The Witch of Blackbird Pond Education Quotes

“I suppose it was foolish for a tanner’s son even to think about Harvard,” John told her. “It was six miles to the school, and my father never could spare me for more than a month or so out of the year. He wanted me to learn, though. He never minded how long I burned the candles at night.”

“You mean you worked all day and studied at night? Was it worth it?”

“Of course it was worth it,” he answered, surprised at her question. “I was set on college. I finished all the requirements in Latin. I know the Accidence almost by heart.” (2.14-16)

“You can read that?” he questioned, with the same amazement he had shown when she had proved she could swim. “How did you learn to read when you say you just ran wild like a savage and never did any work?”

“Do you call reading work? I don’t even remember how I learned. When it was too hot to play, Grandfather would take me into his library where it was dark and cool, and read to me out loud from his books, and later I would sit beside him and read to myself while he studied.” (2.52-53)

What patience Mercy had! If only patience were contagious like mumps. Kit signed and turned back to the primer. Of all the dreary monotonous sermons! Grandfather would never have allowed her to learn from such a book. (9.7)

“You mean you know how to read already?”

“Naw. Pa wanted me to go to school, but Ma says I’m too stupid.” (11.14-15)

What excuse could she make to get into her trunks today? At the bottom of one of them, she had remembered, was a little hornbook. It had been a present, brought from England by friends of her grandfather’s. It was backed by silver filigree, underlaid with red satin, and it had a small silver handle. She had never really used it; she remembered how she had astonished the visitors by reading every letter straight off, but she had cherished the gift for its delicate craftsmanship. (11.32)

In this one thing they were all united. John loved to read out loud, and they were equally happy to listen. For all of them the days were filled with hard labor, with little enough to satisfy the hunger of their minds and spirits. The books that John shared with them had opened a window on a larger world. Perhaps each of them, listening, glimpsed through that window a private world, unknown to others. (11.71)

Tonight it was poetry. “These were written by a woman in Boston,” he explained. “Anne Bradstreet, wife of a governor of Massachusetts. Dr. Bulkeley feels they are worth to be compared with the finest poetry of England.” (11.72)

“A boy has to learn his numbers, but the only proper use for them is to find your latitude with a cross-staff. Books, now that’s different. There’s nothing like a book to keep you company on a long voyage.” (12.36)

“There was one about a shipwreck on an island in the Indies.”

Kit bounced up off the grass in excitement. “You mean The Tempest?”

“I can’t remember. Have you read that one?”

“It was our favorite!” Kit hugged her knees in delight. “Grandfather was sure Shakespeare must have visited Barbados. I suspect he liked to think of himself as Prospero.” (12.38-41)

She had memorized the hornbook in a few day’s time and sped through the primer. After that she had plunged headlong into the only other reading matter available, Hannah’s tattered Bible. Kit had chosen the Psalms to begin with, and slowly, syllable by syllable, Prudence was spelling out the lines, while Hannah sat listening, her own lips often moving with the child’s in the lines she remembered and could no longer read. (16.62)

“What is it?” asked Matthew.

“Looks like a sort of hornbook.”

“Who ever saw a hornbook like that?” demanded Goodman Cruff “’Tis the devil’s own writing.” (18.30-32)

“What can you read, child?”

“I can read the Bible.” (19.110-111)

She would go as a single woman who must work for her living. Her best chance, she had decided, lay in seeking employment as a governess in one of the wealthy families. She liked teaching children, and hopefully there might be a library where she could extend her own learning as well as that of her charges. Whatever befell, there would be a blue sky overhead, and the warmth and color and fragrance and beauty that her heart craved. (21.11)