Henry Hocker Seltzer, Pennsylvania Dutch Teacher, Civil Servant, and Physician - Memories of 1856-1915

This is my great-grandfather's autobiography. He grew up on a farm near Belle Grove, Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania Dutch was spoken in the home. English was his second language, putting him at a disadvantage when he went to school, but he became very bookish, proud of his educational accomplishments. For 10 years, he taught in one-room schoolhouses in Pennsyvanian Dutch farm country. At times, he handled, alone, as many as 65 students ranging in age from 5 to 21, and for a wage of $33/month. He had to deal with the vagaries of rural schools, with behavior problems and parents who had little respect for book learning, and arbitrary decisions of county-level school administartion. During corn-husking sometimes only 3-5 students would show up. He traveled by train to Kansas in 1878, and almost settled there. Later, le got a civil service bookkeeping job with the US Treasury Dept and wrote a bookkeeping text book for farmers. And, at the age of 40, he got an M.D. degree from what later became George Washington University.

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