<\/p>\n
As many times as I have mentioned Coburn Classical Institute on this program, new items keep turning up. I have told you some time ago about Coburn’s renown principal in the early days when the school was called Waterville Academy. You may recall that he accepted the job in the 1840s without any guaranteed salary, dependent entirely upon how many pupils the school had, as his compensation was the tuition of two or three dollars paid by the pupils for each of the year’s three terms. Thus during the first five years on the job, Principal Hanson’s compensation seldom reached $300 a year.<\/p>\n
It is no wonder the man had to keep careful account of expenses, not only those paid for the school, but also for his personal household. Because he was paid by the term, Hanson’s method of keeping his personal accounts was for the same period. Extant is his account for the fall term of 1847. It cannot have been a complete record because, except for a single item it makes no mention of food. That item was “potatoes, peaches and gin, 38 cents.” He spent 70 cents for two yards of oilcloth, and 17 cents for a comb, $8.00 for an air-tight stove, 25 cents for medicine, $2.50 for a doctor’s bill, and $2.00 for a kerchief. For a daughter’s new shoes he paid 93 cents, and gave his wife $2.00 for a dress. Does 17 cents seem a peculiar price for a comb? That is explained by the value of the New England shilling after the coming of the U.S. dollars. The dollar was set as worth six New England shillings. It is important to emphasize the term New England, because allover the new nation the dollar was set at different British currency values in the different states. Keeping the shilling designation was especially valuable for setting prices in thirds of a dollar. So well into the nineteenth century some articles cost one shilling or two shillings, and sometimes four shillings. Converted into U.S. cents, the price would be the next unit above the fraction. So one shilling was 17 cents, two shillings 34 cents, five shillings 84 cents. The half and quarter fractions of a dollar quickly lost their shilling designations. It was just as easy to say half a dollar or fifty cents as it was to say three shillings, and much easier to say a quarter or twenty five cents than to say three shillings, sixpence. After the shilling designation disappeared entirely, the old one shilling price was often retained. That explains Hanson’s item of 17 cents for a comb.<\/p>\n
One reason why that 1847 account contained so few items may well be because Hanson paid cash for so few purchases. It is clear that he got payment of some of the tuition in goods rather than cash. Another record show’s the account with Joseph Marston who ran a general store in Waterville. Marston had two daughters in Dr. Hanson’s school, for whose tuition he owed Hanson $40 as the fall term got underway in 1848. Since tuition was only $3 a term, Marston must have owed Hanson for previous terms. In payment Hanson received from Marston 7 yards of calico, 4 yards of broadcloth, one yard of cashmere, 6 yards of sheeting, two yards of cotton flannel, 3 yards of doeskin, a broom and an umbrella.<\/p>\n
Before 1850 toll roads and toll bridges were common, although the toll fees were low. When Hanson recorded in 1848 he spent 65 cents for tolls to South China and back, he must have used some of it for a road toll, because the only bridges would have been over the Kennebec and the Sebasticook at Winslow.<\/p>\n
Hanson was a staunch Baptist and one of his 1848 expenditures was $3.00 for foreign missions. The only expenses for the school that the trustees assumed were upkeep of the building, fuel and repairs. Hanson had to be his own janitor or pay someone to do that work. He usually paid a student about 10 cents a day to stoke the fire in the stove and sweep out the two classrooms. The principal was authorized to augment his income by charging for the school’s catalogue, though he had to pay the printer for producing it. In 1847 that printing bill was $9.50, so it must have taken him some time to offset that expense, for he sold the catalogue at five cents each. He was also authorized to handle text books for rent but not for sale. William Mathews, the local stationer and bookseller would have made loud and probably effective protest if Principal Hanson had gone into competition with him in selling textbooks. However. some of the students came from families too poor to buy books, so most of Maine’s early academies set up a system of textbook rental. Principal Hanson would buy a few copies of each text used in his school, hold them as his personal property, and rent them out to pupils. One item in his account with Joseph Marston in 1848 reads “Use of books. 17 cents.” The record does not tell us how many books, but use of the plural shows it was more than one and the 17 cents was for an entire term.<\/p>\n
In another case Joseph Smith paid his children’s school charges by cleaning Hanson’s suit for $1.25 and giving him a valise worth $4.50. I have already mentioned that one of Hanson’s 1847 expenses was for gin. In 1849 he spent 30 cents for brandy. Bear in mind that this was before the time of Maine’s Prohibition law when prudent use of alcoholic beverages was so common that when a minister visited a home it was expected courtesy to offer him a glass of New England rum.<\/p>\n
That Hanson was a well informed reader is shown by his 1849 expenses for magazines and newspapers: $1.00 for the Bangor Gazette, $3.00 for the New York Observer, $1.00 for the Maine Farmer, and another dollar for the Common Journal.<\/p>\n
Listeners have heard me say that any observance of Christmas was uncommon in Maine until well into the 1850’s. Some pupils, however, did observe it earlier at home. It was public observance and recognition of the day as a holiday that came later. The Hanson record shows that in 1848 he spent $3.25 for Christmas presents for the family.<\/p>\n
Have you done any room decorating lately? If so, you know what inflation has done to the cost of decorative materials to say nothing of labor. Note what some decorating cost Dr. Hanson in 1849. Seven rolls of wallpaper cost him $2.63. He decided he would splurge on a new carpet that set him back $17.32. He says nothing about labor. He may have laid that carpet himself and may even have put on the wallpaper. Another Coburn record, dated 40 years later than the 1840 accounts, contains the marks given to students in the late 1880s. Though by that time an aged man, Dr. Hanson was still the school’s principal. Because only surnames, no first names were given, it is not easy to identify the students, but in some cases that can be done because a few years later the names appear on the list of Colby students, and in other cases at least the family name was familiar in Waterville.<\/p>\n
In 1884 Pepper received a term mark of 92 in Cicero and 94 in Latin composition, and 93 in Greek. That must have been Charles Hovey Pepper, son of George Dana Boardman Pepper, who a few years later was President of Colby. Charles Pepper became a nationally recognized portrait painter, and his portrait of his famous father is now at the college. Some of the classes a bit later than Pepper’s had students with marks even higher than his. In English Analysis Bassett and Powell each had a mark of 99, but in English Grammar Powell’s 99 was above Bassett’s 95. Bassett’s 98 in Caesar and 99 in Greek were a bit higher than Powell’s 96 and 97, but Bassett couldn’t touch Powell’s 100 in Algebra. Who were Bassett and Powell? Bassett was Norman Bassett, a graduate of Colby in 1891, nephew of Leslie C. Cornish, Chairman of the Colby Trustees and Chief Justice of the Maine Supreme Court. Bassett followed Cornish into the profession of Law, was himself appointed to the Maine bench and also served many years as a Colby trustee and head of its important committee on Buildings and Grounds. The high marks at Coburn were matched by equally high marks at Colby.<\/p>\n
Unlike Pepper and Bassett, Powell was not a male student. She was Hannah Powell who went on from Coburn to Colby in the Class of 1896. She became a Universalist minister, and in the first decade of this century was pastor of the Universalist Church which my family attended in Bridgton. After a career as missionary in the Carolina mountains, she retired and made her home in Waterville, sometimes preaching at the local Universalist Church. Her last years were spent in Waterville’s Sunset Home.<\/p>\n
Another name that appears with good marks in the old record book was Hall. That was Hascall Hall, son of Colby’s long-time librarian and Professor of Modern Languages, Edward Winslow Hall. Hascall Hall became known as a prominent Waterville banker who built the fine house on Silver Street later occupied by Dr. George Averill. Another high ranker was Flood. That was Miss Exerene Flood who won fame later for her monologues on the stage and her dramatic readings before various societies. She coached various groups that put on local productions at the Waterville Opera House. Another student who got 100 in Algebra besides Miss Powell was Morrill. Three Morrill sisters attended Coburn during those years, but this must have been Miss Clara, who herself later taught at Coburn as well as at several other Maine academies.<\/p>\n
Other Waterville names in the record are Dorr, Gallert, Perkins, Emery, Burgess and Noyes. A few others are perhaps more closely identified. Dunham was probably H. R. Dunham, 1886, founder of the clothing business that became the well known local and mail order firm of H. R. Dunham Company. Parmenter was Miss Harriet Parmenter, Colby 1889, a refined and dignified maiden lady who lived most of her life in the home on Winter Street, bequested to her by her uncle, Dr. Howard. Spencer was Charles Spencer, Colby 1890, son of Dr. William Spencer, who was for twenty years pastor of Waterville’s First Baptist Church. Charles Spencer earned a Ph.D. degree at Columbia University, and at the time of his death was Professor of History at the University of Nevada. His younger brother, Henry, Colby 1899, was prepared for College at Coburn. He, too, received a Ph.D. at Columbia, also entered college teaching, and for many years was Professor of Political Science at Ohio State University, the scene of many famous football teams frequently participating in the Annual Rose Bowl Game.<\/p>\n
Now in the few minutes left for this broadcast, let us have a lighter touch with a few bits of humor. Will Rogers once said, “The country is prosperous as a whole, but how much prosperity is there in a hole?” He also said of a public figure, “He drinks with impunity, and with anyone else who will drink with him.”<\/p>\n
In a restaurant where he heard a waiter call to the kitchen, “Stewed prunes at Table 4, tI Grcucho Harx shouted, “Give them black coffee; that will sober them up. ”<\/p>\n
Those bumbling remarks called Irish wit have some striking examples. Two men met in a hotel lobby. One says, “Did I meet you in Buffalo?” The other reflects, “I’ve never been in Buffalo.” Whereupon the first man says, “Neither have I, must have been two other fellows.”<\/p>\n
Another fellow says, “I bought some land near the Canadian border. I hope it is in the United States, I can’t stand the thought of those Canadian winters.”<\/p>\n
“What do you want for breakfast? I’ll have ham and eggs if I had any ham, but I haven’t got any eggs.”<\/p>\n
One Irishman says to another, “Don’t you know that Pat O’Brien was murdered ten years ago.” “Was he?” says the other Irishman. “Ah well, he’s lived it down by this time. He’s a good man is O’Brien.”<\/p>\n
Ida Tarbell, the biographer of the first John D. Rockefeller observed: “I’ve seen America spread from Atlantic to Pacific with a branch of Standard Oil in every tree.”<\/p>\n
And what about these quips? “Large loads move slowly. What about lies? Seems to me the bigger they are the faster they spread.”<\/p>\n
“A contented man is happy. Don’t you believe it. A mud turtle could fly if it had wings.”<\/p>\n
Let’s end this list with a definition of the telephone: “An invention of the Devil that takes away the advantage of having a disagreeable person kept at a distance.”<\/p>\n
Year: 1979<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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