The Good Old Days

In sharing his memories of a friend who passed away recently, Swarup writes about his own father's tenure as the Head Master of a village school:

It seems that those days some of the students would not come to school during busy farming days. Apparently, the first Head Master would go to the farms and persuade the farmers to send the students to school.

I'm now reading the biography of Prof. K.S. Krishnan, and early in the book, the authors -- D.C.V. Mallik and S. Chatterjee -- write about the American Mission College, Madurai, that Krishnan attended after finishing high school in 1914:

...[Rev. Zumbro, Principal, American Mission College] used the age-old method of sending 'beaters' to the city and the nearby villages to announce the vacancy of seats. When people gathered in response to the loud beating of the drums, they were treated to a persuasive speech, originally prepared by Zumbro, that extolled the virtues of modern higher education and how American College was the place where this was readily available.