Otago goldrush and farm life
Our school is more like a house than anything else. It has a very formal set of desks in neat rows. The teacher is really tough. She has people in her class aged from 5 to 12 and to keep them quiet she is always using her stick and going ‘whack’ with it.
Mostly we go to school on horseback, and tie the horses at the gate.
What do we learn? Well firstly we learn our letters. And then we learn our multiplying tables. We have to recite them by memory. And sometimes we have stories and they seem to be always about the famous kings of the old days. We never hear much about New Zealand. In the playground we have a lot of drill.
On Sundays we go to school too, because Sunday is very strict, and all we are allowed to do is read the bible. We are not even allowed to clean our shoes. Sunday school actually has more people in it than ordinary school, because what else can you do on a Sunday...
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