Each pupil before being assigned a seat was interrogated by the teacher somewhat as follows: In what state and country were you born? Do you know your letters? How far can you count? Who was the first man? Who built the ark? And so on until the teacher had acquainted himself with the limits of his pupils' ignorance.
When all were seated Teacher Wiseacres announced that school would open with singing. The pupils were thereupon thoroughly drilled in the scales and other exercises, the master severely reprimanding any who sang out of tune. The lesson concluded with songs usually sung at the club gatherings, after which a knot of blue ribbon was given the one who had sung best, and a red bow to the pupil considered second best.
During the course of this lesson, and also of those that followed, there were frequent interruptions caused by the refractory behavior of some of the pupils. Serena Ann Wilkins was caught eating an apple, and was made to stand up in front with a book on her head. Malvina Jane Leggett had to stand in the corner facing the wall for giggling; while, direst disgrace of all, Abijah Larkins was obliged to sit on the girls' side for drawing a caricature of the master on the blackboard.
After the singing-lesson small wooden slates (the old-fashioned kind bound in red cloth) were passed around and the following exercise in orthography given out: "It is an agreeable sight to witness the unparalleled embarrassment of a harassed peddler attempting to gauge the symmetry of a peeled onion which a sibyl has stabbed with a poniard." This task was accomplished with much puckering of eyebrows, and no one, it may be said, succeeded in writing all the words correctly.
The next lesson announced was reading, for which primers were distributed. These were small books with brown-paper covers, the lessons being tongue-twisters, beginning with such familiar ones as "She sells sea-shells," "Peter Piper," etc., and ending with this one of more recent date, taken from the _Youth's Companion_:
A bitter biting bittern Bit a better brother-bittern; And the bitten better bittern bit the bitter biter back. And the bitter bittern, bitten By the better bitten bittern, Said, "I'm a bitter bittern-biter bit, alack!"