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1890 · 460264 — Fredonia New York 1890. Hardcover. Good. Two notebooks with printed title: Normal Rhetorical Exercise Correction Book. Fredonia N.Y.: F.C. Chatsey Publisher Copyright 1886. Small quartos. Bound in quarter cloth and marbled paper over boards. Covers are rubbed and worn one front cover has some staining good overall. Both notebooks contain several book reports and essays on special topics written by Walter Pettit when he was a teenage student at the Fredonia Normal School.<br /> <br /> Both notebooks date from the late 1890s. In addition to reports on The House of the Seven Gables Gulliver’s Travels The Merchant of Venice Oliver Twist and other books; the notebooks include both fictional essays such as “My Flying Machine†and “A Trip to the North Pole†and personal essays on special topics. Here for example is an excerpt from an essay titled: “Should Lynching be Suppressedâ€:<br /> <br /> “One of the greatest evils in existence is lynching. That it should be abolished is evident. Many innocent people have met their death by this means and it still is in existence in the Southern States. Perhaps some person … suspected of a crime is imprisoned. A crowd collects and is excited by somebody over the crime … the jailor gives up the suspected criminal to the mob who immediately carry the poor man to the nearest tree … This incident is kept from the newspapers and the suspected criminal dies unmourned unknown. With hanging by authorities … the criminal has a chance for his life; he may plead his case before unprejudiced men. His death is not embittered by the taunts of an unfeeling multitude of men women and children many of whom are as bad as the criminal. The wretches who are the leaders in such a mob are far worse than the victim …â€<br /> <br /> Also included is a travelogue from Sitka Alaska to Dawson City then at the height of the gold rush written in the form of a letter:<br /> <br /> “Feb. 18 1898: Dawson City Canada / Dear Friend … We started from San Francisco … arrived at Sitka … the town consists of a number of Indian huts a few Russian and American residences … we accompanied an excursion party to the Yukon. This river is one of the largest in the world … upon its banks are a few Indian villages … and here and there ‘Totem poles’. These totem poles … are made of wood grotesquely carved with figures of men beasts and birds. Upon them are kept the records of the Indian’s ancestors. These Indians are a half civilized sneaking dirty race short in stature with small eyes. They act as guides around the settlements … While at Sitka we bought a large stock of groceries … We carried these with us when we went to Dawson. Our party consisted of ten Indians my partner and I. Our journey took three weeks … we reached this city in October and immediately rented the only vacant building in town … I wish you where here to wait on some of our customers. They bring in a bag of gold dust and we weigh out enough to pay for the groceries they buy. This city is in the midst of the gold fields. It is composed principally of saloons dancing halls theaters and gambling houses. The miners sleep in tents … we have rows nearly every night and thieves are as thick as mosquitos …â€<br /> <br /> A graduate of the Class of 1901 Pettit had quickly shed such early external prejudices against indigenous peoples and gold miners. He taught high school in the Philippines 1901-09 attended Teacher’s College at Columbia and served as a U.S. Government Special Relief Assistant in Russia during World War I. As Director of the New York School of Social Work Pettit won international acclaim for his work on the “interdependence of peoples and the strengthening of international relationsâ€.<br /> <br /> A compelling pair of notebooks that sheds light on Pettit’s early education in upstate New York. American Sociological Review December 1961 pp. 959-60. hardcover