Locke Amsden, or The Schoolmaster

¹ "Locke Amsden" was first published in 1847. The novel is largely autobiographical and was published during the author's tenure as secretary of Vermont's State Education Society.

² We learn elsewhere in the text that Locke attends the district school every winter, returning to the farm from spring through autumn. His father indicates that Locke and the other children in the area normally attend school between the ages of four and twenty.

³ "To know the reason of things" is the most consistent educational theme in the novel. The author writes at length about the failings of teachers and others who know facts but have no understanding of the concepts behind them. One of the most praised characters in the novel is a man who never learned to read or write but who has the truly educated man's gift of reason and understanding.

⁴ According to one biography of the author, Thompson received a similar windfall when he was about 16. During the spring thaw he found a watersoaked book, dried the pages and found it was a collection of English poetry. For a book-starved lad in backwoods Vermont where little or no reading matter could be obtained, the book was a godsend and started him on his quest to further his education.

⁵ The author is very hard on this schoolmaster who is so obviously ill-equipped to deal with a student of Locke's caliber. By extension, the author implies, all the students are shortchanged educationally, though unlike Locke, they are not aware of what they are missing.
To be fair, the author's scorn is directed less toward the schoolmaster himself than toward the communities that allow their children to be schooled by such poorly educated teachers. As we will find shortly, the schoolmaster's ignorance is the rule in district schools in the area, not the exception. Schoolmasters of the time often had no more than a district school education themselves and might be as young as 16 when they began teaching.

⁶ The author makes the point again that it is essential "to know the reason of things." He adds that the responsibility for teaching good habits of thought rests squarely on teachers' shoulders.
Thompson believes that a careful, thorough education helps create a successful, self-sufficient adult, and he is a fierce advocate of the potential of public education to transform the nation for the better. In fact, his dedication of the novel is "To the friends of popular education and self-intellectual culture in the United States."

⁷ The surveyor is one of a handful of characters in the novel whose intellectual gifts Locke admires. He is also one of two who are mainly self taught, something the author treats with great respect. Thompson, who gained so much of his early education on his own, clearly values people's intellectual attainments more than their college degrees.

⁸ Spelling schools were regular events during the first half of the 19th century. Two or more schools in the area would gather for an evening of spelling competition, and community members attended with an enthusiasm that today is reserved for high school sporting events. For a wonderful depiction of a spelling school, go to the chapter, "Spelling Down the Master" in "The Hoosier Schoolmaster," which can be found on this site.

⁹ By showing how unusual it is to have a college educated schoolmaster in a district school and also the community's reluctance to pay a qualified teacher a decent wage, the author shows that the schoolmasters' ignorance is a byproduct of communities' stinginess.

¹⁰ The scholars' treatment of the schoolmaster is unusual only in its cleverness. It was typical for schoolmasters to have to prove their physical mastery over their students early in the term, and since the older students might be in their 20's, that could be very difficult. It was also typical that communities accepted this kind of student behavior as a necssary test of a schoolmaster's abilities.

¹¹ Locke's teaching method would be approved of by any modern educator who believes in experimentation and the inductive method to allow students to reach their own conclusions. His approach is in contrast to his earlier experience with his district schoolmasters, who could teach him nothing because they were unable to think themselves.

¹² Thompson is laying on the schoolmaster's accomplishments a bit thick. It's hard to believe that schoolchildren are going to instantaneously value the scholarly over the physical. The author, albeit overstating his point, is dramatizing the fact that a good teacher can make the activities of the school rival those of the playground. He is a staunch advocate of good schools led by good teachers, so those of us who value education can forgive him his excesses.

¹³ The topic of corporal punishment comes up frequently in 19th century school tales, especially those set in the first half of the century. Generally, schoolmasters use the rod regularly, and parents tend to approve, saying, as one parent comments in "The Hoosier Schoolmaster," "No lickin', no larnin'."

¹⁴ The author's diatribe against corporal punishment is in keeping with the sentiment in the country in the 1850s, which was turning against whippings and toward less physical forms of coercion. His alternatives -- suspensions, expulsions and in school suspensions --are in keeping with today's practices.

¹⁵ On a few occasions, the author compares village schools unfavorably to country schools, commenting that both the children and their parents are less engaged in education in the more "civilized" areas. He also spends a considerable amount of time ridiculing a "private academy" for girls in the village, which is a shallow attempt to give the more prosperous young ladies the patina of European culture without any genuine learning. It should be remarked that Thompson himself is the son of a country farmer, which could help account for his greater respect for children and their parents in those areas.

¹⁶ Thompson's point about the parents' misplaced priorities is powerfully stated in this episode in which the juggler wins out over the schoolroom. Knowing that the book is based on Thompson's own experiences, we can easily imagine the real life Thompson as a young, idealistic schoolmaster seeing his hopes dashed by the arrival of a cheap, silly entertainer to town on the day of his prearranged public examination. But we can also be surprised at his naivete, both as schoolmaster and as author, to imagine that the arrival of a traveling entertainer into the town would not capture the imaginations of the entire community.

¹⁷ The doctor's rousing speech sums up Thompson's devotion to the cause of common school education. The statement that a lone country schoolmaster is doing more to "perpetuate the liberties of your country" than a congressman is either high praise for teachers or a condemnation of legislators -- or both.