WE folks that went to district schools Are 'bout the biggest set of fools I know of anywhere; We had a mile or more to go, We had to wash our slates with snow, And yet, the best of what we know We learned right there. That's why we ought to brace our feet And shout: No fancy school can beat The good old district "hut"; You've got to have a country school In country regions—any fool— A baby big enough to drool, Can crack that nut. A-carting children forth and back And 'long acrost the railroad track, Is "education," Eh! A-hiring wagons, sleds and sleighs, And busses, carryalls and drays, And driving 'round in forty ways, Is "schooling," Heh! When cartage costs the same about, Or more than teaching, "school is out;" The "system" then amounts, To making one department strain To lift another, which, it's plain, Might give the "Auditor" a pain In his accounts. Then, legislators, use your sense, And push this patent system hence, And give us back once more The little schoolhouse on the hill, Or down beside the cider mill, And see that it is reddish still With brownish door. Restore the schools our fathers planned, Give "number work" the bounce that's grand, Make "language talks" taboo; Let grammar cease to live in fear, Let spelling gently hover near, And mental 'rithmetic appear And ciphering, too. I'm told 'twas only here in May Our "educators," under pay, Employed a college hall And lunged such loads of highbrow guff, And absolutely piffling stuff, The janitor betongued 'em rough, High Priest and all. And so, I say, we're awful fools, We folks that went to district schools, With half our birthright gone, To let these "docs" with fancy kits, And more or less bewildered wits, Reduce the other half to bits While we look on. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...A LETTER TO HER HUSBAND, ABSENT UPON PUBLIC EMPLOYMENT by ANNE BRADSTREET THE DOVE by PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR AS I SIT WRITING HERE by WALT WHITMAN IMPROMPTU ON CHARLES II (2) by JOHN WILMOT PEBBLES by KENNETH SLADE ALLING DRUM TAPS TO HEAVEN by JAMES CHURCH ALVORD THE POET'S SHIELD by ARCHILOCHUS FRAGMENTS INTENDED FOR DEATH'S JEST-BOOK: SORROW by THOMAS LOVELL BEDDOES |