What experience did SIlas have with going to school?

When Silas was seven or so he had gone for a brief time to the schoolhouse in Boneville. It was run by a woman called Widow Barnes. Word had spread that Silas was "addled." The Widow Barnes had heard those rumors and she confronted Silas at school. She made him write there are "no such things as ghosts on the blackboard" (73) and then rapped his hand with a yardstick. When Pa saw the welts on Silas's hands, he told Silas that he would never go back to that school and he would teach Silas himself.