood, with an amused smile. "Forward!" and they came together to my desk. I gave them a brief address on the value of honor, then I commanded the taller one to hold out his hand. He did so, and I used my strap, to the astonishment of the school; the second youth was treated in the same way. My school was under control after that, and I think that not more than four cases of physical punishment occurred in the whole year. When a half year had passed, and the children had become friendly with me, they confidingly reported that during the first week of school "The Master had a voice like thunder, and eyes like lightning".
As I now think back on my days in the school among the hills, I recall with gratitude that I was ever there. It is many a year now since I saw the place, but reports from time to time brought to me an assurance that my work was not in vain. One young man whose bent of mind I one day discovered by going to his desk to borrow a text book, but instead found two or three yellow-covered low-class novels, I was instrumental in rescuing and directing to a Commercial College from which in due time he graduated. One day he waited on me in a bookstore where I made purchases; and some years afterwards I found him as the railway station agent and telegraph operator at a point where I had occasion to make transfer. One of the girls developed into a successful schoolteacher.
Another character was a boy of nine years at the time of my teaching. Because he was the son of a friend, I perhaps took a little more than ordinary interest in him. He was a trial. His especial fondness was for the girls. Place him where I would in the school, he usually found a place for himself alongside of one of the gentler sex. It seemed that punishment lost all terror for him when it was a question of being by the Fair Annie. One day I thought I had successfully placed him where he could not cross the Rubicon; but in the midst of my duties on the other side of the house, I glanced over and there was Herbie with a bright smile lighting up his whole face, and his slate was hold erect on his desk for the fair one across the aisle to read. I stole over softly and seized the offending slate, and then I read in letters an inch in length, those startling words:- "I LOVE YOU". There was no use in whipping Herbie -- he belonged to a very loving family.
After I had removed from that school, I had occasion to write to a member of the family, and enclosed also a letter to Herbie. It was nineteen years afterwards that I saw a list of University graduates in theology, and thought that the name of my young friend was there. In answer to my letter of enquiry I received a reply:- "Yes, I am the same Herbie. I am enclosing the first letter I ever received. It was written by you, and you forgot to sign your name. I shall be glad if you will now sign it and return it to me. IT WAS THIS LETTER WHICH GAVE ME THE FIRST DESIRE TO BECOME A MINISTER". Let these who become discouraged, and who grow weary in well doing, think of this fruit after nineteen years.
Having completed my year in this school, I decided to return to the city and enter the High School; this was made possible by the kindness of Miss Bilbrough who took a motherly interest in my future. In the High School I was at once attached to the highest class, and took up studies in Latin, Greek, the Third book of Euclid, advanced Algebra. This constituted my work at school; at home I was busy with theological studies, for there was a preliminary examination in springtime, and I had decided to try this as the way of entrance to the ministry.
One peculiarity in this connection I must record. It was the rule of the Church that all who intended to write at that examination must bring with them an official recommendation from the church of which they were members, and where their preaching ability had been tested. This recommendation must be given by the Board in February. Such a requirement necessitated my appearance on the Circuit where I had taught school. I found, however, on arrival that the Superintendent had adjourned the meeting for two weeks, and in conversation with him he mysteriously advised me that it would give me a better standing in the Church Courts if I secured the recommendation from a city church. I therefore returned to the city and at once reported and made my request to the pastor of the church of which I was then a member. He received the information with apparent alarm. "What is the matter?" he asked "Did you not get along well with Brother S.? I think he is not kind in putting you off like this, and you are in danger of losing your opportunity in Spring. I should be only too glad to recommend you but none of my people have heard you preach. You go out again to that adjourned meeting, and tell Brother S. that I said he must put this matter before his Board".
Thus it was that I returned, and in time to have conversation before the meeting; then it was that, to my amusement, I discovered that the difficulty in the pastor's mind, and by reason of which he was seeking to shelve responsibility, was the matter of age. "How old are you?" he asked. "Twenty-one". "Oh! We were all thinking you could not be more than sixteen, and we thought that too young for the responsibility". And this was actually the levelling up statement which he gave to the Board.
I received a unanimous recommendation with many expressions of approval of the work I had done in ministering as a "local" to the different congregations, and good wishes for the future, but I was also plunged into a theological discussion such as was new for me, when one of the elders asked for an account of my "conversion". He was at once taken to task by another elder who objected to "instantaneous conversion" and thought that it was "gradual -- a growth". There was a battle royal between these two good men, and it was not altogether lost on me, as it gave me something to think about.
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