The Goosepond School

¹ "The Goosepond School" is the first of a series of stories set in the ficticious town of Dukesborough. The stories were collected into a volume called "Dukesborough Tales." "The Goosepond School" was originally published in 1864, then revised in 1892. This is the 1892 version.

² Chapter I is more a preface to the "Dukesborough Tales" collection than a part of this story and can be skipped, if you wish, without missing anything essential to "The Goosepond School," which begins in earnest with Chapter II.

³ In many stories, Allen Thigpen would be the school bully. He's a square shouldered eighteen year old who "had yet to see the man that he was afraid of," and, as we'll see in the next few paragraphs, he is quite willing to lord it over the other students. Yet in this story where we will soon understand that the schoolmaster is the only villain, the potential bully gradually earns our respect and takes on a rather surprising role.

⁴ Poor Brinkly, the reluctant hero of this tale, is muttering a phrase that means nothing to him. We will soon learn that "meaning" is meaningless in the Goosepond School; only rote memorization is rewarded. The author has exaggerated a common trait in 19th century common schools, where the ability to memorize and repeat information from the texts tended to be prized over understanding and analysis.
The specific phrase Brinkly keeps repeating, "an empire is a country governed by an emperor," is a nice literary touch by the author. It foreshadows the despotic way the schoolmaster/emperor rules over his classroom empire.

⁵ Pulling together a number of facts scattered through the story, we now know that the youngest student is about 8, the oldest about 18, and there are 25 students in the school.

⁶ Rule by the rod has its down side for the teacher, as we see here. The schoolmaster can only beat students if he is bigger and stronger than they are, and he apparently isn't bigger and stronger than Allen Thigpen.
In rural schools of this time, it was not uncommon that, on the first day of school, the new schoolmaster would pick a fight with the largest student in the room. If he won, he established himself as the master. If he lost, it would be a very long school year, or a very short one if he decided to pack his bags and look for a less arduous profession.

⁷ Allen Thigpen, it seems, is not so much bullying his classmates as testing their mettle. Will one of them rise against the schoolmaster, or will Allen have to do the job himself?

⁸ The first word from Israel Meadows is "BOOKS!" but our first sight of him is with his hands full of hickory switches. Education and punishment are inextricably linked in this scene.
The "hickory switch" is simply a branch cut from a hickory tree, and the schoolmaster has a handful, since he probably plans to wear out a few during the day.

⁹ Notice the wary respect the schoolmaster pays to Allen, who is well aware of his superior position and is clearly daring the schoolmaster to discipline him.

¹⁰ The schoolmaster's age is a clear indication of his incompetence. Simply put, no decent man with any education would be teaching in a country school past his early twenties.

¹¹ The author makes Israel Meadow a "bastard" in the literal sense of his parentage and in his personal behavior. This dual association is not a literary device invented by the author. It can be found in a few of Shakespeare's famous villains as well.

¹² The schoolmaster's lack of learning may be extreme but not uncommon. Many men and women who taught had only the education they received at the schoolhouse to recommend them for a teaching position.

¹³ This passage implies that the students had not been in school when Israel Meadows arrived in the area. Access to education was dependent on finding a willing teacher, which often proved difficult in remote areas, especially considering the poor wages and living conditions.

¹⁴ This technique of studying aloud is called "conning." It's interesting that a technique which the author is making fun of could be considered enlightened in view of current ideas that some students learn visually and others learn audially, and the more senses brought into play, the better the chance of retention of material.

¹⁵ Though the descriptions of "the circus" and "horsin'" that follow sound like sadistic and melodramatic satire invented to make a point about the cruelty of corporal punishment, the author states in his autobiography that these practices were carried out by one of his schoolmasters when he was seven or eight. To read about Johnston's early schooling from his autobiography, click here and a new window will open with the excerpt.

¹⁶ The "circus" is clearly sadistic in nature, but Henrietta Bangs' plea to leave on her stockings and Meadows' refusal transport the scene into the realm of sado-sexuality, which is rare in narratives of this type. Henrietta's deep shame as she sat down, and two later references to her mistreatment, heighten the sense that Meadows is truly a monster.

¹⁷ The description of the noble Brinkly and his poor, widowed mother who is willing to sacrifice everything for her son's education is melodrama fit for the cheap novels and magazine stories of the day. However, by making Brinkly fatherless, he becomes a nice literary parallel to the fatherless Meadows, whose despicable nature becomes inexcusable when contrasted to Brinkly's, whose circumstances seem to enhance his natural goodness and bravery.
The passage also gives us a sense of how little formal education many people had at the time and the value some parents, though definitely not all, put on their children becoming schooled.

¹⁸ After a realistic physical description of the fight between Brinkly and Meadows, the author gives us an equally realistic psychological depiction of the emotions of the two combatants and the schoolchildren.
Brinkly, who could have been shown swaggering as the children cheered, weeps bitterly in a believable combination of rage and sorrow. Meadows, instead of trying to regain some dignity or authority, buries his face in his hands like the whipped dog he is. And most surprisingly yet quite accurately, the stunned children, who should feel liberated, are so confused by the overthrow of Meadows that they feel resentment toward Brinkly for upsetting the cruel but natural order of things.
The author's allusion to the deposing of Meadows as "REGICIDE!" is especially apt and telling. References to schoolmasters as kings and tyrants were common in 19th century fiction, but the author takes it a step further. Comparing the overthrow of the schoolmaster to murdering a king is a strong statement of the author's belief that there is no place for arbitrary, tryannical actions in the schoolrooms of America. He compares the schoolchildren to their American Revolutionary predecessors and implies that both have equal rights to revolt against the unjust use of power.

¹⁹ Allen Thigpen's speech could give the author an opportunity to lampoon this uneducated country boy, but he is applauded instead for his rude good sense, in spite of his backwoods speech patterns and his indifferent -- even hostile -- attitude toward education. Allen is portrayed with dignity as one of nature's gentlemen.

²⁰ In this passage, the author reemphasizes the connection between deposing the tryannical schoolmaster and the Revolutionary War that he first made when he compared Brinkly's triumph to "REGICIDE!" The grievances of the schoolchildren were great, he reiterates, and the actions of Brinkly and Allen were brave and noble.

²¹ This scene is a nicely realized piece of group therapy, where the students vanquish their demons by confronting them in an improvised psychodrama. After acting out their fears through replaying the circus and the horsing, Asa, the littlest among them, beats a proxy for the sadistic schoolmaster -- his chair -- and throws it outdoors, ridding them of Meadow's emotional presence that lingered in the room after the schoolmaster had fled.

²² In a later story in the "Dukesborough Tales," "Old Friends and New," the community is blessed with a young, handsome, enlightened schoolmaster who is between college and law school. He is the polar opposite of Meadows and teaches a progressive school in which learning is emphasized and corporal punishment is not needed.