An Introduction

By Adam Chabot

Adell Linton had written her students’ names in tight cursive letters on the inside cover of An Introduction to Teaching by the long-forgotten scholars of Doyle and Gallant: “Eula Harland,” “Eleanor Blanche,” “Gary Kingley,” among others. Each name charted into a row, eighteen names in all. 

On the title page, again in measured longhand, Adell had inscribed, “If by chance this book should roam, kick it hard and send it to: Adell Linton. Winterport, Maine. August 1922.” This handwritten request from inside an esoteric pedagogical reference book, an essence object of such great import, found Lonnie Webster in a Brunswick, Maine thrift store last summer. A teacher herself, Lonnie was enthralled by this relic, this symbol of a familiar life from so many years ago: Adell’s marginalia, the worn softness of the volume’s corners, the pages themselves hardened yet brittle through years oscillating temperatures enamored her. 

Within the margins of Chapter Six, Adell noted the Herbartian formal steps of learning—preparation, comparison and selection, testing, generalization, and conclusion—and in Chapter Eight she circled the phrase “the platoon system” an innovative educational approach, an informal way of allowing young minds to explore literature and social sciences through movement and personal intrigue, and in Chapter Ten titled “Method”, perhaps the most important, Adell edged a thick vertical line along the outside margins of pages 267 and 268 and underlined words like “magnitude,” and “importance.” 

This book felt like a clue but Lonnie had no way of knowing what Adell had actually wanted for herself or how her life may have evolved as a result. In Lonnie’s general research, she found obituaries for Adell Lafreniere, William Linton, and Romeo Linton, a cemetery plot for an Ada Linton in Waltham, Massachusetts who died in the 1918 flu pandemic, an even to a 2018 article about an Adelphine Layton who lived in a small Nova Scotian town until her death at 109 years old. But nothing about the teacher, at least, not specifically. 

None of the details matched the way Lonnie wanted. The obituaries themselves merely lists of surviving family members of those who predeceased them, and broad facts about the deceased’s life. Lonnie looked for Adell’s students, too. Each Google search a connection to small town obits of people who may or may not have been them. 

If Adell ever became the teacher she wanted, had anyone remembered her? If Adell didn’t become the teacher she wanted, where did her life take her? Personal history is oft-forgotten over time not because we want it to be but because those who remember it pass away. This book was commemorative sadness, a recall to memories belonging to someone else, a link to nostalgia that wasn’t meant for Lonnie. How could she kick it hard? How could she send it home?

Lonnie keeps An Introduction to Teaching on a high shelf in her study. She hasn’t actually read it but sometimes, late at night, she pulls it down and regards the inscription. Her fingers rub over the names. She’s always in awe; no one writes like Adell anymore.

Adam Chabot is the English Department Chair at Kents Hill School, a private, independent high school in central Maine where he teaches English and Creative Writing. His work has previously appeared in 433 Magazine, The Sandy River Review, and Microfiction Monday Magazine, among others. He can be found on Twitter @adam_chabot.