United States or Ghana ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
It was a habit of mine, I regret to say, to give little or no thought to my hat being on my head when I was in any of the boys' dormitories, or when passing through the halls of the buildings containing the class-rooms. My attention was finally called to this habit by one of the lady teachers. Passing me one day in the hall, she said: "Canty, you have a habit of wearing your hat through the halls.
It is true that there have sprung up new class-rooms round the court, and that opposite the cloisters a huge yellow block of buildings has been erected which provides workshops and laboratories, but the Abbey and the School House studies stand as they stood seven hundred years ago. To a boy of any imagination, such a place could not but waken a wonderful sense of the beautiful.
We all ran out confusedly. Boys were emerging from all the other class-rooms also. There was a great mixing and tumult of boys and parents, bidding the masters and the mistresses good by, and exchanging greetings among themselves.
Viewed from inside, the building was less attractive, passages and class-rooms alike having the air of bleak austerity which seems inseparable from such buildings; but when nine o'clock struck, and the flood of young life went trooping up the stairways and flowed into the separate rooms, the sense of bareness was replaced by one of tingling vitality.
"Speak, child Come, Sarah, be a good girl Oh, the naughty little child!" It was all in vain. I remained perfectly mute. The customary round was then made, to the bed-rooms, the dining-hall, the class-rooms, and the usual exaggerated compliments were paid. "How beautifully it is all kept!
Clearly some awful crime had been committed at Bramhall, and there would be a public whacking and an expulsion. We humans may or may not be brutal, but life is certainly more stimulating when there is an execution in the air. Chattering, prophesying, and wondering who was the criminal, we found our way to our various class-rooms.
We used to tie up our skirts with string so as to run the better, for we were not allowed to wear rationals like I'm wearing now. And there were shrieks, and rushes, and pushes, till our hair waved about and we were quite red with exercise and excitement. Still that didn't prevent us from working in the class-rooms. On the contrary!
Girls of all ages, rosy from the air, and bubbling over with that gleeful excitement that comes from running to school on a fine autumn morning, hurried, skipped, fluttered by; from the hollow class-rooms came a quick drumming of voices; a bell rang; a voice like a bird cried, "Muriel." And then there came from the staircase a tremendous knock-knock-knocking. Some one had dropped her dumbbells.
As I once had the opportunity of perceiving, a young man fresh from class-rooms could only look with wondering contempt on the antiquated stuff which it rejoiced me to gather from that kindly stall, or from the richer shelves within. My Cicero's Letters for instance: podgy volumes in parchment, with all the notes of Graevius, Gronovius, and I know not how many other old scholars. Pooh!
Unfortunately, before I had completed the dormitory for girls, a fire destroyed our main school building with the contents. This fire left us without class-rooms. We took refuge in the Carpenter Shop, and held classes there until money was secured with which to build a training-school for the lower grades. This latter building I also put up entirely with student labor.
Word Of The Day