19th Century Small Size Handmade School Slate with Charming Etched Monogram, Stars and Shapes weathered chain (And "Do your duty" is

(And "Do your duty" is pretty good too

and it really looks like just about the perfect back-to-school apple to leave as a gift on the teacher's desk

The red on the corners appears to comes from being painted on the underside of the glass

I'd guess 1960s/early 70s

gorgeously colored

19th Century Small Size Handmade School Slate with Charming Etched Monogram, Stars and Shapes weathered chain (And "Do your duty" isLots of different reasons for falling in love with antique school slates beautiful old mends, carvings into the wood, or, in this case, etchings into the surface of the slate itself. It's a lovely, unusually small, 19th century example to begin with, with wooden pegs at the jointed corners, but it is the work of R. P. T that really sold me, between those dimensional block initials, and cubes for periods, and stars and shapes and flourishes