Radio Script #301
Little Talks On Common Things
April 15, 1956
Did you ever wish you could find one word to express an idea that now takes several words? In spite of the richness of the English language, with its many synonyms giving fine shades of meaning, there are some things that cannot be identified by a single English word.
Perhaps our most commonly felt lack is that we have no word which means both he and she. Women don’t like it because we sometimes use the masculine pronoun to denote either sex. For instance, a sentence in the Colby College catalog says, “A student’s class standing is determined by the number of semester courses he has passed.” Si nce there are both men and women students at Colby, the pronoun “he” in that sentence is used in what is called the generic sense; that is, referring to both sexes; and is so used to avoid having to say “he or she”. What we rea Ily need is an enti re Iy different word.
For standard, polite use, especially in writing, we need a one-word
,
substitute for “boy friend”. By that expression we do not nean a fiance, nor do we imp Iy mere pi atoni c re I ati onsh ip. I n Vi ctori a’s ti me the word was “beauT!, in George Ill’s day it was “lover”, a word that now carries improper connotati ons. “Steady” is for teen-agers. The French, for this relationship, say “ami”, but the English equivalent Hfriend” is too vague. The woman in the case is called the fellow’s girl, but it sounds awkward when the woman is of middle age. “Sweetheart” is 01 d-fashi oned and senti menta I.
What causes the persistence of the ungrammatical “ain’tf!, in spite of a century of attack upon it in American schools? The incorrect contraction “a in ‘ttl pers i sts because we so bad Iy need one word to rep lace “am not”. “Am I not?” sounds affected and snobbi sh. “Aren’t I” j s comp lete Iy ungrammati ca I.
“A i n”t I” is worse. What sha II we say?
I-bw bad I y we need a word that means either brother or sister. Geneti c scientists tell us the word “sibling” has just that meaning. But how many ordinary people ever heard the word, which not even the scholars use in the sense that we need to cover. For, in fami lies, siblings belong to parents, but not to each other. Geneticists say, if a fami Iy has two boys and two gi r Is, that there are four sib lings in the fami Iy; they never say that one of the four chi Idren has three siblings.
Nowadays when “uh -uh” means both yes and no, when othe r grunts and groans have various interpretations, won’t someone come up with one single expressive word which means, “I acknowledge having heard what you just said”, instead of making every yes and every si lent nod imp Iy agreement with what was sai d?
All of us are fami liar with postmarks stamped on letters rnai led at rai 1- road stations and picked up by trains. The postal clerk in the mail car stamped such letters just as di d the c Ie rk ina post off ice. am to I d that the only example of such a rai Iway mai I stamp bearing the designation of two railroads was right here in Maine. Between 1848 and 1861 two slightly different rubber stamps were used on the rai I road between Port land and Watervi lie by way of Lewiston. One of these stamps read “A. & St. L. & A. & Kennbk R.R.”; the other said “Ac & St. L. & An & Kn R.R.”. Both meant the same two roads -the Atlantic and St. Lawrence and the Androscoggin and Kennebec.
The explanation is that between Portland and Danvi I Ie Junction, trains of the Androscoggin and Kennebec road ran over the tracks of the Atlantic and St. Lawrence, later ca lied the Grand Trunk.
It is probable that these rubber stamps were not used by what today are called railway mail clerks, because before the Civi I War few such clerks were attached to tra ins. Rather the rai I roads had what were ca lied route agents, who stamped mai I left at stations and put it on the train in charge of the conductor, certified by the Post Office Department to carry it.
The Androscoggin & Kennebec, chartered in 1845, opened from Danvi lie Junction to Lewiston on December 4, 1848, and almost exactly a year later, on December 3, 1849, the first train entered Watervi I Ie. In October, 1862 the A & K lost its separate identity, when it combined with the Penobscot and Kennebec to form the Maine Central.
Most of my listeners know that the public high school system, not only in Maine, but al lover New England, grew out of the old academy system, and that some of those academies with their private boards of trustees remain active today.
Before the rise of the high school movement in the 1870’s, education at public expense usually ended with what were cal led the common schools, roughly equivalent to the first eight grades of the present system. If parents wanted a chi Id to have education beyond the common school, the parents had to pay for it directly, not through their share in taxes.
Even before the Revolution private schools had developed with the specific purpose of preparing boys for col lege. The first of those schools had been the Roxbury Latin School and the Boston Latin School, preparing for Harvard, and the Collegiate School of New York, of which a Belgrade resident, Wilson Parkhi II, is now the headmaster, more than 300 years after its founding.
These schools took different names. In New Haven it was the Hopkins Grammar School; in other places they were cal led Institutes; but the favorite name was Academy. By 1800 there were several in the District of Maine, and their number had been greatly increased by the time Maine became a separate state in 1820.
It was not long before the academies turned to the legislature for state support. They got it, and continued to receive it by regular grants or by special resolves throughout the years. The State of Maine sti I I regards the academies as related to the public school system. Some of them are, in fact, quasi-public schools, serving communities in the place of high schools, by virtue of a contract between a town and the academy trustees.
The friendly, cooperative association of public and independent secondary schools in Maine has existed for so many years that few people know of the bitter feelings rampant in the decade before the Civi I War. Those feelings came to a head at the session~ of the 32nd Maine Legislature in 1853, and resulted in a report of the Committee on Education relating to the Academies. want to te I I you about that report ton i ght •
After a polite bow to the past, in which the report recognizes the necessity of the academy system in order to get any kind of advanced education under way in the early days, it goes on to show how the academies, by their very support from the state, were drawing pupils away from the public schools, because not content with giving advanced instruction, the academies were duplicating much of the content of the grammar school subjects. Then the report said: ”The evi Is resulting from the system of academies and other private instruction, heretofore encouraged and endowed by the State, are of almost universal observation. Maine should at once, by perfecting her system of public i nstructi on, so elevate the character of her common schoo I s as to render her system of free schools entirely adequate to the thorough education of her sons and daughters, giving to al I the chi Idren of the State, whether rich or poor, an educati on so comprehens i ve that they sha II be prepared to enter upon the varied duties of active life as enterprising citizens, and if such be the i r choi ce, to pursue with every preparatory qua Ii f i cat ion the pecu Ii ar studies of the learned professions.”
It is clear that by 1853 the principles of Jacksonian Democracy, espec- i a Ily its equa I opportunity for a II, regard less of wea Ith or bi rth, had taken a strong grip on Maine. The report goes on to say: “The academy idea holds that literature and science may flourish where only the wealthy few enjoy that kind of education. It is left for the many to toi I in agriculture and the mechanic arts. That idea is not justified under our democratic principles. No well-grounded hope for the education of the masses can be seen in the continuance of the academy system. No p ri vate enterpri se, however protected or endowed by the State, can be of un i ve rsa I ut iii ty • ”
The concl us ton of the report, whi ch was si gned by Senator Eli sha CI arke, chairman of the Committee on Education, brought the issue emphatically to the front. It said: “Finally, we unanimously recommend that hereafter no end~ment, in any form, be granted either to academies or to select private schools of any sort, but that a more generous policy be at once adopted and firmly carri ed out, in favor of our pub Ii c school sin every secti on of our state. f!
The resolve which the committee presented to the Legislature was phrased in even more pungent language: “Resolved, that in the opinion of this Legislature the policy of endowing academies and select schools, from the public funds, is a measure in di rect hosti Ii ty to the prosperi ty of our system of pubIi c schools, and should be no longer tolerated; and that hereafter a II endowments or donations of money or land, for the benefit of education, must be confined directly to the legitimate channels of public instruction.”
Apparent Iy the leg is I at i ve comm i ttee had underesti mated the strength of the academies with public opinion in Maine. Loud protest went up allover the state. The academies which had produced and were sti I I producing educated leaders of di sti nction were not wi II i n9 to take passi ve Iy th i s b low to the i r very exi stence.
As a result the resolve did not pass, and the academies continued to receive aid for another hundred years. Nevertheless the agitation did a lot of good. IT focused attention on the deficiencies of the common schools; it revealed the need of centralized agencies to supplant the outworn small, autonomous school district; and for the first Time it made our people conscious of the need for trai ned teachers.
Concerning that last need, the report of 1853 minced no words. It said:
1fBetter bui I di ngs, centra I i zed organ i zat i on, and othe r imp rovemenis are of no effect unless we have competent teachers. It cannot be too often repeated that it is the teacher that makes the school. fT
Then comes the novel suggestion — quite novel for 1853 — that the State estab Ii sh norma I schoo I s to trai n teachers. The report sai d: “We therefore suggest That the time has fully arrived when Normal Schools for the instruction of Teachers should form a fundamental part of our system of public instruction.
A supply of competent teachers must be regarded as the foundation stone of a I I rea limp rovement i n pub I i c educat ion. Educat ion is both asci ence and an art; and he who would excel as a teacher must have thoroughly investigated and mastered hi s profess ion.”
In characteristic, commendable Maine fashion, which dislikes revolution and prefers gradual, peaceful accommodation and adjustment, academies and high schools continued side by side, both performing useful functions, and giving constant testimony to the fundamental American belief that education is not solely the business of the State, but is equally the concern of the individual fami Iy, and that every fami Iy may make its own free, uncoerced decision whether its chi Idren shall attend public or privaTe schools.
Year: 1956