Remembering High School English

 

I just finished reading David Copperfield for at least the second, and possibly the third or fourth, time. But it’s the first reading in high school that sticks out in my mind. I was particularly struck by these two passages describing David’s stepfather after David’s mother died.

Mr. Murdstone took no heed of me when I went into the parlour where he was, but sat by the fireside, weeping silently, and pondering in his elbow-chair.

. . .

[He] took a book sometimes, but never read it that I saw. He would open it and look at it as if he were reading, but would remain for a whole hour without turning the leaf, and then put it down and walk to and fro in the room.

The teacher asked us to write a character study about somebody in the story, and I chose Mr. Murdstone. Most readers consider him to be a mean, hard-hearted man, and he is, but my paper concluded that he had a soft side and deserved to be pitied because of the strength of his grief.

I don’t remember what grade I received on that paper, but it was probably an A since that was my normal achievement in Mr. Leemgraven’s junior and senior English classes. I remember another paper for the specific reason that I received only an A- on it. The assignment was to critique an article from The New Yorker. I don’t remember anything about the content except that it used exaggeration as a literary advice and I didn’t think it worked. My problem was that I used “exaggerated” or one of its other forms several times, always spelling it with one “g.” Mr. Leemgraven marked me down for the spelling, and I wasn’t happy. I argued that at least I had been consistent, but I still ended up with that A-.

By my senior year, I had decided I wanted to be a lawyer. So when Mr. Leemgraven assigned a research paper, I chose the case against Sacco and Vanzetti, two anarchists who were convicted of murdering a guard during a robbery. I especially enjoyed reading through the court transcripts. I didn’t know if they had done it, but I concluded that the guilty verdict was a miscarriage of justice because the state had not met it’s burden of proof.

Mr. Leemgraven was a good teacher, and I learned a lot from him. I don’t remember ever telling him how much I appreciated him as a teacher before he died in 1985.

But I wish I had.

__________

The image at the top of this page is from the original 1849 serial publication of David Copperfield and is in the public domain because of its age. I didn’t find a reference to the cover illustrator, but since the interior illustrations were done by Hablot Knight Browne (Phiz), I assume he did the cover as well.