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The Autobiography of a Working Man, by 'one Who Has Whistled at the Plough'
The Autobiography of a Working Man by 'one Who Has Whistled at the Plough' Author:Alexander Somerville General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1848 Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million book... more »s for free. Excerpt: CHAPTER III. The misfortune which befel me, as related in the last chapter, happened on a Friday. It was the custom at our school on that day to re-read all the lessons of the week, and say over again all the spelling lessons. The teacher kept slates with every pupil's name written on them, and against each name, he, during the week, put a mark for heing too late to school, for being deficient ia any lesson, or hymn, or question; and on the Friday he put a mark for each mistake in reading or spelling, on the afternoon of which day he read out the names, beginning with one which had no marks, if such there was, or with a name which had fewest, if there was no name with none. He gave a half-penny to each of those in junior classes whose names were read by him with the word " none," and to those of the superior classes he gave a penny, or more commonly a penny-worth of paper or quills. I had often got the half-penny, for I must do him the justice to say that he was impartial in allowing the best reader to get to the head of the class. I made little progress in arithmetic or writing, either at his school or elsewhere; but in reading and spelling, and in learning catechisms, psalms and hymns, I may be said to have rushed up, " ragged radical" as I was, like a weed that over-topped the most tenderly-nourished plants. Some of those who were in the shilling spelling-books when I went first to school with my two-penny book, had beenovertaken by me and left behind ; and I was now in a collection called the Tyro's Guide, which I had already mastered, every word of it, whether to read or spell, and should have p...« less