… One of the greatest orators in Congress once taught school in Lincoln?
Lincoln’s school year will soon be ending. Time to recall one of Lincoln’s famous teachers.
In May 1776, the town paid six pounds, thirteen shillings, and four pence to a recent graduate of Harvard to teach a “grammar school” in the North school house. The teacher was only 18 years old, which made him barely older than some of his students. But he would go on to serve as a member of the Massachusetts convention that ratified the country’s new Constitution in 1788. And much to his own astonishment, he would then defeat that savvy old patriot, Samuel Adams, in election to the first Congress held under the new Republic.
The young teacher was Fisher Ames, and during his four terms in Congress, Ames would acquire the reputation as one of the greatest orators of his era. As one of his biographers described:
“Mr. Ames possessed a mind of a great and extraordinary character. He reasoned, but he did not reason in the form of logic. By striking allusions, more than by regular deductions, he compelled assent. The richness of his fancy, the fertility of his invention, and the abundance of his thoughts were as remarkable as the justness and strength of his understanding.”
Lincoln had five school houses at the time — in the north, east, southeast, west, and in the center — and the town supported two forms of education. Grammar school was intended to prepare boys for college and was held in the winter when boys were less engaged in farm chores. For girls and younger children, education was offered during the summer in “women’s schools,” so called because they were taught by women (at exactly half the pay of the male teachers).
Ames taught grammar school in Lincoln for only a single four-month term. Probably just as well. Ames’ evolving views on education likely would not have found favor in Lincoln. “We have a dangerous trend beginning to take place in our education,” he remarked. “We’re starting to put more and more textbooks into our schools. We’ve become accustomed of late of putting little books into the hands of children, containing fables and moral lessons. We’re spending less time in the classroom on the Bible, which should be the principal text in our schools.” An interesting complaint about “too many books” from a man with a Harvard education.
Donald L. Hafner
The Lincoln Historical Society
October 2022
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