Latin, and English grammars to memory, and in connection with
reading-lessons we were called on to recite parts of them with the
rules over and over again, as if all the regular and irregular
incomprehensible verb stuff was poetry. In addition to all this,
father made me learn so many Bible verses every day that by the time I
was eleven years of age I had about three fourths of the Old Testament
and all of the New by heart and by sore flesh. I could recite the New
Testament from the beginning of Matthew to the end of Revelation
without a single stop. The dangers of cramming and of making scholars
study at home instead of letting their little brains rest were never
heard of in those days. We carried our school-books home in a strap
every night and committed to memory our next day's lessons before we
went to bed, and to do that we had to bend our attention as closely on
our tasks as lawyers on great million-dollar cases. I can't conceive
of anything that would now enable me to concentrate my attention more
fully than when I was a mere stripling boy, and it was all done by
whipping,--thrashing in general. Old-fashioned Scotch teachers spent
no time in seeking short roads to knowledge, or in trying any of the
new-fangled psychological methods so much in vogue nowadays. There was
nothing said about making the seats easy or the lessons easy. We were
simply driven pointblank against our books like soldiers against the
enemy, and sternly ordered, "Up and at 'em. Commit your lessons to
memory!" If we failed in any part, however slight, we were whipped;
for the grand, simple, all-sufficing Scotch discovery had been made
that there was a close connection between the skin and the memory, and
that irritating the skin excited the memory to any required degree.

Fighting was carried on still more vigorously in the high school than
in the common school. Whenever any one was challenged, either the
challenge was allowed or it was decided by a battle on the seashore,