Muskegon High School - Said and Done Yearbook (Muskegon, MI)

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already seated in their places, and Mr. Hamel, who walked up and down with that terrible iron ruler under his arm. I had to open the door and enter in the midst of this great calm. You may well imagine whether I was red and whether I was afraid! Well, no! Mr. Hamel looked at me without anger, and said very gently: 5 Go quickly to your place, my little Frantz: we were just about to commence without you. I stepped over the bench and immediately sat down at my desk. Then, having somewhat recovered from my fear, I not- iced for the nrst time that our teacher had on his beautiful green frockcoat, his hnely pleated frill and his black silk em- broidered cap, which he wore only on days of inspection or awarding of prizes. Besides, there was something extraordin- ary and solemn about the whole class. But what surprised me most was that, in the back of the room, in the benches which were usually vacan t, the village people were seated, and, as silent as We, the old Hauser, with his three-cornered hat, the former mayor, the former postman, and also other persons, All these people seemed very sadg, and Hauser had brought an old primer, worn on the edges, and this he held wide open on his lap, with his big specks laid across the pages. I While I was lost in astonishment at all this, Mr. Hamel had gone up to his desk, and in the same grave and sweet voice in which he had just addressed me, he said to us: My children, this is the last time I shall hear the class recite. An order has come from Berlin to teach henceforth nothing but German in the schoolsof Alsace and Lorraine. The new teacher will arrive tomorrow. Today is your last French lesson. I beg you to be very attentive. These few words completely upset me. Ah, the wretches! That is what they had announced at the city hall. My last French lesson! And I hardly knew how to write! I should never learn then! I should be prevented from making any progress! How angry I was with myself now for the time I had lost, for the classes I had missed in running after bird nests, and in sliding on the river Saar! My books, which only just now I thought such a bore and found so heavy to carry, my grammar, my sacred history, seemed like old friends to part with which would cause me great grief. It was the same with Mr. Hamel. The thought that he was going, that I would never see him again, made me forget the punishments, the strokes of the ruler. Poor man! It was in honor of this last class that he had put on his beautiful Sunday clothes, and now I understood why the old people of the village had come and had seated themselves in the -94- 5

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TRANSLATED PRO TN ENC X dl: dlr IL THE LAST CLASS 'f 'f 3 I Q I ...., TRecttal of a little Ellsaclan JBox3. I 2 - N that morning I was quite late in 5 getting to school. and I was very much afraid of being scolded, as Mr. Hamel had said that he would ques- tion us on the participles and I did not 45 45 know a thing about them. At one time the thought came to me to miss the class, ' and to take my way through the tields. as tb as The weather was so warm, so bright! One could hear the blackbirds whistling at the edge of the woods, and the Prus- sians drilling in the meadow Rippert, behind the saw mill. All this tempted me much more than the rule of participles: but I had the strength to resist and I ran very fast towards school. On passing in front of the city hall, I saw that there were people gathered about the small bulletin board. For two years it is from this that all the bad news had come to us-battles lost, requisitions, orders from headquarters-and I thought without stopping: ' What's the matter now? Then, as I ran across the square, the blacksmith Wachter. who, with his apprentice, was there in the act of reading, cried to me: Do not hurry so, my little one: you will arrive soon enough at your school! I thought he was mocking me and, all out of breath, I en- tered the small yard of Mr. Hamel. Ordinarily, at the commencement of the class, there was a great noise which could be heard even out in the street, desks opened and closed, lessons repeated very loud all together and with hands over one's ears in order to learn the better, and the master's large ruler which was struck on the tables. Silence! I counted on all this din to reach my bench without being seen: but on that very day everything was as quiet as on a Sun- nay morning. Through the open window I saw my companions -93-

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back of the hall. It seemed to say that they regretted they had not come oftener to this school. It was also, so to speak, aiman- ner of thanking our teacher for his forty years of good service and of paying their respects to their fatherland, which were about to disappear. I had reached this point in my reflections when I heard mv name called. It' was my turn to recite. What would I noit have given to be able to recite from beginning to end that famous rule of the participles, very loud, very clear and without a mistake! But I became confused at the Erst words, and I stood swaying back and forth in my bench. with a heavy heart, and not daring to raise my head. I heard Mr. Hamel speak to me: I will not scold you, my little Frantz, you must be pun- ished enough. That's the way it goes: every day one says to oneself: 'Poohl I have enough time. I shall learn tomorrowf And then you see what happens. Ah! that has been the great mistake of our Alsace-always to put off its lessons till the morrow. Now these people have the right to say: 'Whatl You laid claim to being French and you can neither speak nor write your own languagel' In all this, my poor Frantz, you are not the most to blame. We all have a good share of reproaches to take upon ourselves. A Your parents did not care enough to have you instructed. They preferred to send you to work in the Eelds or in the fac- tories, so that they might have a few pennies more. And I, have I nothing with which to reproach myself? Did I not often have you sprinkle my garden instead of writing? And when I wished to go trout fishing did I hesitate to give you a holiday? n Then, one thing leading to another, Mr. Hamel began to speak to us of the French language. saying that it was the most beautiful language in the world, the clearest, the most stable, and that we should preserve it and never forget it, be- cause when a people becomes enslaved, if they have a firm hold of their language it is as if they held the key to their prison, Then he took agrammar and read us our lesson. I was astonished to see how well I understood. All he said seemed so very easy: I think. too, that I had never paid attention so well and that he, for his part, had never put so much patience into his explanations. One would have thought that the poor man wished to give us before 'leaving all his learning-to make it enter into our heads at a single stroke. When the lesson was finished, we passed to writing. For that day, Mr. Hamel had prepared us some brand new copies, on which was written in a beautiful round hand: France, Alsace, France, Alsace. They had the appearance of little Bags, which waved all around the class, hanging on the bar of our