The Schoolmaster's Progress

¹ "The Schoolmaster's Progress" was first published in 1844.

² The new schoolmaster is made to look foolish and awkward in this first paragraph, as are most country schoolmasters in fiction of the day. The profession was looked upon with little respect. He is 18, young by today's standards but not for the time, when 16 year olds sometimes taught school. His age actually might put him in a better light with readers of the day than if he were older. A country schoolmaster who has reached 30 and is still in the classroom is usually treated as a certified fool.

³ As was typical, the schoolmaster ruled by the "rod of power." Corporal punishment was the prevailing discipline of the day, and as a first year teacher unsure of how to conduct a classroom, he erred on the side of overuse.

⁴ A ferule is a ruler the schoolmaster keeps at the ready for quick punishment of minor infractions. His switches, branches cut from neighboring trees, are generally reserved for the more formal and severe punishments conducted in front of the classroom.

⁵ An interesting discussion of corporal punishment. The author states that the ferule and switch are used from necessity, not cruelty. The implication, which is found in many stories, is that both the children and their parents expect the students to be physically punished for their wrongdoings, and that a strong arm is the first qualification of a teacher, with intelligence and education being far less important.

⁶ Many stories include a large older student like Joshua who knows that he need not fear punishment from the schoolmaster, "Because I could lick him, easy." A teacher who fought a student and lost rarely lasted the term.

⁷ The author lampoons the lack of learning of both schoolmasters and rural communities in this passage. It's clear how new schooling was to these areas, and while it's easy to make fun of the pervasive illiteracy and the minimal gifts of the schoolmasters, the importance of these pioneering efforts to bring education to the outlying areas of the U.S. can hardly be overstated.

⁸ According to this passage, it would be improper to whip a young woman who is past a certain age, though the author doesn't specify what that age might be. Possibly the "gold ring on her finger" means that some of the female students are married, a strong possibility, since marriage age starts at 16 or younger and students' ages often range into their 20's. A number of 19th century school tales include married students.

⁹ Since communities paid schoolmasters too little for them to live on their own and no one wanted the burden of putting them up for an entire term, schoolmasters "boarded round," living for a time with each family with a child in school.
Notice, by the way, that the schoolmaster is "progressing," as was promised in the story's title. He is more confident and hence uses less punishment in the classroom, and he is broadening his knowledge as well. Career schoolmasters are rarely credited with the ability to learn and grow. Ironically, Master Horner's increasing abilities mean that he is becoming too capable to remain in the profession much longer.

¹⁰ If Master Horner was "as high as district teacher can ever hope to be" with a fixed home and sixteen dollars a month, it's clear that a schoolmaster cannot climb very high economically or socially. Note that he achieved this position because he had a bargaining chip. He was twenty-one and had his own farm, so he could quit at any time.

¹¹ The author satirizes the community's "prejudice against learning" by stating that it was a potential liability for the schoolteacher's marriage prospects. Though there might be a touch of comic exaggeration in the passage, it demonstrates the mixture of respect and suspicion these communities so often felt towards educated people.

¹² Spelling schools were popular social events in rural areas of the time and quite well attended. The event attests to the importance granted to mastery of spelling in 19th century schools.

¹³ The author has constructed a lovely courtship-in-miniature between Ellen and Mr. Horner masked as a spelling competition. It's full of blushes, smiles, crimson cheeks, excitement, shame, and, finally, conquest by Master Horner which, the author implies, Ellen might have engineered. Not surprisingly, this is the beginning of a romance, though one full of unexpected comic twists and turns.
It's worth noting that while this is basically a teacher-student romance, the author carefully places the "student" at one remove by making her "a young girl from a few miles' distance" and therefore not in Horner's school. In this story and in others, there is a taboo against teachers and students having a romantic relationship. Whenever the taboo is broken, the situation takes on a predatory nature. (Interestingly, the young woman is predator in these instances more often than the schoolmaster. She sometimes wants to marry the unwilling schoolmaster, or, in another story by this author, she is pregnant and wants to throw suspicion on the schoolmaster to hide the real father's identity.)

¹⁴ Some form of presentation to the community at the end of the school year occurs frequently in the district schools of this type. Most of them detailed in fiction have less pageantry to them than the "grand exhibition" planned here. They are more likely to consist of students being tested on their knowledge, reciting memorized passages and reading original essays.
In this paragraph, the author tells us that this is Horner's last term as schoolmaster, and she also implies that he is now overqualified for the job. He has gone from the silly poser of his first year to a mature young man who is confident in the classroom, reasonably competent in his scholarship, and capable of expressing deep feelings in the form of his love letters to Ellen. He no longer fits the stereotype of the clownish schoolmaster, and so it is fitting that he move onto something more respectable.

¹⁵ At the instant the letters fall from the ceiling, Horner simultaneously ends his tenure as schoolmaster and is proved to be an honest, respectable man. In the closing paragraph, he makes peace with Ellen's father, becomes a farmer/landowner, and is an acceptable match for Ellen. It appears that "The Schoolmaster's Progress" of the title is his progress beyond the schoolroom and into a more respectable position in the community.