Family History 4.31

Robinson story

Joshua Caleb's account continues

Joshua Caleb as a boy

Shortly before we again shifted, first to Parnell and then to Victoria Street, I had my first adventure. A long flight of steps led up to the front of our house and down this I rolled and broke my nose. Mother made it shapely again by often pinching and pressing it.

My first school was one conducted under the auspices of the Wesleyan Church, by a Mr Singer. His assistant, Miss Phillips, was the infant teacher. Our tuition cost a shilling a week (10 cents). Afterwards I was sent to a secular (ie non-denominational) school conducted by Mr Stables.

We boys on the way to school passed the gaol, then at the foot of Victoria Street, but although we have seen the scaffold being erected never witnessed an execution, as Mother kept us at home until the victim had paid his debt. Men were hanged in the public view as the sight was supposed to act as a deterrent to any would-be criminal. Public hangings were abolished when the gaol moved to its present site at Mt Eden.

At Mr Singer's school the elder boys sometimes taught the younger ones. On one such occasion the boy in charge summoned me to come out and be caned. There was a screen drawn across the middle of the room dividing the boys from the girls, but of course the girls had means of looking through it. My sister, then a big girl, heard this boy call me out and cane me. Immediately she left her place in class, walked up to the boy in charge of we youngsters and administered summary justice, by soundly slapping his face.

I was once very fond of a new velvet cap, so looked about at school for a new peg on which to hang it. When time of dismissal came I had forgotten where I put it. While I was hunting for it a boy gave me a shove and my ear hit hard on one of the wooden hat pegs. It caused me considerable pain, both then and a long time afterwards. Of course I forgot all about the cap.

When at Mr Stables' school he promised that anyone who could get to the top of his class and remain there for three days, would be promoted to the next class. I managed to stay at the top of my class for the required period, but because some of my work was not up to the required standard, he neglected to promote me. I remember the great anguish of soul I experienced over it, but although I thought it was an injustice at the time maybe it was for my good.

Mr Stables was a strict disciplinarian, yet once I placed several matches on the floor in such a way that anyone walking out would stand on them and cause them to explode. By and by a boy was called out , and at almost every step, bang went a match. There was a great uproar and I felt very guilty but of course when the teacher asked for the culprit I knew nothing of it. However someone told on me and I received the punishment so richly deserved.

I remember someone threw a cap up so that it lodged on the wall between the weatherboards and the lining, which ceased at about ten feet from the floor. Our teacher, seeing the cap there, determined to find out the perpetrator of this sin against school rules, so kept us in asking occasionally that the guilty party confess. He never did find out , for with evening came our parents wondering whatever could have happened and raised as it were the siege or blockade. I thought then that Mr Stables was very strict and determined, but he had his good points too and often neglected to punish us when we deserved.

We had a habit of doing sums on one side of our slates and of drawing cannon on the other. It was a proud boy that secured a slate pencil with a vein of red running through it, for in odd moments when the master was not too much in evidence, he would draw a cannon. We'd scrape some of the red part of our pencil into powder, place it in the cannon's mouth, then showing it to the next boy blow the powder over him. At times the master would wander casually down and sit beside a boy whom he had seen drawing on  his slate instead of doing his lessons. While examining his work, the master continually pinched the culprit and requested to be shown the work of art on the reverse side of his slate, and then with a final pinch order him to get on with his work.