[{"node":{"title":"Hanna200","Collections":"Part Three","Contributor":"Linen Hall Library","Coverage":"1951","Creator":"Linen Hall Library","Date":"Thursday, April 7, 2016","Format":"TIFF","Identifier":"Hanna200","Item Description":"Manuscript","Keywords":"Ravara, Herriot","Language":"English","Path":"https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna200","Publisher":"Linen Hall Library","Relation":"Linen Hall Library","Rights":"Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA","Scanned image":{"src":"https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna200_0.jpg","alt":""},"Source":"LHL Archive","Transcript":"\ufeff193\n\nChapter One\n\nRavara National School, presided over by Master\nHerriot, was a one-storyed, whitewashed building,\nrather like a long cottage, separated from the road by\na bald pebbled close. An engraved stone above the door\nbore the words \u2019Ravara National School 1832\u2019 and the\nbuilding, both inside and out, showed little evidence\nof change in its eighty years. The school itself was\none large room in the middle of which sat an american\nstove, thrusting its sooty tail like a petrified monster\nthrough the raftered ceiling. A. large map of Ireland,\nas yellow and glossy as a pippin, hung at the head of\nthe room, and the other walls were hidden under a\nfoliage of bibical pictures, charts showing the innards\nof people who drank alcohol, calenders, and fluttering\nspecimens of \u2019copperplate; all held together by branches\nand running tendrils of finger marks, imprinted there\nby scholars who now husbanded the fields in the townlands\nor were incised names in the graveyards.\n\nAround the stove the various groups of scholars\nclustered in circles, hollow squares and rows, receiving\nin turn the attention of Mr Herriot or his assistant,\ngenerally an older scholar, who, for some reason or other\nhad been permitted to stay another few months at the\nschool. Here, from nine o\u2019clock in the morning until\nthree o'clock in the afternoon, the children were\ninstructed in the rudiments of reading, writing and\narithmetic, and a system of geography that still contained\nsome pleasant echoes of myth. But these bare essentials\nof an articulate animal were considered sufficient for\nthe life of gin agricultural community.\n","Type":"Text"}}]