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Today’s educational methods have swung too far awayfrom the “lickin’ and larnin’ ” practiced in earlier times, according to Richard B. Haydock, one of Oxnard's first school superintendents and first mayor of the town.Mr. Haydock reminisced about early county schoolsfrom his experiences as a pupil, a teacher and an administrator.The Haydock family came tol .........*Ventura County in 1876 when feels a defnite need for morediscipline in today's schools.Favoritism by teachers for particular pupils was something “When 1 came here as a boy Mr. Haydock saw in his school there were 11 or 12 schools in days, and later sought to discourage when he worked with the schools. He said that heRichard was 9. They lived in Ventura and he attended the Avenue School.the county.250 Pupils in County“The Avenue School had about 25 pupils. There were from 225jto 250 school children in county. Only one school I more than one teacher. That wasvowed “never to have a pupil who could say he isn't getting the i the same treatment as the oth-had ers ”Aftereight grades of grammar schoolRichard finished thethe four-room Ventura School.”There were over 100 pupils at!^e anci about 10 or 12 other pu-the Ventura School, he said. The PiIs were allowed to take an smaller, outlying schools had an extra year at the Ventura average daily attendance of six (School, or seven students.“There was no high The nearest ones were inAngeles and Santa Barbara.” Los Angeles had a populationFrom there he went directly school, ito Bos Angeles State NormalLos School for four years of training to be a teacher.Becomes a TeacherHe entered the school the yearof 8,500 in 1876, he said. Santa Barbara and San Diego, next in!it opened. There were only two size, had about 8,000 each and (normal schools in the state at. u i i.:___ r ^ i ^ -.i /1 -___1,100 resi-that time, Los Angeles and San Jose. The Los Angeles feachers* college became part of the University of California in 1919 and is now UCLA.theThesubject matter at he said, “was not asThe studentsVentura had some dents.“Lickin' and Larnin”*In those days, he said “lickin’ and larnin’ surely went togeth-er.”He told of 14 boys from the,Ventura School who played ^ as n'nv-hookey on a fine spring day to!ta[ls 1 Pract-ice classes while'taking their course.After graduation. Mr. Haydock returned to the county totake a position at the ArnazSchool near Ventura for a year.He then became Hueneme School principal. “I got there the last of July and school started the next day. There were sogo swimming in the Ventura River. The principal discovered their absence and, the boys ended up in his office where theywere introduced to five differentstraps. They were, by name, “Jim White, Sam Black, Ouch, Pinch and Rattlesnake,” Mr.F F avrino k fppn 11 prlOne of the straps, he said, had! many colds in the winter thatt ! :■ ri f i/ i I tirnvi ♦ * i f I i 1 ! 4- r\ *-v* U « ? •four ridges that had been studded with buckshot for maximumeffect.school went a full ten months.Mr. Haydock taught at Hue-■me until 1900 when he wasdays.M r.“Some of the hoys didn't get «,lilced in char®e of the new Ox-hack to school for two or three nard school. The school districtjwas still known as the San Pe-Haydock wasn’t one ofdro District. The original San these culprits, but he recalled! i edl 0 School had oeen located other punishments, one especi- on Wooley road east of the sug-allv when he felt the sharp edgejar ^act°LV site.of a ruler for something he had! **o one ever dreamed of Ox-t done inard then,’ Mr. Haydock saidlie doesn't want to go back to of his first years in the county-old-fashioned practices and.physical punishments, but he“They began experimental(Continued on Page 8)
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