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| "Chepadas," the home of Samuel S. Lamb, Groton, CT |
On August 16, 1883, a celebration was held on the farm of Samuel S. Lamb in Groton, Connecticut, to mark the passage of fifty years since, at age 17, he had taken his first teaching position. During those fifty years, he taught at Lambtown School as well as at a number of other local schools.
Below is the text of the commemorative booklet printed following the celebration and containing a record of its proceedings.
The following genealogical background is provided by the Rev. John Avery's History of the Town of Ledyard 1650-1900
(Norwich, CT: Noyes & Davis, 1901, pp. 220-222):
Samuel S. Lamb, son of Daniel W. and Hannah (Culver) Lamb, was born in Groton,
April 21, 1816… Mr. Lamb was thrice married. First to Miss Eliza Gallup, March
20, 1842. She bore him three children and died May 22, 1859. His second marriage
was to Miss Parthenia Morgan. The fruit of this marriage was one child, a
daughter. His third wife was Miss Harriet E. Gallup, to whom he was married July
23, 1865. She died Jan. 6, 1892. Mr. Lamb died Jan. 2, 1892.
He is buried in the Wightman Burial Ground on Cold Spring Road, Groton.
The farm where he lived, located today on Col. Ledyard Highway just south of Quakertown, is known as “Chepadas.” The house there was built by Lamb’s ancestor Edward Culver in 1664.
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CELEBRATION
OF THE
Fiftieth Anniversary of the Teaching of
SAMUEL S. LAMB,
OF GROTON, CONN.
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PROGRAMME OF THE EXERCISES,
CONTAINING THE
ORATION AND POEM DELIVERED
BEFORE THE
“ALUMNI,” AUG. 16, 1883.
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PUBLISHED BY REQUEST.
NORWICH :
PRESS OF THE BULLETIN
COMPANY.
1883.
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ANNIVERSARY PROGRAMME.
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The Fiftieth Anniversary of Public School Teaching by SAMUEL S. LAMB, of Groton, was observed on Thursday, Aug. 16, 1883, by a basket picnic on his farm. At noon the anniversary exercises commenced according to programme. The large crowd filled the tent. Capt. J. K. BUCKLYN, of the Mystic Valley Institute presided with tact and efficiency. The music was conducted by Mr. SIMEON GALLUP, who had a large, well-trained choir at his command; they enlivened the day with several choice selections. At the organ was Prof. GRIEST, of Baltimore, who opened with a voluntary followed by a song. Rev. C. H. ROWE, of Mystic River, read the Scriptures, and the Rev. J. A. GALLUP, of Madison, offered prayer. Mr. S. S. LAMB, the veteran, but hale hero of the day, then came forward to greet his friends, giving an interesting sketch of his school life:
At the age of thirteen, in the old red school-house of Ledyard, he became master of the “three R’s.” Daboll’s Arithmetic, Woodbridge’s Geography, Murray’s Grammar, the Testament, the English Reader and Webster’s Spelling-book were the text books. From thirteen to fifteen he studied much at home—some of his teachers during that time not being very efficient. At seventeen he began to teach in the ninth Groton or Fishtown district. One of the examiners who signed his first certificate, HENRY HALEY, was present at the gathering. The spring of 1835 found him at Colchester, under the faithful instruction of CHARLES P. OTIS, A. M., Principal of Bacon Academy, and from this source he derived valuable information in regard to his chosen calling. Day’s Algebra, Playfair’s Euclid, and Mr. OTIS’ Order of Exercises in Grammar, were leading studies. He attended JOSEPH H. GALLUP’S school at Poquetannoc, and then for two years he was a student in the Suffield Literary Institution. There he substantially prepared himself for college, but did not enter for the lack of means.
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He rarely taught summers, but worked hard farming, except in the Mystic River graded school, where he taught the year round for two years. Mr. LAMB did not mention his teaching in a graded school in New Jersey, nor his teaching select schools from time to time. Rising one thousand pupils, first and last, have been under his instruction, for which he received about $7,000, or, on an average $140 per year; and he might have added, a sum quite too small for the service rendered. He had never been obliged to ask for a situation, but his services had always been sought. His experience had been long, but he said it had not made him sage. He thought teaching was an honorable calling. It was not always a healthy one, but if the teacher was conscientious and faithful, was laborious. He spoke of one school where he had eighty-nine enrolled and eighty-five in attendance in a day; where the recess at noon had to be shortened and later hours kept in order to accomplish the object, and that was supplemented by an evening school for volunteers to receive additional instruction, and every moment not used in eating and sleeping must be improved for the benefit of the school. Those days were full of labor, but they were happy days. He had been on the Board of Education six years in Ledyard, and over thirty in Groton. He took pleasure in acknowledging his indebtedness to Mr. PALMER GALLUP, deceased, long a teacher of youth in Groton, in Suffield Institute, and elsewhere. His advice to young teachers, or aspirants present, who wanted the best situations was first to deserve them.
The President of the Day then made a short, pithy address. He had taught a quarter of a century, nearly.
He then introduced the orator of the day, the Rev. JOHN W. RICHARDSON, of New London. His subject was: “Free Schools.” To say that it was an elegant tribute would be insufficient, for he was forcible, instructive and full of enthusiasm; seeming to believe, with his whole soul his own grand, often startling and radical propositions. In our judgment it is unsurpassed in its discussion of the progress of the United States as a nation, and the causes which underlie that progress and its greatness. Appended is a verbatim report of this eloquent oration.
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ORATION,
DELIVERED BY
REV. J. W. RICHARDSON,
Pastor of the Huntington St.
Baptist Church,
New London, Ct.
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MR.
PRESIDENT, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN:
The occasion which has assembled us together singularly attracts around itself, in happy union, pleasing memories and encouraging prospects. The past gave birth to the present, and this day parent and child shall hold sweet communion together, We gather here to participate in the festivities of a golden anniversary, but it represents not the spontaneous product of an hour. Like all events crowded and packed with instruction, we see the fruit of mighty sour travail. This anniversary represents the toil of one, who, in turn, represents thousands of others whose devoted efforts have sown the seed which has brought
forth great harvests.
To-day, America, robed in her exalted privileges, wears a richer coronet than that which decks the brow of queens. America is the brightest gem sparkling in the golden circlet of civilized nations. A little over a century ago our nation was a learning child at the feet of a noble parent; now, the daughter is more beautiful than the mother. Columbia, in her democratic simplicity, is more imperial than Britannia with her pomp and pageantry. But what has wrought out this mighty result under God’s providence? Is it war? No! Is it politics? No! Is it diplomacy? No! These are merely incidents in the progressive march of nations; these are the baser materials of society, valuable only as an alloy; like copper to gold in coin, so these only augment a richer element in our civilization. These baser elements have no up-
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lifting, moral power; they have not the loving glance of true nobility which appeals to man’s higher nature.
What, then, has made the nineteenth century the brightest spot in history? Our public school! Rude as were its tools at the first, yet it has fashioned reformations; it has inaugurated revolutions; it has made men!
Placing human deeds under the white light of eternity reveals who are the true heroes of life. Here we discover those acts which are imperishable. We often think of our men at war, and the blood leaps at the remembrance of some valorous deed; but how seldom do we give those thought who, in the back-ground of quiet, unostentatious life, prepared these mighty characters for defence of the right.
The woodman hewing the gigantic oak gives but little thought, as he swings the axe, of the dingy smithy and grimmed hand where temper was put into the blade, and keenness to the edge, giving power to his strokes; so, when the world applauds the hero, or successful business man, it rarely bestows a thought upon some little red school-house where knowledge was formed and power generated—where the real work was done—where temper was put into the man’s character, giving strength to his blows.
Those who have driven the cows home from the pasture, who have risen at four on winter’s mornings, and by the flickering light of the old-time lantern finished their chores, so that at eight o’clock they might be at the rude bench in the old school-house to delve at roots and figures, these are the men who are great in our nation to-day!
True, there are what we call “self-made” men, but history says that the three months of winter’s study out of the year, in the back-woods’ school-house, infused intellectual life into their minds. Whatever their positions to-day, the school-room was the birth-place of their conceptions. It may have been little that reached their mind from some quaint pedagogue. but as only a spark kindles the flame, so that little produced the volume of enthusiasm which swept away obstacles and builded structures.
Knowledge appeals to man’s higher nature; it enables his spirit to gain the mastery over matter; it gives him triumph in the combat between spiritualism and materialism; it is the ignorant mind that is low and brutish. Thus the teacher has a grander privilege than all others—he is a maker. We speak of the sculptor as the representative of art that lives; we think of the architect as one who embodies enduring thoughts, but they merely shape matter, and when the monument crumbles their conceptions are lost, for human structures are but transitory.
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Ah! the teacher is a greater than these. He builds for eternity; he makes ideas, and ideas only are everlasting.
Knowledge is the key to the soul. It exalts; it pioneers the mind along the paths of Alpine mounts; it opens a door out of ignorance, and shows man what is true and noble; it points him to endless capabilities beyond as the prize for his efforts; it is thus that the teacher and his school-room have wrought in American history.
THE PUBLIC SCHOOL IS THE PROGENITOR OF AMERICAN SCIENCE.
We have received as a legacy a soil consecrated to God in prayer, and baptized into the name of liberty by precious blood. We have received as our heritage habits of industry, love of order, attachment to virtue, which we are to preserve and perfect. It is our duty to bequeath to our children a land as religious, free, intelligent and improved.
We remember that the foundations of our republic were laid at noon-day, in the sight of the world; we know how the grand superstructure arose to majestic proportions; we have a knowledge of the part which free education has played in our past. Uncertain history traces the Roman empire to a band of free-booters; the student seeks in vain for the origin of England’s institutions; but our humble birth, our steady progress and present power are all known to readers of history. There is nothing vague in American history. Our republic was founded on free schools, and through them America has raised a nobility far more worthy than any titled aristocracy , our nobility is of statesmen, orators, warriors, philosophers, merchants and mechanics. In 1641, when New England was a waving forest, when a few log cabins here and there marked the site of coming metropolis, when New York and Boston were in their cradles, and great cities of the West were yet unborn, John Endicott, of Massachusetts, spake in favor of “ educating the children of the state from the treasury of the state.” The value of public schools was apparent at that early date. The idea passed through many vicissitudes at first, but it was immortal; it ‘worked its way into colony after colony; it entwined itself around the affections of the people; they gave the idea room, and, as the principle of intellectual life grew, it swelled out the institution in which it was planted to the perfection of ripe fruit. I need not comment upon the results of that system. We have been recipients of its bounty, and to-day feel its inspiring influences. And, as we examine history, we learn that this system of education alone is able to grapple with the science of building free and sovereign peoples.
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OUR BEGINNING WAS A GOOD ONE, OUR FOUNDATION A MIGHTY ONE.
A continent was to be subjugated, and the spelling book and arithmetic were thought to be the allies of brain and muscle; these admitted only the useful into the enterprise-only that which could mould, and shape, and build. We must admit the prescience of our forefathers; they discarded mere rites and ceremonies; they had no pope or bishop but God; the bible lay beside the grammar and axe; their religion became a yoke-fellow and helped lift the burdens, and they went on and left their memorials stamped upon the characters of their free, enlightened and inventive prosperity.
In 1636 the Massachusetts Assembly of Freemen set apart $1,000 to found a college. A short time after, John Harvard bequeathed to this school his library and £800, and the seminary was named Harvard College. This was the leaven in the lump; and, behold, New England thrift and enterprise the progenitors of western go-ahead tiveness! Ah! the conquests of books will outlast that of armies. Surely knowledge is a grander pioneer than superstitious ignorance. The Spaniards longed for conquests; they came and pierced the forests of the new world, also; but they came with the crucifix and sword, and wherever they went they builded castle with frowning parapet, and cathedral with statue and picture, and old Spain was mirrored forth in the new; and to-day the consumptive civilization which pants for breath in Spanish America tells the story of bigoted ignorance. Our forefathers believed that God is a spirit, and must be worshipped in spirit; and so they reared no temples and builded no palaces. They did better: they have left us an educated reverence, commercial energy and religious liberty; from these have sprung all else that has contributed to the moral and material prosperity of our nation.
The old-time schoolmaster, who had faced the rigors of winter and difficulties of a wilderness, taught the incoming generation how to plan. He had had experience; he knew how to couple theory to experiment, and the result was: necessity became the mother of invention; the school-room, ancient and antique as it was, taught young America how to think!
Benjamin Franklin, born in 1706, at the age of eight attended the public school of Boston. In a short time he learned quickly; at fifteen he was a far better editor than many of our modern knights of the quill. That school-room gave birth to his passion for books. At twenty-six he published his maxims, which were translated into a hundred languages; at thirty he was tire proprietor of an influential and popular newspaper. He arose to be minister plenipotentiary abroad; and at
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last he pulled the veil of science aside and revealed to astonished mankind the laws of electricity. Franklin paved the way for the telegraph and telephone; through his genius electro plating was made possible; he is instrumental in the birth of the electric light; every patient who feels the life-giving current from battery quickening paralized chords and nerves; every chemist who invokes electricity to his aid, every triumph of this agent in behalf of man, the lighting of cities, the breaking of rocks, the running of railway trains, and all the future possibilities of electricity can be credited to Benjamin Franklin, the American scholar and teacher. Who will dare say, in the face of such facts as these, that the public school of the past has not been a factor in our history of triumphs?
The merchant and sailor had once been servants to wind and tide; but American brain solved the problem, and now the steamship plows the ocean. The huge leviathan of commerce that stows away in his bowels thousands of tons of merchandise, tamed and directed by the finger of man, distributes his cargo in ports from the Canadas to the
Antipodes. This ship, with mighty energy in its vitals, owes its triumph and supremacy to John Fitch, a common school-boy of Windsor, Conn. American brain invented feet for the ship that should in their journeyings to and fro tread the ocean into foam, as they speed on their pathway across the seas.
Ah! the metal must be moulded before you can have cannon to thunder! Genius throbbed in young America of a century ago, and the school-room gave it shape.
Our own smartness and capabilities have blessed untold people, and given our country a place among the nations. From American brains have sprung the serving machine, one of the most important inventions of the century; steel fingers that flash as they throw the shuttle and weave warp and woof; iron arms that pull and lift our burdens; wrought sinews that dig and drill and cultivate our soil. Two centuries ago America was a howling wilderness—only a sparse settlement here and there—while Spain was in her glory; and Italy, the gorgeous home of the popes, and Germany, the seat of learning. Why is it that to-day our splendid republic leads the van? Then every thing was against us—sentiment and purpose. Why is it that America with her fifty-three millions of freemen is monarch of nations? And the answer comes: The public school! Here all intellects have the same opportunities for improvement; we have no preferments, no popish authority to say who shall and who shall not; our school is a free institution, and we gather its luscious fruit. Europe, as a whole, could make no progress, because
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religious intolerance manacled the masses, and in their bigoted ignorance they could not think and plan. The chains of superstition made the dark ages possible, and Christian civilization a failure. With the chaining of the bible Rome shackled science; Gallileo was persecuted, Columbus was ridiculed. The laws of Catholic Sardinia forbade teaching the masses, as late as 1825; Pope Gregory XVI. would allow no rail- roads in Italy during his reign; to-day contrast England and her industries with Spain; Scotland and her enterprises with Italy; America and her institutions with the world; and one word tells the story, education.
The progress of the last half-century is a miracle from the hand of education: no railroads before 1832; no telegraphs before 1846; no rapid ocean transit before 1850; no electric lights before 1860. Now the iron horse traverses continents and leaps rivers; now the old world and the new are bound together in fraternal embrace by eight cables; now floating palaces carry man across the ocean in eight days; now a man can speak in Boston and be heard in New York; and now marvelous mechanisms makes us think of the time when many shall run to and fro and knowledge shall be increased. I have not time to tell how education has fully wrought in the world at large. How it has overthrown errors and established principles. Other doors in the stronghold of science have been forced, and man is face to face with wild powers which shall yet be harnessed and become his most willing servants. Education has aided man to win many battle fields from the awful forces of alchemy and chemistry; he has discovered gunpowder and nitro-glycerine, and now we laugh at cliffs and hills; he has found disinfectants, and now we unarm and uncrown malaria and fever; he has given us illuminating gas, and now night is turned into day; chemistry has given us mercury, and now one of the foulest diseases which attacks man has lost its terrors—it is to our knowledge of chemistry that we are indebted for almost all the comforts of an every-day life.
But the school-room has done more than merely grapple with the destructive forces of chemistry and the knotty problems of mechanics.
OUR PUBLIC SCHOOL IS THE WELL-SPRING OF AMERICAN CULTURE.
Our schools have made America as famous for its knowledge as for its material progress. While we are building up our successes in the material arts, while we bridge rivers and tunnel mountains, while we make the iron and steel pulsate with intelligence, we are erecting monuments of intellectual triumphs which shall outlast the structures of our hands. In this world nothing is permanent but reputation—America has culture and refinement, and she has character.
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Our institutions are making an impression in the old world.
Already intellectual Columbia seems to have distanced all competitors. Says
Joseph Cook of European powers: “The people are questioning whether they had
better take us or England for their model; they are greatly inclined to take
us, but they watch our failings with the deepest interest.” O! America is the
hope of civilization, and the public schools are the hope of America!
Indeed, we have our failings, but I have the utmost confidence in the redeeming qualities of our people; they will never remain permanently in the wrong, they will follow a single ray of light until they stand in the glow of the full orbed truth. It took time for us to learn that slavery was wrong, but when our eyes were opened to the iniquity slavery had to go! Thus it must be with all other national evils, else our republic must go down into dust and ashes. Our hope lies, then, in that which shall foster and nurture this principle which ultimately brings forth true judgment and right action. John A. Andrew once said: “The rebellion itself would have been impossible had a system of free schools pervaded the Union, for they would have lifted the people of the rebel states above the chance of those delusions, fed by ambitious, jealous and despotic men, to whose wiles popular ignorance left them victims.” An ignorant mind is blind and always partisan— the taint often reaches minds of a higher degree of intelligence—yet is only a brain taught to think that can mount above prejudices and sectional affinities, and pronounce a just verdict which shall sway influence. Such are leaders: but the grand talents of one man are sure evidences of the general, though inferior grandeur, of the race to which he belongs. when you point to George Washington, I can show you the mental soil from which he sprang; and when we think of the heroes, and statesmen, and patriots of our country we realize that we are indeed a nation of sovereigns. We all come from a common stock. Some of us may be slow in finding out the quotient, but give us time; we are made of American metal and blood will tell!
The mustard seed of our nativity was sown in the school-room, and now the outbranching tree of liberty affords shelter to the fugitive from every clime. We can do our own thinking arid governing without the aid of king or czar, because we have learned how to plan and govern ourselves; and just as we transmit this knowledge to our children, so, in proportion, will they govern themselves. The only way of disarming the lower orders, who come among us by emigration of all that is threatening, is not to bind the shackles firmer, but to enlighten them. The strong pillars of our government are intelligent citizens, who feel the responsibility of their citizenship, because of the very trust reposed
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in them by free government. Everything then, I say, depends upon our public schools; we have no cause to blush for them. Our colleges will grade with those of the old world; our academies are double boilers to the enginery of our progress; our common schools are the light and life of our envied civilization; and our teachers are as brainy and de- voted to their work as any corps of instructors on the face of the globe. Am I mistaken? A perfect article is the test of workmanship; what orator of Europe is tall enough to snatch the laurels from the brow of Daniel Webster? He was an American school-boy! Can poet of any clime tell a sweeter story than he who has immortalized Evangeline? Yet it is American genius in H. W. Longfellow. What generals of the old world have shown greater strategy and masterly skill in the manipulation of armies than our Washington, and Grant, and Sherman? These are the products of American teaching! What statesman of East or West can compare with that boy reared in a floorless hut in Kentucky, who, bare-footed, wound his way through the woods to the log cabin of a back-woodsman, where, with a few others, he learned to read and write? The household library consisted of the bible, catechism, and Dilworth’s spelling book; yet here the spark kindled; he went on, and by dint of perseverance rose to the front rank of the legal profession, he rose to be the greatest man in his adopted state, he rose to be the Joshua of America; and when the clouds grew black, and the tide swelled, and the lightnings flashed, and a merciless storm deluged the land, threatening to sweep our institutions into the vasty deep, to wash away the old land-marks of our republic, the hand and brain of Abraham Lincoln were invoked. What statesman ever faced such odds? Country divided, cabinet counsels divided, family sympathies divided, personal friends divided—darkness everywhere! And yet that big-hearted, sad faced man piloted the ship of state into port. No brows in Europe exalted enough to reflect the gilding sunlight from his genius. But Abraham Lincoln was the pioneer boy of a pioneer school!
O! it is to school-boys that we are indebted. Washington was twenty-three when he was made commander-in-chief of the army of Virginia. Alexander Hamilton was Secretary of the Treasury at thirty-two. Thomas Jefferson was only twenty-three when he wrote the declaration of independence. I say our public schools have a most honorable record.
Once we thought it was necessary for a man to go abroad for his polishing; now it is sentimentalism. He visits Germany for effect, not fact. If American institutions can not put plane and angles to a student’s character, the machine is not at fault, the gem has a flaw—some call such, paste. Our native-born theologians are as deep in thought;
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our ministers are as well-read and popular; our lawyers are as acute and adroit; our poets are as brilliant and instructive; our merchants are as bold and successful; and our mechanics are better informed, better dressed, and the most reliable, industrious and saving citizens on the earth. This is the glory of America! Unlike the ignorant toilers of other lands, our mechanics read. The public school has created a taste for literature, and we have no serfs or slaves. The ancient Greeks and Romans had made some little progress in civilization, which raised them above their contemporaries; but how insignificant when compared with our accomplishments. As Professor Harvey says: “An humble school-boy of the nineteenth century will utterly confound the logic of a score of the ancient compounders, and not half try.” Would you learn the secret of all this? Would you discover why we are a free people with free institutions? Go with me to yonder school-house. Here are teachers selected indiscriminately from the community at large, We do not ask them to what church they belong, or to what creed they subscribe, nor their political stripe; but we require that they instruct and build. What is the consequence? In those rooms are the children of the merchant and mechanic—children whose parents are from every nation; children who embody every variety of religious sentiment; children knowing no caste, and having no rivalry with each other save an honorable competition for the rewards of scholarship. If you wish oaks, you plant acorns. As we want men we take care of the boys—we bend the twigs and we have the trees. Thus we have constantly incoming generations, firmly imbedded in the principles of our government, and more noble in their culture and stately in power than their predecessors. This is the budding promise of our institutions of learning; this is the flowering out of our character which is so fragrant in the sight of the world.
Experience teaches us that the solidity of American institutions depends upon our educational system, for
OUR PUBLIC SCHOOL IS THE DEFENDER OF TRUE MORALITY.
A country with only intellectual attainments to support its character will eventually degenerate in principle, and drop out of line with nations in the front rank of progress; all the learning at Athens could not stay the decay of Greece. But unite Christian morality with culture, and you have power. Our school is the connecting link! The public school is the coadjutor of a pure pulpit; a pure pulpit is the Gibralter of morality! Priest-craft only, denounces free schools. Ah! a true Christianity has no priest but Christ! He who works in the dark hates the light
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which reveals his true character. The burglar must first kill the watch-dog in the treasure house. Our school system is the watch dog of America.
Let us refer to those periods when education was muzzled, when morality was publicly ravished, when it was said: “ ignorance is the mother of devotion.” Once popes and despots ruled the world for profit and gain, and they used this very veil of superstitious ignorance to blind their dupes. Before the reformation, society was brutalized and foul, and the impurities of the priest-hood were a horrid ulcer, disfiguring humanity. The people followed the example of their leaders, and the result was universal rottenness. Said an Italian bishop: “If I were to enforce the canons against unchaste persons administering ecclesiastical rites there would be no one left in the church but boys; and if I enforce the canons against bastards, they also, must be excluded.” Crimes and disorders were committed, because immunity was to be purchased of the Roman Church for money. The bishop of Lodi said of the clergy: “ They are so plunged in excess of luxury and brutal indulgence that Diogenes seeking a man among them would only find beasts and swine.” The fifteenth century opened with crime and impurities too foul to name. The opening of the sixteenth century saw Alexander VI., the most depraved and wicked of mankind, in the papal chair, and the people—the slaves of vice— polluted, dejected and miserable; but, (solemn truth for croakers, who say the bible does nothing for morality,) some one unchained the Holy Book, and with its liberation tight dawned; education began to toil, the masses went to reading and thinking, and reasoning. The leaders saw their slaves preparing for an exodus under another emancipator; they feared the infant giant; the bible was excommunicated and torn, and buried, and burned; but it would not down—“truth crushed to earth will rise again.” The people looked into their situation, and there was a revolution. Spartan like, the bible stood back to back with education in conflict, and you can distinguish their journeyings to our century by the light above, and the commotion around their pathway. These alone have brought Christianity to America. It was the only thing in the old world worth bringing over to the new. The Puritans were precious seed. The Mayflower landed honest men-virtuous men. Their vine now bears fruit. The blackness of those dark ages shall not pall America, for through our public school the masses are being so taught, that they are beginning to demand of those who would general them the credentials of their leadership. Think, for a moment, of our progress! In 1500 an ecclesiastical robe was sufficient to cover lechery and licentiousness. Two centuries ago any man who could say: “by authority of the pontiff,” could
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put foot on the necks of sweltering millions. A century ago a clergyman of the Protestant faith could take his drinks straight, and not lose his standing in the community. It was possible then for Lawrence Sterne and Dean Swift, whose genius was only equalled by their vulgarity, to find a home in the English ministry. Now what a change!
OUR PUBLIC SCHOOLS HAVE PUSHED THE WHOLE WORLD FORWARD.
Wicked men can no longer conceal God’s moral standard and force the gospel into the background, while substituting one of their own for the sake of gain. Education has torn from tire public understanding all bandages and hoodwinks; it has brought forth from the rubbish which encumbered it God’s standard of judgment. A relapse into that colonial corruption, occasioned by the infusion of new classes of emigrants into our population, is not now possible with the public school in the community. Our schools have stimulated public sentiment; and already on every side the demand goes forth for piety in the pulpit, honesty in commerce, purity in politics, character in leaders, inflexible virtue, and an onward march to a still higher civilization. Ah! Through this educating the people another moral reformation has been inaugurated. It begins where all true moral reformation begins—with religion. This is the life and principle of reformation, collectively or individually. When a base man in the pulpit reveals himself, he is deposed to-day- this is the first step in that new revolution which shall demand that all discovered cheats in business circles be branded with an indelible Cain- like mark! Demanding that treacherous politicians be cashiered! A reformation demanding that all deceit and unchastity, whether robed in silk and broadcloth, or rags and tatters, be discouraged and denounced! A revolution which shall estimate a man’s standing in society by his character, and not his pocket book! I tell you the glorious era is dawning when title and lucre will avail but little with intelligent people; when society shall respect a man for what he is in himself; an educated public shall yet inquire: Is he a man? This is no idle dream, never to be realized. Looking at the immense strides which America has taken in advance of all other nations, under her free institutions, we are assured of a grand progress in the future with those same institutions. Past achievements and present advantages are their credentials. This is why we stand by our public school, and say to its enemies: “Hands off!” This is why we throw a protecting arm around its yoke-fellow, Christianity: they have given us a civilization.
The present century is the best century that this world has ever seen. The great moral enterprises of the people are under the direction of
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uplifting moral influences, not ecclesiasticism; business and social circles are assuming higher standards. We are decoyed into dismay by numerous reports of the increase of immorality; but this is not a grossly licentious age. Let us divest these croakings of their terror. Says an author: “A publicity is nowadays given to certain things which were formerly kept more closely from the public eye and ear. This circumstance produces an apparent increase of wrong doing, while it is only an increase of publicity.” We are not growing worse, we are growing better; our moral increase is of fact, not figures. Think of the knavery, distrust and wide-spread intemperance at the beginning of this century. How is it now? Of eighty thousand ministers in our land there is only one reprobate to every six thousand five hundred. Of the twenty-five thousand bank clerks, only one in a thousand is a defaulter. Once it was unfashionable to receive visitors without passing the social glass, now the homes that condemn it outnumber by thousands those that use it. Once our national credit was so low that the government lost $21.15 on every $1,000; but sobriety, and thrift, and virtue gave confidence life, and now the discount is twenty-six cents on $1,000. We are not going to the dogs, we are going up higher! Christianity and the school have co operated together, and enforced each other’s claims, and I defy any man to point to a period with purer morals than our own! God knows that we are bad enough, but we are better than we were. Free schools, a free press, a free pulpit, and the unrestrained, uplifting influences of Christianity upon a free soul, have enriched the American citizen and made him an element of strength to our national institutions. The great mass of the people love the free school, because it is free from ecclesiastical rule, and they will maintain a government which protects this institution belonging to the people, and of the people. Realizing the worth of a government which gives all equal opportunity for improvement and livelihood, we imbibe its principles and become their defenders. Oh! the pith and marrow of our society-of our morals-is in the back-bone of that educated citizenship, who with enlightened souls, are not chattels to ecclesiastical usurpers, nor under mortgage to political shylocks! Finally.
OUR SCHOOL IS A FACTOR IN THE PROGRESS OF UNIVERSAL HUMANITY.
Humanity, the result of Christian education, has prospered in America as in no other land. Our institutions of learning are providentially adapted for the diffusion of truth, which strengthen and protects. Some parents—and Protestant parents—are so bigoted that they would suffer their children to die ignorant and unchristian, rather than have them
[17]
attend the institution of another belief. Do not look incredulous—we have had such instances in enlightened Groton. But the public school being separate from religious rule, and not under the domination of any sect, proscribes none; consequently multiplied thousands of children of all creeds attend them. As their intellectual improvement advances they begin to think for themselves; their souls must have range and scope, and as they study and think their spiritual natures mount above earth, as with wings of eagles; the instinct of a higher nature asserts itself, and they begin to feel after God. It is thus that the intellectual soil is prepared for the reception of spiritual truths, and ere long the gospel has converts. The free school also brings the children of poor parents under the elevating influences of education, as they, too, become enlightened and refined; the tendencv leads them to follow the example of cultivated people I and soon they become church-goers, and supporters of morality. Some of our best citizens come from the lower walks of life. I say again, it is through the school-room that a Christianized civilization reaches the masses. But the influences of education and Christianity do not stop here, they produce those who carry the instruments of our material prosperity in one hand, and the instrumentality of our spiritual blessing in the other, to those who are without either. The graduates of our nurseries of learning with scheming, thinking, fruitful brains and toiling hands, made stronger by Christian faith, have been invoked to protect the fallen, and instruct every nation under the blue canopy of heaven in the art of ingenious civilization and the simplicity of true worship to God.
The public school has not only quickened our mercantile spirit, so that manufacturers send machinery to lighten the burdens of toilers in field and shop, and the merchant meat and bread stuffs to feed the hungry, but our public schools have sent across the seas true manhood to bless down-trodden millions. We have done much for the old world through our merchandise and mechanisms; yet intrinsically richer than all these together was the blessing that went over to them in the consecrated fire and energy of Moody and Sankey!
What tongue can pronounce the possibilities of our dear mother land? What hand shall pull the veil aside, and reveal the future glory of America? We read in the sacred book that Christ came to earth in the “fulness of time.” Rome was mistress of land and water—the temple of war at the capital, always open during strife, was closed. The frontiers of the Hebraic nation touched the borders of Asia, Africa and Europe. The “Holy Land” was the most central point of the then known world. As provinces of Rome, Jerusalem and Athens were
[18]
bound together in fraternal relation. Here ancient learning and civilizalion were in their glory; the Greek language was the vehicle of universal culture, and Hebrew the classical tongue. Christianity came at this period of great learning to prove that it could stand the scrutiny of reason and refinement. It came to establish the fact that it could do more for mankind than all other systems combined. Christianity came when ancient civilization had reached its height to prove that it was allied to learning, and would help it find a still higher plane of thought. ft came at this period when Palestine was the central spot, so that nothing might be done in a corner, but that all peoples might learn of the wonders being enacted at noon-day; caravans carried the glad tidings to Arabia; coursers spread the news in Rome; travelers repeated the story in Egypt. I see a counterpart to all this in our relation with modern nations.
AMERICA IS THE PALESITNE OF THE WORLD.
God kept our country from the eyes of ambitious kings until he had a chosen people to possess the land of promise. Men of conscience arose, and the Infinite hand rolled back the mists, and the pilgrims came and set up their altars, and America was dedicated to God—under the glare of the highest modern criticism their religion stands. The ocean that dashes upon our eastern shore brings the ship from Europe and Africa; the swelling tides of the Pacific bring the stranger from Asia; America reaches out and touches a continent on the south and a continent on the north; America speaks, and her voice echoes around the world. Our language, so wonderfully rich, is destined to become a universal language. Already the schools of England and America have given it that potency which makes it the language of international commerce; already our dialect is more widely diffused than any other; already our country is the “Mecca” of pilgrimages; we are at peace with the world; yea, this the “fulness of time” repeated in American history; this is the birth period of mighty Christian enterprises; this is God’s time! The public school has been the cradle in which the old midwife time has rocked Christian liberty; and now in the full vigor of his grand manhood, warm and sympathetic, he stands and beckons across the seas, and emigration from the down-trodden hordes of Europe set in. Down come the forests, and up go the homes. A welcoming hand is stretched forth to the refugee from France; to the toiler from Germany; to the dark man from India; to the Irishman cursed by royalty—all come. All receive the hand-grip of brotherly affection and protection. Nothing like its magnitude before in the his-
[19]
tory of mankind. What is the meaning? God has ordained means for the moral uplifting of the world, and our school-room and its kindred institutions are agencies of incalculable power. The free school lifts these emigrants up out of their ignorance and degradation; it opens the way for the still higher influences of Christianity, and precious souls are saved, and the sum total of moral influence in the universe is being increased. But this is not all, thousands of these strangers love dear old fatherland—they love their neighbors and relatives left behind still better—and they go back bearing the marks of our handiwork. They go back carrying with them grains of power more forcible than explosives. They carry with them the seeds of Christian liberty, destructive to error, fatal to ignorance, and deathly to thrones of iniquity.
Light flashed across the seas, and now the land which once shivered under superstitious gloom is free!’ Christianity has loosed the chains, and now the hum of industry is heard in field and city. An American free school under the shadow of “ St. Peter’s” is reproducing its master work on Italian character. O! our wand of power shall yet touch all lands in darkness, and out from the deep sea shall roll the rising sun of universal enlightenment, till all Europe be for God and liberty; all Asia for God and liberty; all Africa for God and liberty; all America, from pole to pole for God and liberty! This is not the rhapsody of enthusiasm. The seed is sprouting already and the harvest is near. At a Bhudist meeting held lately in Japan to protest against Christianity, one of the speakers said: “Of lately the progress made by this sect has been marvelous, and may be compared to a fire sweeping over a plain, which constantly increases in power.” On our own continent the value of Christian civilization is seen by the intelligent of other nations; the young republic of Guatemala acknowledges the fact that the principles which makes America great are the only moral forces which can place that country on a level with the United States and England, and so President-General Barrois has welcomed the new missionary schools opened there by the Presbyterians. Ah! here is revealed who are instrumental in thrilling other peoples with a knowledge of the grand possibilities before them. Some modern wise-acres may think little of Christianity, but our highest culture has produced not one unchristian scholar who has toiled on other fields in humanity’s behalf.
Who are the heroes who battle for universal morality and the upliftal of the wretched? A noble army of men and women, bred in our schools and baptized in our churches, who have gone forth to toil among the ignorant in our towns and cities, inciting them to lead chaste lives and follow higher aims. A noble band, who have left all that is dear to them and the comforts of home, to labor in American wilds and deserts,
[20]
driving back barbarism from our frontiers. A corps of godly patriots, who have dared the perils of ocean, and malaria of African jungle that Christ’s kingdom might push on the progress of universal humanity. O! Christian scholarship has exhibited traits known by no other faith. Christianity does not merely pity the starving man and then pass on. Christianity does not aim for proselytes, whose only ability will be to repeat Ave Marias and count beads. Wherever Christianity goes it carries the pickaxe and plow, and when it puts the Bible into a savage’s hand it places besides that Bible the grammar, and spelling-book; and arithmetic, and when Christianity by its coadjutors’ utensils helps till the soil, it also cultivates the native’s brain, and helps mold his moral nature, and ere long the subject is civilized. The school-room, blest of God, has wrought out this century of humanity. Once woman was treated as a slave and toy, but as Christianity brought the race out from the gloom of the dark ages, and began to educate men they began to understand the true nobility of womanhood; and now we not only reverence woman as queen of our hearts and homes, but we admit her capability to occupy chairs with the great and learned; aye, this century has the honor of swinging open the doors of college and seminary for woman’s entrance. Then again at the beginning of this century slavery existed throughout the world. Russian, Austrian and Hungarian peasantry were slaves. Scotland bought and sold her workmen. America dealt in human flesh. Even as late as 1812 an Englishman could sell his wife as merchandise. Who spoke the first word for reform? Christian education in England brought forth a Moses in William Wilbeforce, who thundered: “thus saith God, let my people go,” and six hundred thousand slaves in the Indies went forth free! His spirit leaped the sea, and fired the “old man eloquent,” and Lincoln answered the wail from the cotton fields of the South, and the shackles were broken asunder, and four million bondmen wept in the sunlight of liberty! the genii of reform clave the air and stalked into the palace of the Czar and twenty three million serfs were acknowledged men. How mightily the wheel of progress has turned!
No one cared for the insane till 1784. Now we build palaces for them. No one had a sympathetic throb for the blind till 1787. Now we provide teachers, and books, and seminaries, and the blind can feel the progress of humanity. No one thought of the deaf and dumb till 1794. Now our education has given them an alphabet and language, and their souls are no longer chained prisoners in clay dungeons. Our school-room stands beside Christianity, and shares in the glorious moral triumph of the nineteenth century. Our school-room has assisted all
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great enterprises, and aided all grand reforms. To-day, the world is still marching on, and the demand for men of nerve and brain has not ceased. It asks for the school graduate who shall be able to solve the relationship between capital and labor; it asks for the cultured brain which shall unriddle the problem of political reform; it asks for the large-hearted man, who shall speak for the waifs and paupers; it asks for moral Hercules who shall deal giants’ blows to the social evils of the day; the world asks for genius and courage united in men—true men—and the school-room is its hope! And the teacher—. Oh! how grand his privilege. He is to put powder into the shell. He is to give the brain its ammunition. How royal will be the reward of that one, who following in the footsteps of the “Great Teacher,” whose school-room was the universe, toils to lead immortal souls to the highest aims of life.
And America, my country? Yes; thy list of heroes shall be lengthened, grandly lengthened. Thy birth throes are not in vain; from the farm, and shop, and factory, and school shall come those who will honor thee by their sonship. Dark hours may come and thou mayest weep tears of blood, but thou shalt not be destroyed! From the north, south, east and west thy children shall gather about thee, and with sinewy arm and noble heart drive back thy foe. Thy flag so beautiful shall yet from thine own mast-heads wave over every sea and shadow every land, until in the length and breadth of the world, respected and honored, the rudest nation shall cry: “Behold! America’s token, the mother of free men!”
Next followed the poem of the day, read by its author, Mrs. IDA W. BENHAM. It was replete with common sense and humor, hitting-off the changes which have occurred during the last fifty years. Appended is also a verbatim report of this excellent production.
[22]
POEM,
READ BY
Mrs. IDA W. BENHAM, of
Ledyard, Ct.
------------------
The years have flown, the changeful years have flown;
Full half a hundred strokes the iron Bell
Hath tolled from Time’s great belfry: laugh and moan,
The bridal peal, the solemn funeral knell,
Watch-word of hope, voices of love and care
Meet in the echoing notes and fill the air
With sweet reverberations. Who can tell
The clanging changes of the unwearied Bell?
That rings above the hurrying tide of men?
Or who can gather up the years again?
Once gone, once gone from Time’s alluvial shore
The vanished years come back to us no more.
And yet the gentle touch of memory
Unseals the past, and like a dream we see
The backward gliding phantoms of old days;
And with hushed hearts we tread the twilight ways
Where once our feet with free and lightsome bound
Stepped merrily; a silence, deep, profound,
Lies round us as we go; and to our view
Old scenes start up with lessons strange and new—
Old joys a meek and chastened aspect wear;
Fear turns to hope; each haggard grief and care
Becomes a guiding angel. Ah! the years
Have made a rainbow even of our tears;
And where we walked, and did not understand,
We see, on looking back, God’s guiding hand.
How wide a past converges to this hour!
How many summer suns have nursed the flower
That blooms upon this wide green field to-day.
A true, indigenous product of the soil,
Its sweet and grateful bloom repays the toil
Of busy seasons. Look on us, we pray,
Teacher beloved! Our lives have hither grown
[23]
Beneath your fostering gaze. Behold your own,
Your pupils, friends, companions, —every one
With debt of gratitude for service done;
For gentle guidance, neighborly good deed,
Uplifting touch, and hearty word—God speed!
See us all here, responsive to your call;
Gladly we come, all here—and yet, not all.
For fifty years are checked with light and shade,
And in the shadows many a child is laid.
Our hearts are weeping for the loved ones fled, —
The kind, the beautiful, the early dead.
And yet we will not weep them overmuch,—
God’s chastening hand hath healing in its touch;
The Friend who gave hath taken them away,
And, missing them, we can but trust and pray
That in the guidance of a Father’s love
We all may meet our lost in Heaven above.
Since love unites the faithful everywhere,
Are they not here? And, friends, are we not there?
Then let us smile and be of grateful cheer,
And say with reverent tone we are all, all here.
We meet, the young, the old, the grave, the gay;
Men have been born, men have grown old and gray
Since he we come to honor went his way
On his first quest of knighthood, stout and bold,
As they who bore the shield and lance of old.
No bloody combat fired his chivalry;
Fair Wisdom’s chosen liege, he burned to be
A worthy champion in her faithful train;
Well has he toiled and long—and not in vain.
We see him in those days, a boy in years,
Not long from school, with all the hopes and fears,
The bounding hopes, the courage warm and high
Of those who seek the battle, fain to try
Life’s unused weapons. On his brow was youth,
Untainted honor and unsullied truth;
And in his heart a high resolve to fill
A noble part, let come good or ill.
A moment, friends, turn with us and look back
Along the downward grade of life’s long track.
See! though we are apt to think the times were slow,
The Past was present fifty years ago;
And life was all alive with work and play,
Courting and politics—as ‘tis to-day.
Great questions then were pending; why, in sooth
[24]
Our giant nation justified its youth.
Webster’s last speech, and Jackson’s policy
Were criticised with tongue and pen as free
As any modern demagogue can show, —
The world was moving fifty years ago.
And oh, to think what wondrous strides apace
Had marked the progress of the human race!
Were there not railroads piercing to the wild?
The West was colonized, the desert smiled;
To far Ohio, and the unknown verge
Stretched out its plains and limpid lakes to urge
The venturesome Yankee on a doubtful quest
To brave the desert and get rich “out West.”
Even then the modern telegraph was plain
(In embryo form, of course,) to Morse’s brain;
Thought out in ‘32, the plan was given
To an astonished world in thirty-seven.
The very air was scintillant with thought,
Surcharged with force electrical, and. fraught
With prophecies of wonders yet to be.
Daguerre, the artist, dreamed across the sea,
Sure that at last the kind and liberal sun
Would paint his portraits for him; it was done, —
Apollo stooped to earth, the artist won.
And then, as now, men turned a backward gaze
And scanned, with pitying eye, the good old days,
And wondered at their fathers’ ancient ways,
And marvelled how their grandmas could bear
Such awkward styles of dressing feet and hair,
And thought that queues were curious things to wear.
Ah, lads and lasses dear, there’s little doubt
The good old fashions you’re inclined to flout
Were just as stylish, just as trim and neat
As those one sees this summer on the street.
The manners were as modish then as now;
All girls must curt’sy, and all boys must bow;
Superiors were honored in the speech,
And etiquette walked stiff from each to each, —
While merit oft gave place to tinselled show
In modern fashion, fifty years ago.
But, then as now, no worthier task was found
Than teaching school; in all the circle round
The “master” stood, by general consent,
Peer of the preacher and the president
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And bows and curt’sies followed where he went.
And who, indeed, can boast a loftier station
Than he who moulds the future of a nation?
Where e’er a sovereign people holds the rule
The line of true succession is the school.
Even in those days, the curious may be sure
The teacher’s office was no sinecure.
Pens he must make and mend, and copies write,
The while no latent fun eludes his sight—
Pins strangely bent, or paper balls in flight.
A group of little children round his knee
Make lisping music with their a, b, c;
While well-grown youths, and maidens tall and shy
On awful Murray fix a wondering eye,
Then fall to work, as if to do or die.
The English Reader, with its classic pages
Brimmed with the learning of scholastic ages;
Noah Webster’s Spelling Book, which held in one
So many good things underneath the sun;
Daboll’s Arithmetic—but why expound
The whole quaint catalogue of school books found
In Flanders, and in all the region round.
It matters little—for the master rules,
And the skilled workman justifies his tools
Where e’er you put him, in or out of schools.
The school-day gone, the teacher takes his way
To some quaint farm house, weather-worn and gray,
Where he shall test what virtue may be found
In the time-honored scheme of boarding ‘round.
Ah! when the teacher comes bring out your best,-
The home-spun linen from the fragrant chest,
The finest blankets and the brightest spread
To crown the deep and fluffy feather bed.
Stir up the fire, and pile the iron dogs
With pitch pine knots and fragrant hickory logs.
Shake up the big chintz cushion for his chair,
Set the long table with most liberal fare;
Let the rye loaf be flanked with wheaten bread
Of finest flour; and let the cloth be spread
With true blue crockery, and silver spoons,
And pewter basins—bright as harvest moons.
The bees have piled their sweetness for this feast;
For this the autumn fruitage was increased;
For this the fields gave forth those rich supplies
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Transmuted by the wisdom of the wise
Into baked beans and golden pumpkin pies.
“Pass ‘round the seed cakes; help yourself to cheese;
And have a sugared doughnut, if you please.”
The supper over, bring the Morris board
And fox and geese—whatever games afford
Safe recreation for the sober mind
To Puritanic principles inclined,
Which in our old New England homes we find.
Stories are told, and sober jests go ‘round,
For in all times and climes it hath been found
That folks would have their fun though zealots frowned.
The evening wanes; the hearty good nights said,
A tallow candle lights the guest to bed.
Its flame, a ruddy pennant, falls and flares
In the cold wind that rushes down the stairs.
The wide, low chamber, with its oaken beams
Presents a peaceful back-ground for the dreams—
The dreams and prayers which shortly fill the room
With incense, as of hidden flowers in bloom.
What were those prayers? May we not find at need
Their substance is that living, helpful creed
Of work and love, which all who will may read.
In each man’s works his tenets we may see,
And, as he prays, no doubt his life shall be.
What is the lesson in the text we scan?
This life of active labors, with its span
Of fifty years? Do good, do good to man;
With honest aims, pure thoughts and single heart
Take solid hold on life, and do your part;
Let your clean touch give dignity to work—
For neither man nor nature loves the shirk—
It needs no heralds up and down the earth,
No brazen trumpets to proclaim true worth.
Nor is the close arena with its strife
The fittest entrance into public life.
Dig your foundations deep, and lay them sure,
That so your after labors may endure;
And question not when hopes are overthrown
But God in heaven knows and keeps His own.
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After dinner, a duet of song, by Prof. GRIEST and Mr. G. W. HARRIS, re-opened the exercises in the tent; then came a short poem by Miss MARY MCGUIRE, and an acrostic, written by Mrs. MARIA ALLEN. Mr. ELISHA MCGUIRE, a former pupil, in behalf of friends and teachers, made a neat speech, presenting Mr. LAMB with a handsome gold watch and chain, to which the receiver made a fitting response. Other presents from the master’s scholars followed, by the hand of the Chairman of the Day.
The Rev. J. A. GALLUP said he had been some time a student with Mr. LAMB,
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| Wightman Burial Ground, Cold Spring Road, Groton, CT |
Mr. TIMOTHY A. AVERY acknowledged his indebtedness to Mr. LAMB for his first start in learning. In mathematics and grammar he knew just when to assist, and how much. Judge WM. H. POTTER, for twenty-eight years a teacher, endorsed all that had been said of Mr. LAMB; and thought, that in addition to his qualifications of head and heart we should give due weight to the sterling common sense that had characterized his intercourse with all his associates and scholars. The speaker had been associated, as a fellow student at Bacon Academy in 1835, when a five o’clock morning recitation was part of the discipline of the summer term. He bad, also, a pleasant experience of more than thirty years with him in the Board of Education in Groton, and two years with him as a colleague teacher in a graded school—in all which the upright faithfulness and success of the man and the instructor were prominent, and between them had sprung up the affection of brothers. Hon. J. J. COPP, another former pupil, and member of the Board of School Visitors of Groton, brought in resolutions expressive of the appreciation of Mr. LAMB’S scholars, and their sentiments of esteem for his faithful instructions. They were unanimously passed. Major J. AUSTIN LAMB, a teacher of seventeen years’ service, bore witness to many facts and incidents connected with that time when he held the sceptre of power and learning in the historical little red school-house. From this humble fountain of learning he could count fifty-seven teachers that had gone forth. Ledyard was proud of the record of that school. Mr. A. P. TANNER, another student under Mr. LAMB, now a member of the New London County Bar, also addressed the assembly, with his usual eloquence, in commendation of the Orator of the Day’s sentiments, and of the abilities of his old school-master. After a neat
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speech by Mr. FRED E. WHIPPLE, the Rev. A. J. MCLEOD, of Groton, pronounced the benediction.
In the large congregation present were Rev. HOMER A. KING, and Rev. JOHN AVERY, and many other prominent citizens of Groton and Ledyard, who paid their respects during the day to him whose anniversary we celebrated.
The fiftieth anniversary in honor of SAMUEL S. LAMB’S entrance upon his life-work as a teacher of the public schools, was observed on the 16th of August, at his home in Groton. Notwithstanding the inclement weather there was a large attendance of his former pupils and patrons—some six hundred in all. Had the day been pleasant there would no doubt have been as many thousands. The large audience gathered under a large tent in a lot adjoining the house. The exercises commenced a little before twelve o’clock with music by a select choir led by SIMEON GALLUP, of Mystic. A very fine oration, eloquently delivered by Rev. Mr. RICHARDSON, of New London, set forth the excellencies of our public school system in its influence upon the nation’s greatness. Mrs. IDA WHIPPLE BENHAM read a poem adapted to the sentiments of the occasion. At one o’clock the services were adjourned for lunch. Mr. LAMB, as host, had invited some of the elderly matrons of his earlier teaching years to be his guests on the occasion. An abundance of hot coffee and tea was provided for the general public. After lunch the audience reassembled and listened to brief addresses from former pupils and others. Among those who took part were Rev. JAMES GALLUP, Madison; Hon. Wm. H. POTTER, ELISHA W. MCGUIRE, TIMOTHY A. AVERY, Miss HAMMOND, Miss ELLEN GALLUP, A. P. TANNER, J. J. COPP, JOSEPH LAMB, TIMOTHY WHIPPLE, FRED WHIPPLE. Mr. COPP, in behalf of the Committee, read the following:
We,
the former pupils of SAMUEL S. LAMB, assembled on this fiftieth anniversary of
his entrance upon his life-work as a teacher of public schools, do unanimously
indorse the following resolutions:
First—We declare that there is no
higher or more useful calling than that of a teacher, none more necessary for
the good of society and the stability of free governments; and he who fills the
office of a teacher for a long period of years with fidelity is worthy of being
honored as a benefactor of mankind.
Second—We declare that SAMUEL S.
LAMB is such a teacher, and we hereby make grateful acknowledgment to him for
his fidelity to us in our childhood and youth, in imparting to us the rudiments
of a good English education, and in impressing upon us the precepts of religion
and morality; and we do make a record of our indebtedness through life for the
instructions so faithfully given.
Third—We rise up to honor our
friend on this fiftieth anniversary, for the singleness of purpose, the zeal,
the kindliness, the success with which he has prosecuted his life-work as a
teacher of common schools in our county.
Fourth—We supplicate the blessing
of heaven upon him, and pray that his labors may be continued among us for many
years to come, and at length may he receive from the Great Teacher the welcome
plaudit, “ Well done, good and faithful servant, enter thou into the joy of thy
Lord.”
JOHN J. COPP,
TIMOTHY A. AVERY,
ELISHA W. MCGUIRE,
Committee on Resolutions.
ELISHA
MCGUIRE presented Mr. LAMB, in behalf of his pupils and friends, with a
handsome gold watch. Other gifts Were also presented the host as tokens of
appreciation and respect. Mr. LAMB stated that in his fifty years’ experience
as a teacher, he has never asked for a school. He has taught more than one
thousand pupils, has received seven thousand dollars in payment. He has taught
nine years, or winters in the Second or Pleasant Valley District, Groton, and
fifteen years in the Lamb District, Ledyard. Mrs. BELTON A. COPP, Mrs. ORLANDO
BAILEY, Mrs. JASPER LATHAM, Mr. and Mrs. JAMES M. TURNER, Mr. and Mrs. E. W.
BAILEY, Mrs. MOSES O. BAILEY we noticed were present from the Pleasant Valley
District to honor the teacher who made that school celebrated between 1840 and 1850,
as the banner district of Groton.
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