---
title: Improvement Era
description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930.
authors:
  - Holmes, Oliver Wendell
collections:
  - periodicals
tags:
  - magazine
  - improvement-era
periodical: Improvement Era
volume: 13
number: 1
published: 1909-11
publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations
publisher_place: Salt Lake City
language: en
type: magazine
reference: 'Oliver Wendell Holmes, "The New England School," *Improvement Era* 13, no. 1 (November 1909): 45.'
source:
  url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1301unse
  transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers.
  identifier: improvementera1301unse
start_page: 45
end_page: 45
rights:
  status: public-domain
  basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1909-11)
  source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1301unse
  publication_year: 1909
  note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1909, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright.
---

# The New England School

<!-- page:45 -->

— —


                     SALVATION UNIVERSAL.                              45

them that are under condemnation and under the curse      of a broken law.
    And the first   fruits                                     cometh
                             of repentance is baptism, and baptism
by faith, unto the fulfiling of the commandments; and the fulfiling of
commandments bringeth remission of sins.*

                             [to be continued.]

Salt Lake City, Utah.




                    The New England School.

                                 (Selected.)




         The morning came, I reached the classic hall;
         A clock-face eyed me, staring from the wall;
         Beneath its hands a printed line I read:
         Youth is Life's seed-time; so the clock-face said.
         Some took its counsel, as the sequel showed,
               —
         Sowed their wild oats, and reaped as they had sowed.
         How all comes back! the upward slanting floor—
         The masters' thrones that flank the central door
         The long, outstretching alleys that divide
         The rows of desks that stand on either side —
         The staring boys,    a face to every desk,
         Bright, dull, pale, blooming, common, picturesque,
         Grave is the master's look; his forehead wears
         Thick rows of wrinkles, prints of worrying cares;
         Uneasy lies the head of all that rule,
         His most of all whose kingdom is a school.
         Supreme he sits; before the awful frown
         That bends his brows the boldest eye goes down;
         Not more submissive Israel heard and saw
                                                  —
         At Sinai's foot the Giver of the Law. Oliver Wendell Holme*


    * Moroni 8: 20-25.