The recollections of these school-days are full of little incidents
confirmatory of these views. I will relate one out of a thousand I
might enumerate. A very pretty little girl of eight years, full of life
and spirit, had incurred, by some act of childish mischief, the penalty
of the switch--the only and universal means of correction in the
country schools. She was the favorite of a lad of twelve, who sat
looking on, and listening to the questions propounded to his
sweetheart, and learning the decision of the teacher, which was
announced thus: "Well, Mary, I must punish you."
All eyes were directed to William. Deliberately he laid down his books,
and, stepping quickly up to the teacher, said, respectfully: "Don't
strike her. Whip me. I'll take it for her," as he arrested with his
hand the uplifted switch. Every eye in that little log school-house
brightened with approbation, and, in a moment after, filled with tears,
as the teacher laid down his rod and said: "William, you are a noble
boy, and, for your sake, I will excuse Mary." Ten years after, Mary was
the wife--the dutiful, loving, happy wife of William; and William,
twenty years after, was a member of the Legislature, and then a
representative in Congress, (when it was an honor to a gentleman to be
such,) and afterwards was for years a Senator in the same body--one of
Georgia's noblest, proudest, and best men.
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