School bell

“ For us the bell upon the Old Red School-house calls in vain. We heed it not, we that hearkened for it years ago. The living tide of youth flows toward the school-house, and we are not of it. Never again shall we sit at those old desks, whittled and carved with rude initials, and snap our fingers, eager to tell the answer. ”

“ The children, who have been out walking on this early spring morning, hear the bell and begin to run toward it. Some of them see the school and shout and beckon the others. In their hurry, they spread out and fill the clearing with flashes of color and expectation. ”

“ The first bell would notify the teacher or teachers, if there are more than one in the school, that the time for their respective recitations is drawing to a close. At the second bell the new classes should take their places without waiting to be called for. The scholars will thus see that the arrangements of the school are based upon system, to which the teacher himself conforms, and not subjected to his own varying will. They will thus not only go on more regularly, but they will themselves yield more easily and pleasantly to the necessary arrangements. ”

“ Next morning the trio of bell chimes, in the tower of the college chapel, hurled clanging, throbbing scales-of-three over the quiet campus. Immediately from the doorways of dormitories, boarding clubs, and the Commons, appeared chatting groups of students who took the paths [301] across the campus towards the first chapel service. From the North, the South, the East and the West they hurried; hundreds and hundreds of well-dressed youths, arm in arm or four and five abreast as they walked. ”

“ Already in the schoolhouse window lights have long been visible, and within half an hour after the bell-ringing, whether it be misty or rainy, or under the slanting rays of the autumn sun, there will be seen crossing the rolling country the village is separated from the school by a ravine dark little figures in twos or threes, or separately. ”

“ The little voices all joined in repeating the Lord's Prayer, after which they sung a verse of the hymn,—
"There is a happy land,
Far, far away,
Where saints in glory stand,
Bright, bright as day."
After this, they pass down from the gallery, and march along to their seats. For the [29] next half hour the school is quite still, while the pupils are studying the reading and spelling lessons: when the bell strikes again, they march out in order to the front of the chair where their teacher sits. ”

“ The Bell, or Church School, also built in 1814, and accommodating about 200 scholars of both sexes, formed the nucleus of the present Church National Schools. These two schools, the Lancasterian or British, and the Bell or Church School, are the only public elementary schools, named in the Gazetteers for many years, except the Watson Charity School, already described. ”

“ A chord on the piano is better than a bell. Piano signals should be arranged so that a signal given in a certain way always means the same thing. The superintendent's rising in his place, or, if standing, simply raising his hand, should be signal enough to secure the attention of any school. It will be, if the school is properly trained, and so seated as to be able to see a signal. ”

“ Presently a bell rang, and they all trooped into school. This consisted of a large, long room at opposite ends of which two under-masters conducted the second and third forms, and of a smaller one, leading out of it, used by Mr. ”

“ Although I do not recollect where the hand bells are used in town, yet I have more than once lately heard it mentioned in Fenchurch-street and its neighbourhood, that the ringers were in the practice of amusing themselves with hand bells at a public-house where they assembled for the purpose of practising; and it is more than probable, that some of your readers in that neighbourhood can furnish you with further particulars.
In most of the towns in the west of England, they have a custom of ringing one of the church bells (generally the treble bell) in the morning and evenings. ”

“ Hence such pranks as cutting out the tongue of the college bell, of which two or three tongues still preserved in university club-rooms are reminders; hence, also, the effort made by members of my own class to fill the college bell with cement, which would set in a short time, and make any call to morning prayers and recitations for a day or two impossible—a performance which caused a long suspension of several of the best young fellows that ever lived, some of them good scholars, and all of them men who would have walked miles to attend a really inspiring lecture. ”

“ So many of us hang about the child’s mind, in a timid sort of way, hesitating to go in. We look up at the windows, we peep through the letter-box, we try the back door, we ring the bell very gently—the left-hand bell, which is marked Servants; we dare not ring the visitors’ bell, nor ply the knocker. ”

“ No single chapter can contain all of the progressive notes that are being sounded in American Elementary Education; yet it is possible, after some arbitrary picking and choosing, to describe a number of the most typical and most successful educational innovations. At the bottom of most up-to-date elementary school systems is the kindergarten. Not so often as it might be, but still frequently, the child begins school work there. The games, the songs, the children’s sports of these kindergarten years, make a joyous entry-way into the grades. ”

“ As the last strains of the music died away the sophomores sent their class yell echoing through the gymnasium. It was answered by the various yells of the other classes, given with true High School fervor. Each class trying to outdo the other in the making of noise. ”

“ There is no ‘plucking at the bells’ for recreation and exercise. Church-ringers with us have degenerated into [Pg 80] mercenary performers. In more than one parish where there are beautiful bells, I was told that the village youths took no interest whatever in bell-ringing, and had no desire to enter upon change-ringing. ”

“ A striking contrast was this to the kindergarten of the twentieth century!
Our picture shows us a corner of a dame school where a naughty child is in a fit of temper. The rough board walls, with great projecting beams, show how little thought was given to schoolroom adornment in those days. The high bench, without back, is as uncomfortable a seat as one could imagine. ”

“ Is there not a music in that sound that reminds you of those [171] sublime tones which broke from angel lips when the news of the child Jesus burst on the hill-tops of Bethlehem? For the tones of that bell now come pealing, pealing, pealing, “Independence now and Independence forever.”
CHILD LOST.
It used to be a custom to have a man go through the town ringing a bell and “crying” any thing was lost. You should imitate the crier, at the same time swinging your hand as if ringing a bell. This selection requires a great variety in the manner, pitch of the voice and gestures of the reader. ”

“ Our heroes, fancying the looks neither of the matron’s hall nor of the lobby upstairs, deemed it prudent to retreat as quickly as possible to the junior schoolroom, there to await, in the calm atmosphere of expectant scholarship, the ringing of the twelve o’clock bell. ”

“ The time for the recess is a quarter of an hour, and, as you will see, it is marked R. on the schedule. We have various modes of amusing ourselves, and finding exercise and recreation in recesses. Sometimes the girls bring their battledores to school. Sometimes they have a large number of soft balls with which they amuse themselves. A more common amusement is marching to the music of the piano. For this purpose a set of signals by the whistle has been devised, by which commands are communicated to the school. ”

“ The Kindergarten itself, with its response to the natural desire of childhood to make things and to do things and to act together in the play rehearsal of activities of later life, was a testimony that the school was to be called upon from henceforth to do what in the older time was done within the home and to do it better than the home had succeeded in doing. ”

“ The climax of our visit came when we returned to the entrance hall which we found crowded by public school children, all listening to an orchestra composed of certain of their number, and led by a young girl about fourteen years of age. It seemed to me a remarkable and beautiful combination. The marbles and pictures, the music, and, best of all, the children happily wandering about the place. When the program ended there was ice-cream for everybody, served by the teachers who accompanied the children. ”

“ If we visit a well-conducted Gymnasium in a school, we find rhythmic pulsation exhibited in the exercises in more than one form. In some, a limb is sharply thrown out from the body, and immediately and rapidly withdrawn. In others, the pupils assume slowfy some extreme and even exaggerated position; usually one which would be condemned in the class-room as disorderly. Now it does not occur to the Lady Principal to reprove the teacher for thus reversing the orders given by her, nor to bring an accusation of defying her commands and teaching the pupils to set her authority at naught. ”

“ A country singing-school—who, that has ever attended one, is not carried back to some of the most delightful scenes of his earlier years by the mere mention of the name? What visions of early playmates and schoolmates, of bright moonlight rides, with the merry chimes of bells and shouts of joyous hearts, as group after group from different families was gathered for the school, and crowded into the capacious sleigh—mothers' warm, home-made mittens, stockings, and flannels, and all the buffalo-robes in the neighborhood, bidding defiance to an atmosphere at zero! ”

“ And then the narrow cloakroom, haunted with limp, hanging coats and caps and hats, and finally the entry into the schoolroom, seated rank on rank with priggishly complacent schoolmates, looking up from their books with unfriendly eyes of blame at the figure of the late-comer.
AH over that section of La Chance, during the hour between half-past seven and half-past eight in the morning, the families of school children were undergoing a most rigorous discipline in regularity and promptness. ”

“ The favorite tricks of getting a horse or cow into the recitation rooms, fastening the tutors in their rooms just before the class hours, tying up, or stealing, the bell which used to wake the students and call them to prayers or recitations, with rare and perilous excursions into the civic domain, or a fire alarm caused by setting fire to the outhouses, which always brought down on us the wrath of the firemen, varied the monotony of the student life, as everywhere else ”

“ The courses of study have been enriched, increased attention is given to vocational work, and music and art receive attention impossible in the district schools. Eleven of the schools have orchestras, and concerts are held which the community as well as the schools attend. There are auditoriums used for community lectures and concerts, Sunday- school conventions, community sings, parent-teachers' meetings, and exhibits of various kinds. ”

“ Thus we see that this second section in the great institution of learning fills in the elementary framework, enriches the fund of information, adds a considerable amount of culture, and paves the way for the more liberal training to follow in the next section.
The Gymnasium succeeds and builds directly upon the work of the middle school. Its function is to provide a liberal culture and education suited to the needs and desires of those who become in large part the leaders in all phases of political, professional, or other social careers. ”

“ At best the kindergarten reaches but a few. Even in cities which boast of a system of organized kindergartens, only a small portion of the children attend them. On the other hand, since practically all school children enter the grades, it is on them that an inquiry into elementary education must be focused. ”

“ The idea of a kindergarten, usually regarded as a small part of the school program, has been evolved until, in this one city, it is a potent influence, working on children, teachers, parents and public opinion. ”

“ Every evening after sunset, when the most wonderful soft light is in the sky and it is very still everywhere, the old bell in the steeple chimes out over the village and the fields around. No one quite knows what the evening bell sings, but the tone is so beautiful that everyone stands still and listens. ”

“ I suppose the craze for competitive examination in every department of life may account for this new development; anyhow, there were the matches to come off—so the bills assured us—in the village schoolroom, of all places, which was thrown open for this purpose, and for dancing, at sunset. Hither, then, I repaired from the vicar’s fields, where the sports had been held, in the wake of a number of rustic couples and toffee-sucking children. The school is a lofty room, fifty feet long, with a smaller class-room as transept at the upper end, along which ran a temporary platform. ”

“ Knowing that large numbers of you were not yet provided with watches, the regents very thoughtfully provided the bell, and a man to ring it for you at the proper hours; and they will doubtless be pleased to learn that you at last feel able to dispense with it, and save them the expense of maintaining it. You are trying an interesting experiment. In most of the leading European universities, students get along perfectly without a bell; why should we not? ”