,,reveries ,,of ,a ,,schoolmaster ,,by ,,francis ,b4 ,,pearson ,,state ,,superintendent ,,of ,,public ,,instruction ,,for ,,ohio ,,author ,,of ,,the ,,evolution ,,of ,,the ,,teacher1 ,,the ,,high-,,school ,,problem1 ,,the ,,vitalized ,,school4 ,,charles ,,scribner',s ,,sons ,,new ,,york ,,chicago ,,boston ,,copyright1 #aiag1 ,,by ,,charles ,,scribner',s ,,sons ,,contents ,,chapter ,i4 ,,in ,,medias ,,res ,,ii4 ,,retrospect ,,iii4 ,,brown ,,iv4 ,,psychological ,v4 ,,balking ,,vi4 ,,lanterns ,,vii4 ,,complete ,,living ,,viii4 ,,my ,,speech ,,ix4 ,,school-,,teaching ,x4 ,,beefsteak ,,xi4 ,,freedom ,,xii4 ,,things ,,xiii4 ,,targets ,,xiv4 ,,sinners ,,xv4 ,,hoeing ,,potatoes ,,xvi4 ,,changing ,,the ,,mind ,,xvii4 ,,the ,,point ,,of ,,view ,,xviii4 ,,picnics ,,xix4 ,,make-,,believe ,,xx4 ,,behavior ,,xxi4 ,,forefingers ,,xxii4 ,,story-,,telling ,,xxiii4 ,,grandmother ,,xxiv4 ,,my ,,world ,,xxv4 ,,this ,,or ,,that ,,xxvi4 ,,rabbit ,,pedagogy ,,xxvii4 ,,perspective ,,xxviii4 ,,purely ,,pedagogical ,,xxix4 ,,longevity ,,xxx4 ,,four-,,leaf ,,clover ,,xxxi4 ,,mountain-,,climbing ,,reveries ,,of ,a ,,schoolmaster ,,chapter ,i ,,in ,,medias ,,res ,i am rather glad now that ,i took a little dip 7one could scarce call it a baptism7 into the ,latin1 and especially into ,horace1 for that good soul gave me the expression in medias res4 ,that is a forceful expression1 right to the heart of things1 and applies equally well to the writing of a composition or the eating of a watermelon4 ,those who have crossed the ,channel1 from ,folkstone to ,boulogne1 know that the stanch little ship ,invicta had scarcely left dock when they were in medias res4 ,they were conscious of it1 too1 if indeed they were conscious of anything not strictly personal to themselves4 ,this expression admits us at once to the light and warmth 7if such there be7 of the inner temple nor keeps us shivering out in the vestibule4 ,writers of biography are wont to keep us waiting too long for happenings that are really worth our while4 ,they tell us that some one was born at such a time1 as if that were really important4 ,why1 anybody can be born1 but it requires some years to determine whether his being born was a matter of importance either to himself or to others4 ,when ,i write my biographical sketch of ,william ,shakespeare ,i shall say that in a certain year he wrote ,hamlet1 which fact clearly justified his being born so many years earlier4 ,the good old lady said of her pastor3 ,he enters the pulpit1 takes his text1 and then the dear man just goes everywhere preaching the ,gospel4 ,that man had a special aptitude for the in medias res method of procedure4 ,many children in school who are not versed in ,latin would be glad to have their teachers endowed with this aptitude4 ,they are impatient of preliminaries1 both in the school and at the dinner-table4 ,and it is pretty difficult to discover just where childhood leaves off in this respect4 ,so ,i am grateful to ,horace for the expression4 ,having started right in the midst of things1 one can never get off the subject1 and that is a great comfort4 ,sometimes college graduates confess 7or perhaps boast7 that they have forgotten their ,latin4 ,i fear to follow their example lest my neighbor1 who often drops in for a friendly chat1 might get to wondering whether ,i have not also forgotten much of the ,english ,i am supposed to have acquired in college4 ,he might regard my ,english as quite as feeble when compared with ,shakespeare or ,milton as my ,latin when compared with ,cicero or ,virgil4 ,so ,i take counsel with prudence and keep silent on the subject of ,latin4 ,when ,i am taking a stroll in the woods1 as ,i delight to do in the autumn-time1 laundering my soul with the gorgeous colors1 the music of the rustling leaves1 the majestic silences1 and the sounds that are less and more than sounds1 ,i often wonder1 when ,i take one bypath1 what experiences ,i might have had if ,i had taken the other4 ,i'll never know1 of course1 but ,i keep on wondering4 ,so it is with this ,latin4 ,i wonder how much worse matters could or would have been if ,i had never studied it at all4 ,as the old man said to the young fellow who consulted him as to getting married3 ,you'll be sorry if you do1 and sorry if you don't4 ,i used to feel a sort of pity for my pupils to think how they would have had no education at all if they had not had me as their teacher2 now ,i am beginning to wonder how much further along they might have been if they had had some other teacher4 ,but probably most of the misfits in life are in the imagination1 after all4 ,we all think the huckleberries are more abundant on the other bush4 ,hoeing potatoes is a calm1 serene1 dignified1 and philosophical enterprise4 ,but at bottom it is much the same in principle as teaching school4 ,in my potato-patch ,i am merely trying to create situations that are favorable to growth1 and in the school ,i can do neither more nor better4 ,i cannot cause either boys or potatoes to grow4 ,if ,i could1 ,i'd certainly have the process patented4 ,i know no more about how potatoes grow than ,i do about the fourth dimension or the unearned increment4 ,but they grow in spite of my ignorance1 and ,i know that there are certain conditions in which they flourish4 ,so the best ,i can do is to make conditions favorable4 ,nor do ,i bother about the weeds4 ,i just centre my attention and my hoe upon loosening the soil and let the weeds look out for themselves4 ,hoeing potatoes is a synthetic process1 but cutting weeds is analytic1 and synthesis is better1 both for potatoes and for boys4 ,in good time1 if the boy is kept growing1 he will have outgrown his stone-bruises1 his chapped hands1 his freckles1 his warts1 and his physical and spiritual awkwardness4 ,the weeds will have disappeared4 ,the potato-patch is your true pedagogical laboratory and conservatory4 ,if one cannot learn pedagogy there it is no fault of the potato-patch4 ,horace must have thought of in medias res while hoeing potatoes4 ,there is no other way to do it1 and that is bed-rock pedagogy4 ,just to get right at the work and do it1 that's the very thing the teacher is striving toward4 ,here among my potatoes ,i am actuated by motives1 ,i invest the subject with human interest1 ,i experience motor activities1 ,i react1 ,i function1 and ,i go so far as to evaluate4 ,indeed1 ,i run the entire gamut4 ,and then1 when ,i am lying beneath the canopy of the wide-spreading tree1 ,i do a bit of research work in trying to locate the sorest muscle4 ,and1 as to efficiency1 well1 ,i give myself a high grade in that and shall pass cum laude it the matter is left to me4 ,if our grading were based upon effort rather than achievement1 ,i could bring my aching back into court1 if not my potatoes4 ,but our system of grading in the schools demands potatoes1 no matter much how obtained1 with scant credit for backaches4 ,we have farm ballads and farm arithmetics1 but as yet no one has written for us a book on farm pedagogy4 ,i'd do it myself but for the feeling that some ,strayer1 or ,mc,murry1 or ,o',shea will get right at it as soon as he has come upon this suggestion4 ,that's my one great trouble4 ,the other fellow has the thing done before ,i can get around to it4 ,i would have written ,the ,message to ,garcia1 but ,mr4 ,hubbard anticipated me4 ,then1 ,i was just ready to write a luminous description of ,yellowstone ,falls when ,i happened upon the one that ,de,witt ,talmage wrote1 and ,i could see no reason for writing another4 ,so it is4 ,i seem always to be just too late4 ,i wish now that ,i had written ,recessional before ,kipling got to it4 ,no doubt1 the same thing will happen with my farm pedagogy4 ,if one could only stake a claim in all this matter of writing as they do in the mining regions1 the whole thing would be simplified4 ,i'd stake my claim on farm pedagogy and then go on hoeing my potatoes while thinking out what to say on the subject4 ,whoever writes the book will do well to show how catching a boy is analogous to catching a colt out in the pasture4 ,both feats require tact and1 at the very least1 horse-sense4 ,the other day ,i wanted to catch my colt and went out to the pasture for that purpose4 ,there is a hill in the pasture1 and ,i went to the top of this and saw the colt at the far side of the pasture in what we call the swale--low1 wet ground1 where weeds abound4 ,i didn't want to get my shoes soiled1 so ,i stood on the hill and called and called4 ,the colt looked up now and then and then went on with his own affairs4 ,in my chagrin ,i was just about ready to get angry when it occurred to me that the colt wasn't angry1 and that ,i ought to show as good sense as a mere horse4 ,that reflection relieved the tension somewhat1 and ,i thought it wise to meditate a bit4 ,here am ,i2 yonder is the colt4 ,i want him2 he doesn't want me4 ,he will not come to me2 so ,i must go to him4 ,then1 what8 ,oh1 yes1 native interests--that's it1 native interests4 ,i'm much obliged to ,professor ,james for reminding me4 ,now1 just what are the native interests of a colt8 ,why1 oats1 of course4 ,so1 ,i must return to the barn and get a pail of oats4 ,an empty pail might do once1 but never again4 ,so ,i must have oats in my pail4 ,either a colt or a boy becomes shy after he has once been deceived4 ,the boy who fails to get oats in the classroom to-day1 will shy off from the teacher to-morrow4 ,he will not even accept her statement that there is oats in the pail1 for yesterday the pail was empty--nothing but sound4 ,but even with pail and oats ,i had to go to the colt1 getting my shoes soiled and my clothes torn1 but there was no other way4 ,i must begin where the colt 7or boy7 is1 as the book on pedagogy says4 ,i wanted to stay on the hill where everything was agreeable1 but that wouldn't get the colt4 ,now1 if ,mr4 ,charles ,h4 ,judd cares to elaborate this outline1 ,i urge no objection and shall not claim the protection of copyright4 ,i shall be only too glad to have him make clear to all of us the pedagogical recipe for catching colts and boys4 ,,chapter ,,ii ,,retrospect ,mr4 ,patrick ,henry was probably correct in saying that there is no way of judging the future but by the past1 and1 to my thinking1 he might well have included the present along with the future4 ,today is better or worse than yesterday or some other day in the past1 just as this cherry pie is better or worse than some past cherry pie4 ,but even this pie may seem a bit less glorious than the pies of the past1 because of my jaded appetite--a fact that is easily lost sight of4 ,folks who extol the glories of the good old times may be forgetting that they are not able to relive the emotions that put the zest into those past events4 ,we used to go to big meeting in a two-horse sled1 with the wagon-body half filled with hay and heaped high with blankets and robes4 ,the mercury might be low in the tube1 but we recked not of that4 ,our indifference to climatic conditions was not due alone to the wealth of robes and blankets1 but the proximity of another member of the human family may have had something to do with it4 ,if we could reconstruct the emotional life of those good old times1 the physical conditions would take their rightful place as a background4 ,if we could only bring back the appetite of former years we might find this pie better than the pies of old4 ,the good brother who seems to think the textbooks of his boyhood days were better than the modern ones forgets that along with the old-time textbooks went skating1 rabbit-hunting1 snowballing1 coasting1 fishing1 sock-up1 bull-pen1 two-old-cat1 townball1 and shinny-on-the-ice4 ,he is probably confusing those majors with the text-book minor4 ,his criticism of things and books modern is probably a voicing of his regret that he has lost his zeal for the fun and frolic of youth4 ,if he could but drink a few copious drafts from the ,fountain of ,youth1 the books of the present might not seem so inferior after all4 ,the bread and apple-butter stage of our hero's career may seem to dim the lustre of the later porterhouse steak1 but with all the glory of the halcyon days of yore it is to be noted that he rides in an automobile and not in an ox-cart1 and prefers electricity to the good old oil-lamp4 ,i concede with enthusiasm the joys of bygone days1 and would be glad to repeat those experiences with sundry very specific reservations and exceptions4 ,that thick bread with its generous anointing of apple butter discounted all the nectar and ambrosia of the books and left its marks upon the character as well as the features of the recipient4 ,the mouth waters even now as ,i recall the bill of fare plus the appetite4 ,but if ,i were going back to the good old days ,i'd like to take some of the modern improvements along with me4 ,it thrills me to consider the modern school credits for home work with all the #eg varieties as an integral feature of the good old days4 ,alas1 how much we missed by not knowing about all this6 ,what miracles might have been wrought had we and our teachers only known6 ,poor1 ignorant teachers6 ,little did they dream that such wondrous things could ever be4 ,life might have been made a glad1 sweet song for us had it been supplied with these modern attachments4 ,i spent many weary hours over partial payments in ,ray's ,third ,part1 when ,i might have been brushing my teeth or combing my hair instead4 ,then1 instead of threading the mazes of ,greene's ,analysis and parsing ,thanatopsis1 ,i might just as well have been asleep in the haymow1 where ventilation was super-abundant4 ,how proudly could ,i have produced the home certificate as to my haymow experience and received an exhilarating grade in grammar6 ,just here ,i interrupt myself to let the imagination follow me homeward on the days when grades were issued4 ,the triumphal processions of the ,romans would have been mild by comparison4 ,the arch look upon my face1 the martial mien1 and the flashing eye all betoken the real hero4 ,then the pride of that home1 the sumptuous feast of chicken and angel-food cake1 and the parental acclaim--all befitting the stanch upholder of the family honor4 ,of course1 nothing like this ever really happened1 which goes to prove that ,i was born years too early in the world's history4 ,the more ,i think of this the more acute is my sympathy with ,maud ,muller4 ,that girl and ,i could sigh a duet thinking what might have been4 ,why1 ,i might have had my college degree while still wearing short trousers4 ,i was something of an adept at milking cows and could soon have eliminated the entire algebra by the method of substitution4 ,milking the cows was one of my regular tasks1 anyhow1 and ,i could thus have combined business with pleasure4 ,and if by riding a horse to water ,i could have gained immunity from the ,commentaries by one ,julius ,caesar1 full lustily would ,i have shouted1 a la ,richard ,,iii3 ,a horse6 ,a horse6 ,my kingdom for a horse6 ,one man advocates the plan of promoting pupils in the schools on the basis of character1 and this plan strongly appeals to me as right1 plausible1 and altogether feasible4 ,had this been proposed when ,i was a schoolboy ,i probably should have made a few conditions1 or at least have asked a few questions4 ,i should certainly have wanted to know who was to be the judge in the matter1 and what was his definition of character4 ,much would have depended upon that4 ,if he had decreed that cruelty to animals indicates a lack of character and then proceeded to denominate as cruelty to animals such innocent diversions as shooting woodpeckers in a cherry-tree with a ,flobert rifle1 or smoking chipmunks out from a hollow log1 or tying a strip of red flannel to a hen's tail to take her mind off the task of trying to hatch a door-knob1 or tying a tin can to a dog's tail to encourage him in his laudable enterprise of demonstrating the principle of uniformly accelerated motion--if he had included these and other such like harmless antidotes for ennui in his category1 ,i should certainly have asked to be excused from his character curriculum and should have pursued the even tenor of my ways1 splitting kindling1 currying the horse1 washing the buggy1 carrying water from the pump to the kitchen and saying1 ,thank you1 to my elders as the more agreeable avenue of promotion4 ,if we had had character credits in the good old days ,i might have won distinction in school and been saved much embarrassment in later years4 ,instead of learning the latitude and longitude of ,madagascar1 ,chattahoochee1 and ,kamchatka1 ,i might have received high grades in geography by abstaining from the chewing of gum1 by not wearing my hands in my trousers-pockets1 by walking instead of ambling or slouching1 by wiping the mud from my shoes before entering the house1 by a personally conducted tour through the realms of manicuring1 and by learning the position and use of the hat-rack4 ,getting no school credits for such incidental minors in the great scheme of life1 ,i grew careless and indifferent and acquired a reputation that ,i do not care to dwell upon4 ,if those who had me in charge1 or thought they had1 had only been wise and given me school credits for all these things1 what a model boy ,i might have been6 ,why1 ,i would have swallowed my pride1 donned a kitchen apron1 and washed the supper dishes1 and no normal boy enjoys that ceremony4 ,by making passes over the dishes ,i should have been exorcising the spooks of cube root1 and that would have been worth some personal sacrifice4 ,what a boon it would have been for the home folks too6 ,they could have indulged their penchant for literary exercises1 sitting in the parlor making out certificates for me to carry to my teacher next day1 and so all the rough places in the home would have been made smooth4 ,but the crowning achievement would have been my graduation from college4 ,i can see the picture4 ,i am husking corn in the lower field4 ,to reach this field one must go the length of the orchard and then walk across the meadow4 ,it is a crisp autumn day1 about ten o'clock in the morning1 and the sun is shining4 ,the golden ears are piling up under my magic skill1 and there is peace4 ,as ,i take down another bundle from the shock ,i descry what seems to be a sort of procession wending its way through the orchard4 ,then the rail fence is surmounted1 and the procession solemnly moves across the meadow4 ,in time the president and an assortment of faculty members stand before me1 bedight in caps and gowns4 ,i note that their gowns are liberally garnished with ,spanish needles and cockleburs1 and their shoes give evidence of contact with elemental mud4 ,but then and there they confer upon me the degree of bachelor of arts magna cum laude4 ,but for this interruption ,i could have finished husking that row before the dinner-horn blew4 ,,chapter ,,iii ,,brown ,my neighbor came in again this evening1 not for anything in particular1 but unconsciously proving that men are gregarious animals4 ,i like this neighbor4 ,his name is ,brown4 ,i like the name ,brown1 too4 ,it is easy to pronounce4 ,by a gentle crescendo you go to the summit and then coast to the bottom4 ,the name ,brown1 when pronounced1 is a circumflex accent4 ,now1 if his name had happened to be ,moriarity ,i never could be quite sure when ,i came to the end in pronouncing it4 ,i'm glad his name is not ,moriarity--not because it is ,irish1 for ,i like the ,irish2 so does ,brown1 for he is married to one of them4 ,any one who has been in ,cork and heard the fine old ,irishman say in his musical and inimitable voice1 ,tis a lovely dye1 such a one will ever after have a snug place in his affections for the ,irish1 whether he has kissed the ,blarney stone or not4 ,if he has heard this same driver of a jaunting-car rhapsodize about ,shandon ,bells and the author1 ,father ,prout1 his admiration for things and people ,irish will become well-nigh a passion4 ,he will not need to add to his mental picture1 for the sake of emphasis or color1 the cherry-cheeked maids who lead their mites of donkeys along leafy roads1 the carts heaped high with cabbages4 ,even without this addition he will become expansive when he speaks of ,ireland and the ,irish4 ,but1 as ,i was saying1 ,brown came in this evening just to barter small talk1 as we often do4 ,now1 in physical build ,brown is somewhere between ,falstaff and ,cassius1 while in mental qualities he is an admixture of ,plato1 ,solomon1 and ,bill ,nye4 ,when he drops in we do not discuss matters1 nor even converse2 we talk4 ,our talk just oozes out and flows whither it wills1 or little wisps of talk drift into the silences1 and now and then a dash of homely philosophy splashes into the talking4 ,brown is a real comfort4 ,he is never cryptic1 nor enigmatic1 at least consciously so1 nor does he ever try to be impressive4 ,if he were a teacher he would attract his pupils by his good sense1 his sincerity1 his simplicity1 and his freedom from pose4 ,i cannot think of him as ever becoming teachery1 with a high-pitched voice and a hysteric manner4 ,he has too much poise for that4 ,he would never discuss things with children4 ,he would talk with them4 ,brown cannot walk on stilts1 nor has the air-ship the least fascination for him4 ,one of my teachers for a time was ,doctor ,t4 ,c4 ,mendenhall1 and he was a great teacher4 ,he could sound the very depths of his subject and simply talk it4 ,he led us to think1 and thinking is not a noisy process4 ,truth to tell1 his talks often caused my poor head to ache from overwork4 ,but ,i have been in classes where the oases of thought were far apart and one could doze and dream on the journey from one to the other4 ,doctor ,mendenhall's teaching was all white meat1 sweet to the taste1 and altogether nourishing4 ,he is the man who made the first correct copy of ,shakespeare's epitaph there in the church at ,stratford-on-,avon4 ,i sent a copy of ,doctor ,mendenhall's version to ,mr4 ,brassinger1 the librarian in the ,memorial ,building1 and have often wondered what his comment was4 ,he never told me4 ,there are those who1 having eyes1 see not4 ,there had been thousands of people who had looked at that epitaph with the printed copy in hand1 and yet had never noticed the discrepancy1 and it remained for an ,american to point out the mistake4 ,but that is ,doctor ,mendenhall's way4 ,he is nothing if not thorough1 and that proves his scientific mind4 ,well1 ,brown fell to talking about the ,isle of ,pines1 in the course of our verbal exchanges1 and ,i drew him out a bit1 receiving a liberal education on the subjects of grapefruit1 pineapples1 and bananas4 ,from my school-days ,i have carried over the notion that the ,caribbean ,sea is one of the many geographical myths with which the school-teacher is wont to intimidate boys who would far rather be scaring rabbits out from under a brush heap4 ,but here sits a man who has travelled upon the ,caribbean ,sea1 and therefore there must be such a place4 ,our youthful fancies do get severe jolts6 ,from my own experience ,i infer that much of our teaching in the schools doesn't take hold1 that the boys and girls tolerate it but do not believe4 ,i cannot recall just when ,i first began to believe in ,mt4 ,vesuvius1 but ,i am quite certain that it was not in my school-days4 ,it may have been in my teaching-days1 but ,i'm not quite certain4 ,i have often wondered whether we teachers really believe all we try to teach4 ,i feel a pity for poor ,sisyphus1 poor fellow1 rolling that stone to the top of the hill1 and then having to do the work all over when the stone rolled to the bottom4 ,but that is not much worse than trying to teach ,caribbean ,sea and ,mt4 ,vesuvius1 if we can't really believe in them4 ,but here is ,brown1 metamorphosed into a psychologist who begins with the known1 yea1 delightfully known grapefruit which ,i had at breakfast1 and takes me on a fascinating excursion till ,i arrive1 by alluring stages1 at the related unknown1 the ,caribbean ,sea4 ,too bad that ,brown isn't a teacher4 ,brown has the gift of holding on to a thing till his craving for knowledge is satisfied4 ,somewhere he had come upon some question touching a campanile or1 possibly1 the ,campanile1 as it seemed to him4 ,nor would he rest content until ,i had extracted what the books have to say on the subject4 ,he had in mind the ,campanile at ,venice1 not knowing that the one beside the ,duomo at ,florence is higher than the one at ,venice1 and that the ,leaning ,tower at ,pisa is a campanile1 or bell-tower1 also4 ,when ,i told him that one of my friends saw the ,campanile at ,venice crumble to a heap of ruins on that ,sunday morning back in #aijg1 and that another friend had been of the last party to go to the top of it the evening before1 he became quite excited1 and then ,i knew that ,i had succeeded in investing the subject with human interest1 and ,i felt quite the schoolmaster4 ,nothing of this did ,i mention to ,brown1 for there is no need to exploit the mental machinery if only you get results4 ,many people who travel abroad buy postcards by the score1 and seem to feel that they are the original discoverers of the places which these cards portray1 and yet these very places were the background of much of their history and geography in the schools4 ,can it be that their teachers failed to invest these places with human interest1 that they were but words in a book and not real to them at all8 ,must ,i travel all the way to ,yellowstone ,park to know a geyser8 ,alas6 in that case1 many of us poor school-teachers must go through life geyserless4 ,wondrous tales and oft heard ,i in my school-days of glacier1 iceberg1 canyon1 snow-covered mountain1 grotto1 causeway1 and volcano1 but not till ,i came to ,grindelwald did ,i really know what a glacier is4 ,there's many a ,doubting ,thomas in the schools4 ,,chapter ,,iv ,,psychological ,the psychologist is so insistent in proclaiming his doctrine of negative self-feeling and positive self-feeling that one is impelled to listen out of curiosity1 if nothing else4 ,then1 just as you are beginning to get a little glimmering as to his meaning1 another one begins to assail your ears with a deal of sesquipedalian ,english about the emotion of subjection and the emotion of elation4 ,just as ,i began to think ,i was getting a grip of the thing a college chap came in and proceeded to enlighten me by saying that these two emotions may be generated only by personal relations1 and not by relations of persons and things4 ,i was thinking of my emotion of subjection in the presence of an original problem in geometry1 but this college person tells me that this negative self-feeling1 according to psychology1 is experienced only in the presence of another person4 ,well1 ,i have had that experience1 too4 ,in fact1 my negative self-feeling is of frequent occurrence4 ,jacob must have had a rather severe attack of the emotion of subjection when he was trying to escape from the wrath of ,esau4 ,but1 after his experience at ,bethel1 where he received a blessing and a promise1 there was a shifting from the negative self-feeling to the positive--from the emotion of subjection to that of elation4 ,the stone which ,jacob used that night as a pillow1 so we are told1 is called the ,stone of ,scone1 and is to be seen in the body of the ,coronation ,chair in ,westminster ,abbey4 ,the use of that stone as a part of the chair might seem to be a psychological coincidence1 unless1 indeed1 we can conceive that the fabricators of the chair combined a knowledge of psychology and also of the ,bible in its construction4 ,it is an interesting conceit1 at any rate1 that the stone might bring to kings and queens a blessing and a promise1 as it had done for ,jacob1 averting the emotion of subjection and perpetuating the emotion of elation4 ,now1 there's ,hazzard1 the big1 glorious ,hazzard4 ,i met him first on the deck of the ,s4 ,s4 ,campania1 and ,i gladly agreed to his proposal that we travel together4 ,he is a large man 7one need not be more specific7 and a veritable steam-engine of activity and energy4 ,it was altogether natural1 therefore1 that he should assume the leadership of our party of two in all matters touching places1 modes of travel1 hotels1 and other details large and small1 while ,i trailed along in his wake4 ,this order continued for some days1 and ,i1 of course1 experienced all the while the emotion of subjection in some degree4 ,when we came to the ,isle of ,man we puzzled our heads no little over the curious coat of arms of that quaint little country4 ,this coat of arms is three human legs1 equidistant from one another4 ,at ,peel we made numerous inquiries1 and also at ,ramsey1 but to no avail4 ,in the evening1 however1 in the hotel at ,douglas ,i saw a picture of this coat of arms1 accompanied by the inscription1 ,quocumque jeceris stabit1 and gave some sort of translation of it4 ,then and there came my emancipation1 for after that ,i was consulted and deferred to during all the weeks we were together4 ,it is quite improbable that ,hazzard himself realized any change in our relations1 but unconsciously paid that subtle tribute to my small knowledge of ,latin4 ,when we came to ,stratford ,i did not call upon ,miss ,marie ,corelli1 for ,i had heard that she is quite averse to men as a class1 and ,i feared ,i might suffer an emotional collapse4 ,i was so comfortable in my newly acquainted emotion of elation that ,i decided to run no risks4 ,when at length ,i resumed my schoolmastering ,i determined to give the boys and girls the benefit of my recent discovery4 ,i saw that ,i must generate in each one1 if possible1 the emotion of elation1 that ,i must so arrange school situations that mastery would become a habit with them if they were to become masters in the kingdom of life1 as my friend ,long says it4 ,i saw at once that the difficulties must be made only high enough to incite them to effort1 but not so high as to cause discouragement4 ,i recalled the sentence in ,harvey's ,grammar3 ,milo began to lift the ox when he was a calf4 ,after we had succeeded in locating the antecedent of he we learned from this sentence a lesson of value1 and ,i recalled this lesson in my efforts to inculcate progressive mastery in the boys and girls of my school4 ,i sometimes deferred a difficult problem for a few days till they had lifted the growing calf a few more times1 and then returned to it4 ,some one says that everything is infinitely high that we can't see over1 so ,i was careful to arrange the barriers just a bit lower than the eye-line of my pupils1 and then raise them a trifle on each succeeding day4 ,in this way ,i strove to generate the positive self-feeling so that there should be no depression and no white flag4 ,and that surely was worth a trip to the ,isle of ,man1 even if one failed to see one of their tailless cats4 ,i had occasion or1 rather1 ,i took occasion at one time to punish a boy with a fair degree of severity 7may the ,lord forgive me71 and now4 ,i know that in so doing ,i was guilty of a grave error4 ,what ,i interpreted as misconduct was but a straining at his leash in an effort to extricate himself from the incubus of the negative self-feeling4 ,he was1 and probably is1 a dull fellow and realized that he could not cope with the other boys in the school studies1 and so was but trying to win some notice in other fields of activity4 ,to him notoriety was preferable to obscurity4 ,if ,i had only been wise ,i would have turned his inclination to good account and might have helped him to self-mastery1 if not to the mastery of algebra4 ,he yearned for the emotion of elation1 and ,i was trying to perpetuate his emotion of subjection4 ,if ,methuselah had been a schoolmaster he might have attained proficiency by the time he reached the age of nine hundred and sixty-eight years if he had been a close observer1 a close student of methods1 and had been willing and able to profit by his own mistakes4 ,friend ,virgil says something like this3 ,they can because they think they can1 and ,i heartily concur4 ,some one tells us that ,kent in ,king ,lear got his name from the ,anglo-,saxon word can and he was aptly named1 in view of ,virgil's statement4 ,but can ,i cause my boys and girls to think they can8 ,why1 most assuredly1 if ,i am any sort of teacher4 ,otherwise ,i ought to be dealing with inanimate things and leave the school work to those who can4 ,i certainly can help young folks to shift from the emotion of subjection to the emotion of elation4 ,i had a puppy that we called ,nick and thought ,i'd like to teach him to go up-stairs4 ,when he came to the first stair he cried and cowered and said1 in his language1 that it was too high1 and that he could never do it4 ,so1 in a soothing way1 ,i quoted ,virgil at him and placed his front paws upon the step4 ,then he laughed a bit and said the step wasn't as high as the moon1 after all4 ,so ,i patted him and called him a brave little chap1 and he gained the higher level4 ,then we rested for a bit and spent the time in being glad1 for ,nick and ,i had read our ,pollyanna and had learned the trick of gladness4 ,well1 before the day was over that puppy could go up the stairs without the aid of a teacher1 and a gladder dog never was4 ,if ,i had taken as much pains with that boy as ,i did with ,nick ,i'd feel far more comfortable right now1 and the boy would have felt more comfortable both then and after4 ,o schoolmastering6 ,how many sins are committed in thy name6 ,i succeeded with the puppy1 but failed with the boy4 ,a boy does not go to school to study algebra1 but studies algebra to learn mastery4 ,i know this now1 but did not know it then1 more's the pity6 ,i had another valuable lesson in this phase of pedagogy the day my friend ,vance and ,i sojourned to ,indianapolis to call upon ,mr4 ,benjamin ,harrison1 who had somewhat recently completed his term as ,president of the ,united ,states4 ,we were fortified with ample and satisfactory credentials and had a very fortunate introduction2 but for all that we were inclined to walk softly into the presence of greatness1 and had a somewhat acute attack of negative self-feeling4 ,however1 after due exchange of civilities1 we succeeded somehow in preferring the request that had brought us into his presence1 and ,mr4 ,harrison's reply served to reassure us4 ,said he3 ,oh1 no1 boys1 ,i couldn't do that2 last year ,i promised ,bok to write some articles for his journal1 and ,i didn't have any fun all summer4 ,his two words1 boys and fun1 were the magic ones that caused the tension to relax and generated the emotion of elation4 ,we then sat back in our chairs and1 possibly1 crossed our legs--,i can't be certain as to that4 ,at any rate1 in a single sentence this man had made us his co-ordinates and caused the negative self-feeling to vanish4 ,then for a good half-hour he talked in a familiar way about great affairs1 and in a style that charmed4 ,he told us of a call he had the day before from ,david ,starr4 ,jordan1 who came to report his experience as a member of the commission that had been appointed to adjudicate the controversy between the ,united ,states and ,england touching seal-fishing in the ,behring ,sea4 ,it may be recalled that this commission consisted of two ,americans1 two ,englishmen1 and ,king ,oscar of ,sweden4 ,mr4 ,harrison told us quite frankly that he felt a mistake had been made in making up the commission1 for1 with two ,americans and two ,englishmen on the commission1 the sole arbiter in reality was ,king ,oscar1 since the other four were reduced to the plane of mere advocates2 but1 had there been three ,americans and two ,englishmen1 or two ,americans and three ,englishmen1 the function of all would have been clearly judicial4 ,suffice it to say that this great man made us forget our emotion of subjection1 and so made us feel that he would have been a great teacher1 just as he was a great statesman4 ,i shall always be grateful for the lesson he taught me and1 besides1 ,i am glad that the college chap came in and gave me that psychological massage4 ,,chapter ,v ,,balking ,when ,i write my book on farm pedagogy ,i shall certainly make large use of the horse in illustrating the fundamental principles1 for he is a noble animal and altogether worthy of the fullest recognition4 ,we often use the expression horse-sense somewhat flippantly1 but ,i have often seen a driver who would have been a more useful member of society if he had had as much sense as the horses he was driving4 ,if ,i were making a catalogue of the lower animals ,i'd certainly include the man who abuses a horse4 ,why1 the celebrated ,german trick-horse1 ,hans1 had even the psychologists baffled for a long time1 but finally he taught them a big chapter in psychology4 ,they finally discovered that his marvellous tricks were accomplished through the power of close observation4 ,facial expression1 twitching of a muscle1 movements of the head1 these were the things he watched for as his cue in answering questions by indicating the right card4 ,there was a teacher in our school once who wore old-fashioned spectacles4 ,when he wanted us to answer a question in a certain way he unconsciously looked over his spectacles2 but when he wanted a different answer he raised his spectacles to his forehead4 ,so we ranked high in our daily grades1 but met our ,waterloo when the examination came around4 ,that teacher1 of course1 had never heard of the horse ,hans1 and so was not aware that in the process of watching his movements we were merely proving that we had horse-sense4 ,he probably attributed our ready answers to the superiority of his teaching1 not realizing that our minds were concentrated upon the subject of spectacles4 ,of course1 a horse balks now and then1 and so does a boy4 ,i did a bit of balking myself as a boy1 and ,i am not quite certain that ,i have even yet become immune4 ,doctor ,james ,wallace 7whose edition of ,anabasis some of us have read1 halting and stumbling along through the parasangs7 with three companions went out to ,marathon one day from ,athens4 ,the distance1 as ,i recall it1 is about twenty-two miles1 and they left early in the morning1 so as to return the same day4 ,their conveyance was an open wagon with two horses attached4 ,when they had gone a mile or two out of town one of the horses balked and refused to proceed4 ,then and there each member of the party drew upon his past experiences1 seeking a panacea for the equine delinquency4 ,one suggested the plan of building a fire under the recalcitrant horse1 while another suggested pouring sand into his ears4 ,doctor ,wallace discouraged these remedies as being cruel and finally told the others to take their places in the wagon and he would try the merits of a plan he had in mind4 ,accordingly1 when they were seated1 he clambered over the dash1 walked along the wagon-pole1 and suddenly plumped himself down upon the horse's back4 ,then away they went1 ,john ,gilpin like1 ,doctor ,wallace's coat-tails and hair streaming out behind4 ,there was no more balking in the course of the trip1 and no one 7save1 possibly1 the horse7 had any twinges of conscience to keep him awake that night4 ,the incident is brimful of pedagogy in that it shows that1 in order to cure a horse of an attack of balking1 you have but to distract his mind from his balking and get him to thinking of something else4 ,before this occurrence taught me the better way1 ,i was quite prone1 in dealing with a balking boy1 to hold his mind upon the subject of balking4 ,i told him how unseemly it was1 how humiliated his father and mother would be1 how he could not grow up to be a useful citizen if he yielded to such tantrums2 in short1 ,i ran the gamut of all the pedagogical bromides1 and so kept his mind centred upon balking4 ,now that ,i have learned better1 ,i strive to divert his mind to something eke1 and may ask him to go upon some pleasant errand that he may gain some new experiences4 ,when he returns he has forgotten that he was balking and recounts his experiences most delightfully4 ,ed was one of the balkiest boys ,i ever had in my school4 ,his attacks would often last for days1 and the more attention you paid to him the worse he balked4 ,in the midst of one of these violent and prolonged attacks a lady came to school who1 in the kindness of her generous nature1 was proposing to give a boy ,joe 7now a city alderman7 a ,christmas present of a new hat4 ,she came to invoke my aid in trying to discover the size of ,joe's head4 ,i readily undertook the task1 which loomed larger and larger as ,i came fully to realize that ,i was the sole member of the committee of ways and means4 ,in my dire perplexity ,i saw ,ed grouching along the hall4 ,calling him to one side1 ,i explained to the last detail the whole case1 and confessed that ,i did not know how to proceed4 ,at once his face brightened1 and he readily agreed to make the discovery for me2 and in half an hour ,i had the information ,i needed and ,ed's face was luminous4 ,yes1 ,joe got the hat and ,ed quit balking4 ,if ,doctor ,wallace had not gone to ,marathon that day ,i can scarcely imagine what might have happened to ,ed2 and ,joe might not have received a new hat4 ,i have often wondered whether a horse has a sense of humor4 ,i know a boy has1 and ,i very strongly suspect that the horse has4 ,it was one of my tasks in boyhood to take the horses down to the creek for water4 ,among others we had a roan two-year-old colt that we called ,dick1 and even yet ,i think of him as quite capable of laughter at some of his own mischievous pranks4 ,one day ,i took him to water1 dispensing with the formalities of a bridle1 and riding him down through the orchard with no other habiliments than a rope halter4 ,in the orchard were several trees of the bellflower variety1 whose branches sagged near to the ground4 ,dick was going along very decorously and sedately1 as if he were studying the golden text or something equally absorbing1 when1 all at once1 some spirit of mischief seemed to possess him and away he bolted1 willy-nilly1 right under the low-hanging branches of one of those trees4 ,of course1 ,i was raked fore and aft1 and1 while ,i did not imitate the example of ,absalom1 ,i afforded a fairly good imitation1 with the difference that1 through many trials and tribulations1 ,i finally reached the ground4 ,needless to say that ,i was a good deal of a wreck1 with my clothing much torn and my hands and face not only much torn but also bleeding4 ,after relieving himself of his burden1 ,dick meandered on down to the creek in leisurely fashion1 where ,i came upon him in due time enjoying a lunch of grass4 ,walking toward the creek1 sore in body and spirit1 ,i fully made up my mind to have a talk with that colt that he would not soon forget4 ,he had put shame upon me1 and ,i determined to tell him so4 ,but when ,i came upon him looking so lamblike in his innocence1 and when ,i imagined that ,i heard him chuckle at my plight1 my resolution evaporated1 and ,i realized that in a trial of wits he had got the better of me4 ,moreover1 ,i conceded right there that he had a right to laugh1 and especially when he saw me so superlatively scrambled4 ,he had beaten me on my own ground and convicted me of knowing less than a horse1 so ,i could but yield the palm to him with what grace ,i could command4 ,many a time since that day have ,i been unhorsed1 and by a mere boy who laughed at my discomfiture4 ,but ,i learned my lesson from ,dick and have always tried1 though grimly1 to applaud the victor in the tournament of wits4 ,only so could ,i hold the respect of the boy1 not to mention my own4 ,if a boy sets a trap for me and ,i walk into it1 well1 if he doesn't laugh at me he isn't much of a boy2 and if ,i can't laugh with him ,i am not much of a schoolmaster4 ,,chapter ,,vi ,,lanterns ,i may be mistaken1 but my impression is that ,the ,light of the ,world1 by ,holman ,hunt1 is the only celebrated picture in the world of which there are two originals4 ,one of these may be seen at ,oxford and the other in ,st4 ,paul's1 ,london4 ,neither is a copy of the other1 and yet they are both alike1 so far as one may judge without having them side by side4 ,the picture represents ,christ standing at a door knocking1 with a lantern in one hand from which light is streaming4 ,when ,i think of a lantern the mind instantly flashes to this picture1 to ,diogenes and his lantern1 and to the old tin lantern with its perforated cylinder which ,i used to carry out to the barn to arrange the bed-chambers for the horses4 ,all my life have ,i been hearing folks speak of the association of ideas as if one idea could conjure up innumerable others4 ,the lantern that ,i carried to the barn never could have been associated with ,diogenes if ,i had not read of the philosopher1 nor with the picture at ,oxford if ,i had never seen or heard of it4 ,in order that we have association of ideas1 we must first have the ideas1 according to my way of thinking4 ,thus it chanced that when ,i came upon some reference to ,holman ,hunt and his great masterpiece1 my mind glanced over to the cynical philosopher and his lantern4 ,the more ,i ponder over that lantern the more puzzled ,i become as to its real significance4 ,the popular notion is that it is meant to show how difficult it was in his day to find an honest man4 ,but popular conceptions are sometimes superficial ones1 and if ,diogenes was the philosopher we take him to have been there must have been more to that lantern than the mere eccentricity of the man who carried it4 ,if we could go back of the lantern we might find the cynic's definition of honesty1 and that would be worth knowing4 ,back home we used to say that an honest man is one who pays his debts and has due respect for property rights4 ,perhaps ,diogenes had gone more deeply into the matter of paying debts as a mark of honesty than those who go no further in their thinking than the grocer1 the butcher1 and the tax-man4 ,this all tends to set me thinking of my own debts and the possibility of full payment4 ,i'm just a schoolmaster and people rather expect me to be somewhat visionary or even fantastic in my notions4 ,but1 with due allowance for my vagaries1 ,i cannot rid myself of the feeling that ,i am deeply in debt to somebody for the ,venus de ,milo4 ,she has the reputation of being the very acme of sculpture1 and certainly the ,parisians so regard her or they would not pay her such a high tribute in the way of space and position4 ,she is the focus of that whole wonderful gallery4 ,no one has ever had the boldness to give her a place in the market quotations1 but ,i can regale myself with her beauty for a mere pittance4 ,this pittance does not at all cancel my indebtedness1 and ,i come away feeling that ,i still owe something to somebody1 without in the least knowing who it is or how ,i am to pay4 ,i can't even have the poor satisfaction of making proper acknowledgment to the sculptor4 ,i can acknowledge my obligation to ,michael ,angelo for the ,sistine ceiling1 but that doesn't cancel my indebtedness by any means4 ,it took me fifteen years to find the ,cumaean ,sibyl4 ,i had seen a reproduction of this lady in some book1 and had become much interested in her generous physique1 her brawny arms1 her wide-spreading toes1 and her look of concentration as she delves into the mysteries of the massive volume before her4 ,naturally ,i became curious as to the original1 and wondered if ,i should ever meet her face to face4 ,then one day ,i was lying on my back on a wooden bench in the ,sistine ,chapel1 having duly apologized for my violation of the conventions1 when1 wonder of wonders1 there was the ,cumaean ,sibyl in full glory right before my eyes1 and the quest of all those years was ended in triumph4 ,true1 the ,sibyl does not compare in greatness with the ,creation of ,adam in one of the central panels1 but for all that ,i was glad to have her definitely localized4 ,i have never got it clearly figured out just how the letters of the alphabet were evolved1 nor who did the work1 but ,i go right on using them as if ,i had evolved them myself4 ,they seem to be my own personal property1 and ,i jostle them about quite careless of the fact that some one gave them to me4 ,i can't see how ,i could get on without them1 and yet ,i have never admitted any obligation to their author4 ,the same is true of the digits4 ,i make constant use of them1 and sometimes even abuse them1 as if ,i had a clear title to them4 ,i have often wondered who worked out the table of logarithms1 and have thought how much more agreeable life has been for many people because of his work4 ,i know my own debt to him is large1 and ,i dare say many others have a like feeling4 ,even the eighth-grade boys in the ,castle ,road school1 ,london1 share this feeling1 doubtless1 for in a test in arithmetic that ,i saw there ,i noted that in four of the twelve problems set for solution they had permission to use their table of logarithms4 ,they probably got home earlier for supper by their use of this table4 ,i hereby make my humble apologies to ,mr4 ,thomas ,a4 ,edison for my thoughtlessness in not writing to him before this to thank him for his many acts of kindness to me4 ,i have been exceedingly careless in the matter4 ,i owe him for the comfort and convenience of this beautiful electric light1 and yet have never mentioned the matter to him4 ,he has a right to think me an ingrate4 ,i have been so busy enjoying the gifts he has sent me that ,i have been negligent of the giver4 ,as ,i think of all my debts to scientists1 inventors1 artists1 poets1 and statesmen1 and consider how impossible it is for me to pay all my debts to all these1 try as ,i may1 ,i begin to see how difficult it was for ,diogenes to find a man who paid all his debts in full4 ,hence1 the lantern4 ,it seems to me that1 of the varieties of late potatoes the ,carmen is the premier4 ,part of the charm of hoeing potatoes lies in anticipating the joys of the potato properly baked4 ,charles ,lamb may write of his roast pig1 and the epicures among the ancients may expatiate upon the glories of a dish of peacock's tongues and their other rare and costly edibles1 but they probably never knew to what heights one may ascend in the scale of gastronomic joys in the immediate presence of a baked ,carmen4 ,when it is broken open the steam ascends like incense from an altar1 while at the magic touch the snowy1 flaky substance billows forth upon the plate in a drift that would inspire the pen of a poet4 ,the further preliminaries amount to a ceremony4 ,there can be1 there must be no haste4 ,the whole summer lies back of this moment4 ,there on the plate are weeks of golden sunshine1 interwoven with the singing of birds and the fragrance of flowers2 and it were sacrilege to become hurried at the consummation4 ,when the meat has been made fine the salt and pepper are applied1 deliberately1 daintily1 and then comes the butter1 like the golden glow of sunset upon a bank of flaky clouds4 ,the artist tries in vain to rival this blending of colors and shades4 ,but the supreme moment and the climax come when the feast is glorified and set apart by its baptism of cream4 ,at such a moment the sense of my indebtedness to the man who developed the ,carmen becomes most acute4 ,if the leaders of contending armies could sit together at this table and join in this gracious ceremony1 their rancor and enmity would cease1 the protocol would be signed1 and there would ensue a proclamation of peace4 ,then the whole world would recognize its debt to the man who produced this potato4 ,having eaten the peace-producing potato1 ,i feel strengthened to make another trial at an interpretation of that lantern4 ,i do not know whether ,diogenes had any acquaintance with the ,decalogue1 but have my doubts4 ,in fact1 history gives us too few data concerning his attainments for a clear exposition of his character4 ,but one may hazard a guess that he was looking for a man who would not steal1 but could not find him4 ,in a sense that was a high compliment to the people of his day1 for there is a sort of stealing that takes rank among the fine arts4 ,in fact1 stealing is the greatest subject that is taught in the school4 ,i cannot recall a teacher who did not encourage me to strive for mastery in this art4 ,every one of them applauded my every success in this line4 ,one of my early triumphs was reciting ,horatius at the ,bridge1 and my teacher almost smothered me with praise4 ,i simply took what ,macaulay had written and made it my own4 ,i had some difficulty in making off with the conjugation of the ,greek verb1 but the more ,i took of it the more my teacher seemed pleased4 ,all along the line ,i have been encouraged to appropriate what others have produced and to take joy in my pilfering4 ,mr4 ,carnegie has lent his sanction to this sort of thing by fostering libraries4 ,shakespeare was arrested for stealing a deer1 but extolled for stealing the plots of ,romeo and ,juliet1 ,comedy of ,errors1 and others of his plays4 ,it seems quite all right to steal ideas1 or even thoughts1 and this may account again for the old man's lantern4 ,but1 even so1 it would seem quite iconoclastic to say that education is the process of reminding people of their debts and of training them to steal4 ,,chapter ,,vii ,,complete ,,living ,in my quiet way ,i have been making inquiries among my acquaintances for a long time1 trying to find out what education really is4 ,as a schoolmaster ,i must try to make it appear that ,i know4 ,in fact1 ,i am quite a ,sir ,oracle on the subject of education in my school4 ,but1 in the quiet of my den1 after the day's work is done1 ,i often long for some one to come in and tell me just what it is4 ,i am fairly conversant with the multiplication table and can distinguish between active and passive verbs1 but even with these attainments ,i somehow feel that ,i have not gone to the extreme limits of the meaning of education4 ,in reality1 ,i don't know what it is or what it is for4 ,i do wish that the man who says in his book that education is a preparation for complete living would come into this room right now1 sit down in that chair1 and tell me1 man to man1 what complete living is4 ,i want to know and think ,i have a right to know4 ,besides1 he has no right to withhold this information from me4 ,he had no right to get me all stirred up with his definition1 and then go away and leave me dangling in the air4 ,if he were here ,i'd ask him a few pointed questions4 ,i'd ask him to tell me just how the fact that seven times nine is sixty-three is connected up with complete living4 ,i'd want him to explain1 too1 what the binomial theorem has to do with complete living1 and also the dative of reference4 ,i got the notion1 when ,i was struggling with that binomial theorem1 that it would ultimately lead on to fame or fortune2 but it hasn't done either1 so far as ,i can make out4 ,there was a time when ,i could solve an equation of three unknown quantities1 and could even jimmy a quantity out from under a radical sign1 and had the feeling that ,i was quite a fellow4 ,then one day ,i went into a bookstore to buy a book4 ,i had quite enough money to pay for one1 and had somehow got the notion that a boy of my attainments ought to have a book4 ,but1 in the presence of the blond chap behind the counter1 ,i was quite abashed1 for ,i did not in the least know what book ,i wanted4 ,i knew it wasn't a ,bible1 for we had one at home1 but further than that ,i could not go4 ,now1 if knowing how to buy a book is a part of complete living1 then1 in that blond presence1 ,i was hopelessly adrift4 ,i had been taught that gambling is wrong1 but there was a situation where ,i had to take a chance or show the white feather4 ,of course1 ,i took the chance and was relieved of my money by a blond who may or may not have been able to solve radicals4 ,i shall not give the title of the book ,i drew in that lottery1 for this is neither the time nor the place for confessions4 ,i was a book-agent for one summer1 but am trying to live it down4 ,hoping to sell a copy of the book whose glowing description ,i had memorized1 ,i called at the home of a wealthy farmer4 ,the house was spacious and embowered in beautiful trees and shrubbery4 ,there was a noble driveway that led up from the country road1 and everything betokened great prosperity4 ,once inside the house1 ,i took a survey of the fittings and could see at once that the farmer had lavished money upon the home to make it distinctive in the neighborhood as a suitable background for his wife and daughters4 ,the piano alone must have cost a small fortune1 and it was but one of the many instruments to be seen4 ,there were carpets1 rugs1 and curtains in great profusion1 and a bewildering array of all sorts of bric-a-brac4 ,in time the father asked one of the daughters to play1 and she responded with rather unbecoming alacrity4 ,what she played ,i shall never know1 but it seemed to me to be a five-finger exercise4 ,whatever it was1 it was not music4 ,i lost interest at once and so had time to make a more critical inspection of the decorations4 ,what ,i saw was a battle royal4 ,there was the utmost lack of harmony4 ,the rugs fought the carpets1 and both were at the throats of the curtains4 ,then the wall-paper joined in the fray1 and the din and confusion was torture to the spirit4 ,even the furniture caught the spirit of discord and made fierce attacks upon everything else in the room4 ,the reds1 and yellows1 and blues1 and greens whirled and swirled about in such a dizzy and belligerent fashion that ,i wondered how the people ever managed to escape nervous prostration4 ,but the daughter went right on with the five-finger exercise as if nothing else were happening4 ,i shall certainly cite this case when the man comes in to explain what he means by complete living4 ,this all reminds me of the man of wealth who thought it incumbent upon him to give his neighbors some benefit of his money in the way of pleasure4 ,so he went to ,europe and bought a great quantity of marble statuary and had the pieces placed in the spacious grounds about his home4 ,when the opening day came there ensued much suppressed tittering and1 now and then1 an uncontrollable guffaw4 ,diana1 ,venus1 ,vulcan1 ,apollo1 ,jove1 and ,mercury had evidently stumbled into a convention of nymphs1 satyrs1 fairies1 sprites1 furies1 harpies1 gargoyles1 giants1 pygmies1 muses1 and fates4 ,the result was bedlam4 ,parenthetically1 ,i have often wondered how much money it cost that man to make the discovery that he was not a connoisseur of art1 and also what process of education might have fitted him for a wise expenditure of all that money4 ,so ,i go on wondering what education is1 and nobody seems quite willing to tell me4 ,i bought some wall-paper once1 and when it had been hung there was so much laughter at my taste1 or lack of it1 that1 in my chagrin1 ,i selected another pattern to cover up the evidence of my ignorance4 ,but that is expensive1 and a schoolmaster can ill afford such luxurious ignorance4 ,people were unkind enough to say that the bare wall would have been preferable to my first selection of paper1 ,i was made conscious that complete living was impossible so long as that paper was visible4 ,but even when the original had been covered up ,i looked at the wall suspiciously to see whether it would show through as a sort of subdued accusation against me4 ,i don't pretend to know whether taste in the selection of wall-paper is inherent or acquired4 ,if it can be acquired1 then ,i wonder1 again1 just how cube root helps it along4 ,i don't know what education is1 but ,i do know that it is expensive4 ,i had some pictures in my den that seemed well enough till ,i came to look at some others1 and then they seemed cheap and inadequate4 ,i tried to argue myself out of this feeling1 but did not succeed4 ,as a result1 the old pictures have been supplanted by new ones1 and ,i am poorer in consequence4 ,but1 in spite of my depleted purse1 ,i take much pleasure in my new possessions and feel that they are indications of progress4 ,i wonder1 though1 how long it will be till ,i shall want still other and better ones4 ,education may be a good thing1 but it does increase and multiply one's wants4 ,then1 in a brief time1 these wants become needs1 and there you have perpetual motion4 ,when the agent came to me first to try to get me interested in an encyclopaedia ,i could scarce refrain from smiling4 ,but later on ,i began to want an encyclopaedia1 and now the one ,i have ranks as a household necessity the same as bathtub1 coffee-pot1 and tooth-brush4 ,but1 try as ,i may1 ,i can't clearly distinguish between wants and needs4 ,i see a thing that ,i want1 and the very next day ,i begin to wonder how ,i can possibly get on without it4 ,this must surely be the psychology of show-windows and show-cases4 ,if ,i didn't see the article ,i should feel no want of it1 of course4 ,but as soon as ,i see it ,i begin to want it1 and then ,i think ,i need it4 ,the county fair is a great psychological institution1 because it causes people to want things and then to think they need them4 ,the worst of it is the less able ,i am to buy a thing the more ,i want it and seem to need it4 ,i'd like to have money enough to make an experiment on myself just to see if ,i could ever reach the point1 as did the ,caliph1 where the only want ,i'd have would be a want4 ,possibly1 that's what the man means by complete living4 ,i wonder4 ,,chapter ,,viii ,,my ,,speech ,for some time ,i have had it in mind to make a speech4 ,i don't know what ,i would say nor where ,i could possibly find an audience1 but1 in spite of all that1 ,i feel that ,i'd like to try myself out on a speech4 ,i can't trace this feeling back to its source4 ,it may have started when ,i heard a good speech1 somewhere1 or1 it may have started when ,i heard a poor one4 ,i can't recall4 ,when ,i hear a good speech ,i feel that ,i'd like to do as well2 and1 when ,i hear a poor one1 ,i feel that ,i'd like to do better4 ,the only thing that is settled1 as yet1 about this speech that ,i want to make is the subject1 and even that is not my own4 ,it is just near enough my own1 however1 to obviate the use of quotation-marks4 ,the hardest part of the task of writing or speaking is to gain credit for what some one else has said or written1 and still be able to omit quotation-marks4 ,that calls for both mental and ethical dexterity of a high order4 ,but to the speech4 ,the subject is ,dialectic ,efficiency--without quotation-marks1 be it noted4 ,the way of it is this3 ,i have been reading1 or1 rather1 trying to read the masterly book by ,doctor ,fletcher ,durell1 whose title is ,fundamental ,sources of ,efficiency4 ,this is one of the most recondite books that has come from the press in a generation1 and it is no reflection upon the book for me to say that ,i have been trying to read it4 ,it is so big1 so deep1 so high1 and so wide that ,i can only splash around in it a bit4 ,but the water's fine4 ,at any rate1 ,i have been dipping into this book quite a little1 and that is how ,i came upon the caption of my speech4 ,of course1 ,i get the word efficiency from the title of the book1 and1 besides1 everybody uses that word nowadays4 ,then1 the author of this book has a chapter on ,dialectic1 and so ,i combine these two words and thus get rid of the quotation-marks4 ,and that certainly is an imposing subject for a speech4 ,if it should ever be printed on a programme1 it would prove awe-inspiring4 ,next to making a good speech1 ,i'd like to be skilled in sleight-of-hand affairs4 ,i'd like to fish up a rabbit from the depths of an old gentleman's silk tile1 or extract a dozen eggs from a lady's hand-bag1 or transmute a canary into a goldfish4 ,i'd like to see the looks of wonder on the faces of the audience and hear them gasp4 ,the difficulty with such a subject as ,i have chosen1 though1 is to fill the frame4 ,i went into a shop in ,paris once to make some small purchase1 expecting to find a great emporium1 but1 to my surprise1 found that all the goods were in the show-window4 ,that's one trouble with my subject--all the goods seem to be in the show-window4 ,but1 ,i'll do the best ,i can with it1 even if ,i am compelled to pilfer from the pages of the book4 ,in the introduction of the speech ,i shall become expansive upon the term ,dialectic1 and try to impress my hearers 7if there are any7 with my thorough acquaintance with all things which the term suggests4 ,if ,i continue expatiating upon the word long enough they may come to think that ,i actually coined the word1 for ,i shall not emphasize ,doctor ,durell especially--just enough to keep my soul untarnished4 ,in a review of this book one man translates the first word luck4 ,i don't like his word and for two reasons3 ,in the first place1 it is a short word1 and everybody knows that long words are better for speechmaking purposes4 ,if he had used the word accidental or incidental ,i'd think more of his translation and of his review4 ,i'm going to use my word as if ,doctor ,durell had said ,incidental4 ,so much for the introduction2 now for the speech4 ,from this point forward ,i shall draw largely upon the book but shall so turn and twist what the doctor says as to make it seem my own4 ,with something of a flourish1 ,i shall tell how in the year #ahef a young chemist1 named ,perkin1 while trying to produce quinine synthetically1 hit upon the process of producing aniline dyes4 ,his incidental discovery led to the establishment of the artificial-dye industry1 and we have here an example of dialectic efficiency4 ,this must impress my intelligent and cultured auditors1 and they will be wondering if ,i can produce another illustration equally good4 ,i can1 of course1 for this book is rich in illustrations4 ,i can see1 as it were1 the old fellow on the third seat1 who has been sitting there as stiff and straight as a ramrod1 limber up just a mite1 and with my next point ,i hope to induce him to lean forward an inch1 at least1 out of the perpendicular4 ,then ,i shall proceed to recount to them how ,christopher ,columbus1 in an effort to circumnavigate the globe and reach the eastern coast of ,asia1 failed in this undertaking1 but made a far greater achievement in the discovery of ,america4 ,if1 at this point1 the old man is leaning forward two or three inches instead of one1 ,i may ask1 in dramatic style1 where we should all be to-day if ,columbus had reached ,asia instead of ,america--in other words1 if this principle of dialectic efficiency had not been in full force4 ,just here1 to give opportunity for possible applause1 ,i shall take the handkerchief from my pocket with much deliberation1 unfold it carefully1 and wipe my face and forehead as an evidence that dispensing second-hand thoughts is a sweat-producing process4 ,then1 in a sort of sublimated frenzy1 ,i shall fairly deluge them with illustrations1 telling how the establishment of rural mail-routes led to improved roads and these1 in turn1 to consolidated schools and better conditions of living in the country2 how the potato-beetle1 which seems at first to be a scourge1 was really a blessing in disguise in that it set farmers to studying improved methods resulting in largely increased crops1 and how the scale has done a like service for fruit-growers2 how a friend of mine was drilling for oil and found water instead1 and now has an artesian well that supplies water in great abundance1 and how one ,mr4 ,hellriegel1 back in #ahhf1 made the incidental discovery that leguminous plants fixate nitrogen1 and1 hence1 our fields of clover1 alfalfa1 cow-peas1 and soybeans4 ,it will not seem out of place if ,i recall to them how the ,revolution gave us ,washington1 the ,adamses1 ,hancock1 ,madison1 ,franklin1 ,jefferson1 and ,hamilton2 how slavery gave us ,clay1 ,calhoun1 and ,webster2 and how the ,civil ,war gave us ,lincoln1 ,seward1 ,stanton1 ,grant1 ,lee1 ,sherman1 ,sheridan1 and ,stonewall ,jackson4 ,if there should1 by chance1 be any teachers present ,i'll probably enlarge upon this historical phase of the subject if ,i can think of any other illustrations4 ,i shall certainly emphasize the fact that the incidental phases of school work may prove to be more important than the objects directly aimed at1 that while the teacher is striving to inculcate a knowledge of arithmetic she may be inculcating manhood and womanhood1 and that the by-products of her teaching may become world-wide influences4 ,as a peroration1 ,i shall expand upon the subject of pleasure as an incidental of work--showing how the mere pleasure-seeker never finds what he is seeking1 but that the man who works is the one who finds pleasure4 ,i think ,i shall be able to find some apt quotation from ,emerson before the time for the speech comes around4 ,if so1 ,i shall use it so as to take their minds off the fact that ,i am taking the speech from ,doctor ,durell's book4 ,,chapter ,,ix ,,school-,,teaching ,the first school that ,i ever tried to teach was1 indeed1 fearfully and wonderfully taught4 ,the teaching was of the sort that might well be called elemental4 ,if there was any pedagogy connected with the work1 it was purely accidental4 ,i was not conscious either of its presence or its absence1 and so deserve neither praise nor censure4 ,i had one pupil who was nine years my senior1 and ,i did not even know that he was retarded4 ,i recall quite distinctly that he had a luxuriant crop of chin-whiskers but even these did not disturb the procedure of that school4 ,we accepted him as he was1 whiskers included1 and went on our complacent way4 ,he was blind in one eye and somewhat deaf1 but no one ever thought of him as abnormal or subnormal4 ,even if we had known these words we should have been too polite to apply them to him4 ,in fact1 we had no black-list1 of any sort1 in that school4 ,i have never been able to determine whether the absence of such a list was due to ignorance1 or innocence1 or both4 ,so long as he found the school an agreeable place in which to spend the winter1 and did not interfere with the work of others1 ,i could see no good reason why he should not be there and get what he could from the lessons in spelling1 geography1 and arithmetic4 ,i do not mention grammar for that was quite beyond him4 ,the agreement of subject and verb was one of life's great mysteries to him4 ,so ,i permitted him to browse around in such pastures as seemed finite to him1 and let the infinite grammar go by default so far as he was concerned4 ,i have but the most meagre acquaintance with the pedagogical dicta of the books--a mere bowing acquaintance--but1 at that time1 ,i had not even been introduced to any of these4 ,but1 as the saying goes1 ,the ,lord takes care of fools and children1 and1 so1 somehow1 by sheer blind luck1 ,i instinctively veered away from the ,procrustean bed idea1 and found some work for my bewhiskered disciple that connected with his native dispositions4 ,had any one told me ,i was doing any such things ,i think ,i should1 probably1 have asked him how to spell the words he was using4 ,i only knew that this man-child was there yearning for knowledge1 and ,i was glad to share my meagre store of crumbs with him4 ,his gratitude for my small gifts was really pathetic1 and right there ,i learned the joys of the teacher4 ,that man sought me out on our way home from school and asked questions that would have puzzled ,socrates1 but forgot my ignorance of hard questions in his joy at my answers of easy ones4 ,when some light would break in upon him he cavorted about me like a glad dog1 and became a second ,columbus1 discovering a new world4 ,i almost lose patience with myself1 at times1 when ,i catch myself preening my feathers before some pedagogical mirror1 as if ,i were getting ready to appear in public as an accredited schoolmaster4 ,at such a time1 ,i long to go back to the country road and saunter along beside some pupil1 either with or without whiskers1 and give him of my little store without rules or frills and with no pomp or parade4 ,in that little school at the crossroads we never made any preparation for some possible visitor who might come in to survey us or apply some efficiency test1 or give us a rating either as individuals or as a school4 ,we were too busy and happy for that4 ,we kept right on at our work with our doors and our hearts wide open for every good thing that came our way1 whether knowledge or people4 ,as ,i have said1 our work was elemental4 ,i am glad ,i came across this little book of ,william ,james1 ,on ,some of ,life's ,ideals1 for it takes me back1 inferentially1 to that elemental school1 especially in this paragraph which says3 ,life is always worth living1 if one have such responsive sensibilities4 ,but we of the highly educated classes 7so-called7 have most of us got far1 far away from ,nature4 ,we are trained to seek the choice1 the rare1 the exquisite exclusively and to overlook the common4 ,we are stuffed with abstract conceptions1 and glib with verbalities and verbosities2 and in the culture of these higher functions the peculiar sources of joy connected with our simpler functions often dry up1 and we grow stone-blind and insensible to life's more elementary and general goods and joys4 ,i wish ,i might go home from school one evening by way of the top of ,mt4 ,vesuvius1 another by way of ,mt4 ,rigi1 and1 another1 by way of ,lauterbrunnen4 ,then the next evening ,i should like to spend an hour or two along the borders of ,yellowstone ,canyon1 and the next1 watch an eruption or two of ,old ,faithful geyser4 ,then1 on still another evening1 ,i'd like to ride for two hours on top of a bus in ,london4 ,i'd like to have these experiences as an antidote for emptiness4 ,it would prepare me far better for to-morrow work than pondering ,johnny's defections1 or his grades1 whether high or low1 or marking silly papers with marks that are still sillier4 ,i like ,walt ,whitman because he was such a sublime loafer4 ,his loafing gave him time to grow big inside1 and so1 he had big elemental thoughts that were good for him and good for me when ,i think them over after him4 ,if ,i should ever get a position in a normal school ,i'd want to give a course in ,william ,j4 ,locke's ,the ,beloved ,vagabond1 so as to give the young folks a conception of big elemental teaching4 ,if ,i were giving a course in ethics1 ,i'd probably select another book1 but1 in pedagogy1 ,i'd certainly include that one4 ,i'd lose some students1 to be sure1 for some of them would be shocked2 but a person who is not big enough to profit by reading that book never ought to teach school--,i mean for the school's sake4 ,if we could only lose the consciousness of the fact that we are schoolmasters for a few hours each day1 it would be a great help to us and to our boys and girls4 ,i am quite partial to the ,madonna of the ,chair1 and wish ,i might visit the ,pitti ,gallery frequently just to gaze at her4 ,she is so wholesome and gives one the feeling that a big soul looks out through her eyes4 ,she would be a superb teacher4 ,she would fill the school with her presence and still do it all unconsciously4 ,the centre of the room would be where she happened to be4 ,she would never be mistaken for one of the pupils4 ,her pupils would learn arithmetic but the arithmetic would be laden with her big spirit1 and that would be better for them than the arithmetic could possibly be4 ,if ,i had to be a woman ,i'd want to be such as this ,madonna--serene1 majestic1 and big-souled4 ,i have often wondered whether bigness of soul can be cultivated1 and my optimism inclines to a vote in the affirmative4 ,i spent a part of one summer in the pine woods far away from the haunts of men4 ,when ,i had to leave this sylvan retreat it required eleven hours by stage to reach the railway-station4 ,there for some weeks ,i lived in a log cabin1 accompanied by a cook and a professional woodsman4 ,i was not there to camp1 to fish1 or to loaf1 and yet ,i did all these4 ,there were some duties and work connected with the enterprise and these gave zest to the fishing and the loafing4 ,giant trees1 space1 and sky were my most intimate associates1 and they told me only of big things4 ,they had never a word to say of styles of clothing or becoming shades of neckwear or hosiery4 ,in all that time ,i was never disturbed by the number and diversity of spoons and forks beside my plate at the dinner-table4 ,many a noble meal ,i ate as ,i sat upon a log supported in forked stakes1 and many a big thought did ,i glean from the talk of loggers about me in their picturesque costumes4 ,in the evening ,i sat upon a great log in front of the cabin or a friendly stump1 and forgot such things as hammocks and porch-swings4 ,instead of gazing at street-lamps only a few yards away ,i was gazing at stars millions of miles away1 and1 somehow1 the soul seemed to gain freedom4 ,and ,i had luxury1 too4 ,i had a room with bath4 ,the bath was at the stream some fifty yards away1 but such discrepancies are minor affairs in the midst of such big elemental things as were all about me4 ,my mattress was of young cherry shoots1 and never did king have a more royal bed1 or ever such refreshing sleep4 ,and1 while ,i slept1 ,i grew inside1 for the soft music of the pines lulled me to rest1 and the subdued rippling of my bath-stream seemed to wash my soul clean4 ,when ,i arose ,i had no bad taste in my mouth or in my soul1 and each morning had for me the glory of a resurrection4 ,my trees were there to bid me good morning1 the big spaces spoke to me in their own inspiriting language1 and the big sun1 playing hide-and-seek among the great boles of the trees as he mounted from the horizon1 gave me a panorama unrivalled among the scenes of earth4 ,when ,i returned to what men called civilization1 ,i experienced a poignant longing for my big trees1 my sky1 and my spaces1 and felt that ,i had exchanged them for many things that are petty and futile4 ,if my school were only out in the heart of that big forest1 ,i feel that my work would be more effective and that ,i would not have to potter about among little things to obey the whims of convention and the dictates of technicalities1 but that the soul would be free to revel in the truth that sky and space proclaim4 ,i do hope ,i may never know so much about technical pedagogy that ,i shall not know anything else4 ,this may be what those people mean who speak of the revolt of the ego4 ,,chapter ,x ,,beefsteak ,i am just now quite in the mood to join the band2 ,i mean the vocational-education band4 ,the excitement has carried me off my feet4 ,i can't endure the looks of suspicion or pity that ,i see on the faces of my colleagues4 ,they stare at me as if ,i were wearing a tie or a hat or a coat that is a bit below standard4 ,i want to seem1 if not be1 modern and up-to-date1 and not odd and peculiar4 ,so ,i shall join the band4 ,i am not caring much whether ,i beat the drum1 carry the flag1 or lead the trick-bear4 ,i may even ride in the gaudily painted wagon behind a spotted pony and call out in raucous tones to all and sundry to hurry around to the main tent to get their education before the rush4 ,in times past1 when these vocational folks have piped unto me ,i have not danced2 but ,i now see the error of my ways and shall proceed at once to take dancing lessons4 ,when these folks lead in the millennium ,i want to be sitting well up in front2 and when they get the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow ,i want to participate in the distribution4 ,i do hope1 though1 that ,i may not exhaust my resources on the band and have none left for the boys and girls4 ,i hope ,i may not imitate ,mark ,twain's steamboat that stopped dead still when the whistle blew1 because blowing the whistle required all the steam4 ,i suspect that1 like the ,irishman1 ,i shall have to wear my new boots awhile before ,i can get them on1 for this new role is certain to entail many changes in my plans and in my ways of doing things4 ,i can see that it will be a wrench for me to think of the boys and girls as pedagogical specimens and not persons4 ,i have contracted the habit of thinking of them as persons1 and it will not be easy to come to thinking of them as mere objects to practise on4 ,the folks in the hospital speak of their patients as cases1 but ,i'd rather keep aloof from the hospital plan in my schoolmastering4 ,but1 being a member of the band1 ,i suppose that ,i'll feel it my duty to conform and do my utmost to help prove that our cult has discovered the great and universal panacea1 the balm in ,gilead4 ,as a member of the band1 in good and regular standing1 ,i shall find myself saying that the school should have the boys and girls pursue such studies as will fit them for their life-work4 ,this has a pleasing sound4 ,now1 if ,i can only find out1 somehow1 what the life-work of each one of my pupils is to be1 ,i'll be all right1 and shall proceed to fit each one out with his belongings4 ,i have asked them to tell me what their life-work is to be1 but they tell me they do not know4 ,so ,i suspect that ,i must visit all their parents in order to get this information4 ,until ,i get this information ,i cannot begin on my course of study4 ,if their parents cannot tell me ,i hardly know what ,i shall do1 unless ,i have recourse to their maiden aunts4 ,they ought to know4 ,but if they decline to tell ,i must begin on a long series of guesses1 unless1 in the meantime1 ,i am endowed with omniscience4 ,this whole plan fascinates me2 ,i dote upon it4 ,it is so pliable1 so dreamy1 and so opalescent that ,i can scarce restrain my enthusiasm4 ,but if ,i should fit one of my boys out with the equipment necessary for a blacksmith1 and then he should become a preacher1 ,i'd find the situation embarrassing4 ,my reputation as a prophet would certainly decline4 ,if ,i could know that this boy is looking forward to the ministry as his life-work1 the matter would be simple4 ,i'd proceed to fit him out with a fire-proof suit of ,greek1 ,hebrew1 and theology and have the thing done4 ,but even then some of my colleagues might protest on the assumption that ,greek and ,hebrew are not vocational studies4 ,the preacher might assert that they are vocational for his work1 in which case ,i'd find myself in the midst of an argument4 ,i know a young man who is a student in a college of medicine4 ,he is paying his way by means of his music4 ,he both plays and sings1 and can thus pay his bills4 ,in the college he studies chemistry1 anatomy1 and the like4 ,i'm trying to figure out whether or not1 in his case1 either his music or his chemistry is vocational4 ,i have been perusing the city directory to find out how many and what vocations there are1 that ,i may plan my course of study accordingly when ,i discover what the life-work of each of my pupils is to be4 ,if ,i find that one boy expects to be an undertaker he ought to take the dead languages1 of course4 ,if another boy expects to be a jockey he might take these same languages with the aid of a pony4 ,if a girl decides upon marriage as her vocation1 ,i'll have her take home economics1 of course1 but shall have difficulty in deciding upon her other studies4 ,if ,i omit ,latin1 history1 and algebra1 she may reproach me later on because of these omissions4 ,she may find that such studies as these are essential to success in the vocation of wife and mother4 ,she may have a boy of her own who will invoke her aid in his quest for the value of x1 and a mother hesitates to enter a plea of ignorance to her own child4 ,i can fit out the dancing-master easily enough1 but am not so certain about the barber1 the chauffeur1 and the aviator4 ,the aviator would give me no end of trouble1 especially if ,i should deem it necessary to teach him by the laboratory method4 ,then1 again1 if one boy decides to become a pharmacist1 ,i may find it necessary to attend night classes in this subject myself in order to meet the situation with a fair degree of complacency4 ,nor do ,i see my way clear in providing for the steeple-climber1 the equilibrist1 the railroad president1 or the tea-taster4 ,i'll probably have my troubles1 too1 with the novel-writer1 the poet1 the politician1 and the bareback rider4 ,but ,i must manage somehow if ,i hope to retain my membership in the band4 ,i see that ,i shall have to serve quite an apprenticeship in the band before ,i write my treatise on the subject of pedagogical predestination4 ,the world needs that essay1 and ,i must get around to it just as soon as possible4 ,of course1 that will be a great step beyond the present plan of finding out what a boy expects to do1 and then teaching him accordingly4 ,my predestination plan contemplates the process of arranging such a course of study for him as will make him what we want him to be4 ,a naturalist tells me that when a queen bee dies the swarm set to work making another queen by feeding one of the common working bees some queen stuff4 ,he failed to tell me just what this queen stuff is4 ,that process of producing a queen bee is what gave me the notion as to my treatise4 ,if the parents want their boy to become a lawyer ,i shall feed him lawyer stuff2 if a preacher1 then preacher stuff1 and so on4 ,this will necessitate a deal of research work1 for ,i shall have to go back into history1 first of all1 to find out the course of study that produced ,newton1 ,humboldt1 ,darwin1 ,shakespeare1 ,dante1 ,edison1 ,clara ,barton1 and the rest of them4 ,if a roast-beef diet is responsible for ,shakespeare1 surely we ought to produce another ,shakespeare1 considering the excellence of the cattle we raise4 ,i can easily discover the constituent elements of the beef pudding of which ,samuel ,johnson was so fond by writing to the old ,cheshire ,cheese in ,london4 ,of course1 this plan of mine seems not to take into account the ,lord's work to any large extent4 ,but that seems to be the way of us vocationalists4 ,we seem to think we can do certain things in spite of what the ,lord has or has not done4 ,the one danger that ,i foresee in all this work that ,i have planned is that it may produce overstimulation4 ,some one was telling me that the trees on the ,embankment there in ,london are dying of arboreal insomnia4 ,the light of the sun keeps them awake all day1 and the electric lights keep them awake all night4 ,so the poor things are dying from lack of sleep4 ,macbeth had some trouble of that sort1 too1 as ,i recall it4 ,i'm going to hold on to the vocational stimulation unless ,i find it is producing pedagogical insomnia4 ,then ,i'll resign from the band and take a long nap4 ,i'll continue to advocate pudding1 pastry1 and pie until ,i find that they are not producing the sort of men and women the world needs1 and then ,i'll beat an inglorious retreat and again espouse the cause of orthodox beefsteak4 ,,chapter ,,xi ,,freedom ,i have often wondered what conjunction of the stars caused me to become a schoolmaster1 if1 indeed1 the stars1 lucky or otherwise1 had anything to do with it4 ,it may have been the salary that lured me1 for thirty-five dollars a month bulks large on a boy's horizon4 ,possibly the fact that in those days there was no anteroom to the teaching business may have been the deciding factor4 ,one had but to exchange his hickory shirt for a white one1 and the trick was done4 ,there was not even a fence between the corn-field and the schoolhouse4 ,i might just as easily have been a preacher but for the barrier in the shape of a theological seminary1 or a hod-carrier but for the barrier of learning how4 ,as it was1 ,i could draw my pay for husking corn on ,saturday night1 and begin accumulating salary as a schoolmaster on ,monday4 ,the plan was simplicity itself1 and that may account for my choice of a vocation4 ,i have sometimes tried to imagine myself a preacher1 but with poor success4 ,the sermon would bother me no little1 to make no mention of the other functions4 ,i think ,i never could get through with a marriage ceremony1 and at a christening ,i'd be on nettles all the while1 fearing the baby would cry and thus disturb the solemnity of the occasion and of the preacher4 ,i'd want to take the baby into my own arms and have a romp with him--and so would forget about the baptizing4 ,in casting about for a possible text for this impossible preacher1 ,i have found only one that ,i think ,i might do something with4 ,hence1 my preaching would endure but a single week1 and even at that we'd have to have a song service on ,sunday evening in lieu of a sermon4 ,my one text would be3 ,ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free4 ,i do not know how big truth is1 but it must be quite extensive if science1 mathematics1 history1 and literature are but small parts of it4 ,i have never explored these parts very far inland1 but they seem to my limited gaze to extend a long distance before me2 and when ,i get to thinking that each of these is but a part of something that is called truth ,i begin to feel that truth is a pretty large affair4 ,i suspect the text means that the more of this truth we know the greater freedom we have4 ,my friend ,brown has an automobile1 and sometimes he takes me out riding4 ,on one of these occasions we had a puncture1 with the usual attendant circumstances4 ,while ,brown made the needful repairs1 ,i sat upon the grassy bank4 ,the passers-by probably regarded me as a lazy chap who disdained work of all sorts1 and perhaps thought of me as enjoying myself while ,brown did the work4 ,in this they were grossly mistaken1 for ,brown was having the good time1 while ,i was bored and uncomfortable4 ,why1 ,brown actually whistled as he repaired that puncture4 ,he had freedom because he knew which tool to use1 where to find it1 and how to use it4 ,but there ,i sat in ignorance and thraldom--not knowing the truth about the tools or the processes4 ,in the presence of that episode ,i felt like one in a foreign country who is ignorant of the language1 while ,brown was the concierge who understands many languages4 ,he knew the truth and so had freedom4 ,i have often wondered whether men do not sometimes get drunk to win a respite from the thraldom and boredom of their ignorance of the truth4 ,it must be a very trying experience not to understand the language that is spoken all about one4 ,i have something of that feeling when ,i go into a drug-store and find myself in complete ignorance of the contents of the bottles because ,i cannot read the labels4 ,i have no freedom because ,i do not know the truth4 ,the dapper clerk who takes down one bottle after another with refreshing freedom relegates me to the kindergarten1 and ,i certainly feel and act the part4 ,i had this same feeling1 too1 when ,i was making ready to sow my little field with alfalfa4 ,i wanted to have alfalfa growing in the field next to the road for my own pleasure and for the pleasure of the passers-by4 ,a field of alfalfa is an ornament to any landscape1 and ,i like to have my landscapes ornamental1 even if ,i must pay for it in terms of manual toil4 ,i had never even seen alfalfa seed and did not in the least know how to proceed in preparing the soil4 ,if ,i ever expected to have any freedom ,i must first learn the truth1 and a certain modicum of freedom necessarily precedes the joy of alfalfa4 ,thus it came to pass that ,i set about learning the truth4 ,i had to learn about the nature of the soil1 about drainage1 about the right kinds of fertilizer1 and all that1 before ,i could even hitch the team to a plough4 ,some of this truth ,i gleaned from books and magazines1 but more of it ,i obtained from my neighbor ,john1 who lives about two hundred yards up the pike from my little place4 ,john is a veritable encyclopedia of truth when it comes to the subject of alfalfa4 ,there ,i would sit at the feet of this alfalfa ,gamaliel4 ,be it said in favor of my reactions that ,i learned the trick of alfalfa and now have a field that is a delight to the eye4 ,and ,i now feel qualified to give lessons in alfalfa culture to all and sundry1 so great is my sense of freedom4 ,i came upon a forlorn-looking woman once in a large railway-station who was in great distress4 ,she wanted to get a train1 but did not know through which gate to go nor where to obtain the necessary information4 ,she was overburdened with luggage and a little girl was tugging at her dress and crying pitifully4 ,that woman was as really in bondage as if she had been in prison looking out through the barred windows4 ,when she had finally been piloted to the train the joy of freedom manifested itself in every lineament of her face4 ,she had come to know the truth1 and the truth had set her free4 ,i know how she felt1 for one night ,i worked for more than two hours on what1 to me1 was a difficult problem1 and when at last ,i had it solved the manifestations of joy caused consternation to the family and damage to the furniture4 ,i never was in jail for any length of time1 but ,i think ,i know1 from my experience with that problem1 just how a prisoner feels when he is set free4 ,the big out-of-doors must seem inexpressibly good to him4 ,my neighbor ,john taught me how to spray my trees1 and now1 when ,i walk through my orchard and see the smooth trunks and pick the beautiful1 smooth1 perfect apples1 ,i feel that sense of freedom that can come only through a knowledge of the truth4 ,i haven't looked up the etymology of grippe1 but the word itself seems to tell its own story4 ,it seems to mean restriction1 subjection1 slavery4 ,it certainly spells lack of freedom4 ,i have seen many boys and girls who seemed afflicted with arithmetical1 grammatical1 and geographical grippe1 and ,i have sought to free them from its tyranny and lead them forth into the sunlight and pure air of freedom4 ,if ,i only knew just how to do this effectively ,i think ,i'd be quite reconciled to the work of a schoolmaster4 ,,chapter ,,xii ,,things ,i keep resolving and resolving to reform and lead the simple life1 but something always happens that prevents the execution of my plans4 ,when ,i am grubbing out willows along the ravine1 the grubbing-hoe1 a lunch-basket well filled1 and a jug of water from the deep well up there under the trees seem to be the sum total of the necessary appliances for a life of usefulness and contentment4 ,there is a friendly maple-tree near the scene of the grubbing activities1 and an hour at noon beneath that tree with free access to the basket and the jug seems to meet the utmost demands of life4 ,the grass is luxuriant1 the shade is all-embracing1 and the willows can wait4 ,so1 what additions can possibly be needed8 ,i lie there in the shade1 my hunger and thirst abundantly satisfied1 and contemplate the results of my forenoon's toil with the very acme of satisfaction4 ,there is now a large1 clear space where this morning there was a jungle of willows4 ,the willows have been grubbed out imis sedibus1 as our friend ,virgil would say it1 and not merely chopped off2 and the thoroughness of the work gives emphasis to the satisfaction4 ,the overalls1 the heavy shoes1 and the sunshade hat all belong in the picture4 ,but the entire wardrobe costs less than the hat ,i wear on ,sunday4 ,then the comfort of these inexpensive habiliments6 ,i need not be fastidious in such a garb1 but can loll on the grass without compunction4 ,when ,i get mud upon my big shoes ,i simply scrape it off with a chip1 and that's all there is to it4 ,the dirt on my overalls is honest dirt1 and honestly come by1 and so needs no apology4 ,i can talk to my neighbor ,john of the big things of life and feel no shame because of overalls4 ,then1 in the evening1 when resting from my toil1 ,i sit out under the leafy canopy and revel in the sounds that can be heard only in the country--the croaking of the frogs1 the soft twittering of the birds somewhere near1 yet out of sight1 the cosey crooning of the chickens as they settle upon their perches for the night1 and the lonely hooting of the owl somewhere in the big tree down in the pasture4 ,i need not move from my seat nor barter my money for a concert in some majestic hall ablaze with lights when such music as this may be had for the listening4 ,under the magic of such music the body relaxes and the soul expands4 ,the soft breezes caress the brow1 and the moon makes shimmering patterns on the grass4 ,but when ,i return to the town to resume my school-mastering1 then the strain begins1 and then the reign of complexities is renewed4 ,when ,i am fully garbed in my town clothing ,i find myself the possessor of nineteen pockets4 ,what they are all for is more than ,i can make out4 ,if ,i had them all in use ,i'd have to have a detective along with me to help me find things4 ,out there on the farm two pockets quite suffice1 but in the town ,i must have seventeen more4 ,the difference between town and country seems to be about the difference between grubbing willows and schoolmastering4 ,among the willows ,i find two pockets are all ,i require2 but among the children ,i must needs have nineteen1 whether ,i have anything in them or not4 ,one of these seems to be designed for a college degree2 another is an efficiency pocket2 another a discipline pocket2 another a pocket for methods2 another for professional spirit2 another for loyalty to all the folks who are in need of loyalty1 and so on4 ,i really do not know all the labels4 ,when ,i was examined for a license to teach they counted my pockets1 and1 finding ,i had the requisite nineteen1 they bestowed upon me the coveted document with something approaching eclat4 ,in my teaching ,i become so bewildered ransacking these pockets1 trying to find something that will bear some resemblance to the label1 that ,i come near forgetting the boys and girls4 ,but they are very nice and polite about it1 and seem to feel sorry that ,i must look after all my pockets when ,i'd so much rather be teaching4 ,out in the willow thicket ,i can go right on with my work without so much care or perplexity4 ,why1 ,i don't need to do any talking out there1 and so have time to do some thinking4 ,but here ,i do so much talking that neither ,i nor my pupils have any chance for thinking4 ,i know it is not the right way1 but1 somehow1 ,i keep on doing it4 ,i think it must be a bad habit1 but ,i don't do it when ,i am grubbing willows4 ,i seem to get to the bottom of things out there without talking1 and ,i can't make out why ,i don't do the same here in the school4 ,out there ,i do things2 in here ,i say things4 ,i do wonder if there is any forgiveness for a schoolmaster who uses so many words and gets such meagre results4 ,and then the words ,i use here are such ponderous things4 ,they are not the sort of human1 flesh-and-blood words that ,i use when talking to neighbor ,john as we sit on top of the rail fence4 ,these all seem so like words in a book1 as if ,i had rehearsed them in advance4 ,it may be just the town atmosphere1 but1 whatever it is1 ,i do wish ,i could talk to these children about decimals in the same sort of words that ,i use when ,i am talking with ,john4 ,he seems to understand me1 and ,i think they could4 ,possibly it is just the tension of town life4 ,i know that ,i seem to get keyed up as soon as ,i come into the town4 ,there are so many things here1 and many of them are so artificial that ,i seem unable to relax as ,i do out there where there are just frogs1 and moon1 and chickens1 and cows4 ,when ,i am here ,i seem to have a sort of craze for things4 ,the shop-windows are full of things1 and ,i seem to want all of them4 ,i know ,i have no use for them1 and yet ,i get them4 ,my neighbor ,brown bought a percolator1 and within a week ,i had one4 ,i had gone on for years without a percolator1 not even knowing about such a thing1 but no sooner had ,brown bought one than every sound ,i heard seemed to be inquiring3 ,what is home without a percolator8 ,so ,i go on accumulating things1 and my den is a veritable medley of things4 ,they don't make me any happier1 and they are a great bother4 ,there are fifty-seven things right here in my den1 and ,i don't need more than six or seven of them4 ,there are twenty-two pictures1 large and small1 in this room1 but ,i couldn't have named five of them had ,i not just counted them4 ,why ,i have them is beyond my comprehension4 ,i inveigh against the mania of people for drugs and narcotics1 but my mania for things only differs in kind from theirs4 ,i have a little book called ,things of the ,mind1 and ,i like to read it4 ,now1 if my mind only had as many things in it as my den1 ,i'd be a far more agreeable associate for ,brown and my neighbor ,john4 ,or1 if ,i were as careful about getting things for my mind as ,i am in accumulating useless bric-a-brac1 it would be far more to my credit4 ,if the germs that are lurking in and about these fifty-seven things should suddenly become as large as spiders1 ,i'd certainly be the unhappy possessor of a flourishing menagerie1 and ,i think my progress toward the simple life would be very promptly hastened4 ,,chapter ,,xiii ,,targets ,in my work as a schoolmaster ,i find it well to keep my mind open and not get to thinking that my way is the only way1 or even the best way4 ,i think ,i learn more from my boys and girls than they learn from me1 and so long as ,i can keep an open mind ,i am certain to get some valuable lessons from them4 ,i got to telling the college chap about a hen that taught me a good lesson1 and the first thing ,i knew ,i was going to school to this college youth1 and he was enlightening me on the subject of animal psychology1 and especially upon the trial-and-error theory4 ,that set me wondering how many trials and errors that hen made before she finally succeeded in surmounting that fence4 ,at any rate1 the hen taught me another lesson besides the lesson of perseverance4 ,i have a high wire fence enclosing the chicken-yard1 and in order to make steady the posts to which the gate is attached1 ,i joined them at the top by nailing a board across4 ,the hen that taught me the lesson must be both ambitious and athletic1 for time after time have ,i found her outside the chicken-yard4 ,i searched diligently for the place of exit1 but could not find it4 ,so1 in desperation1 ,i determined one morning to discover how that hen gained her freedom if it took all day4 ,so ,i found a comfortable seat and waited4 ,in an hour or so the hen came out into the open and took a survey of the situation4 ,then1 presently1 with skill born of experience1 she sidled this way and that1 advanced a little and then retreated until she found the exact location she sought1 poised herself for a moment1 and went sailing right over the board that connected the posts4 ,having made this discovery1 ,i removed the board and used wire instead1 and thus reduced the hen to the plane of obedience4 ,just as soon as the hen lacked something to aim at1 she could not get over the wire barrier1 and she taught me the importance of giving my pupils something to aim at4 ,i like my boys and girls1 and believe they are just as smart as any hen that ever was1 and that1 if ,i'll only supply things for them to aim at1 they will go high and far4 ,every time ,i see that hen ,i am the subject of diverse emotions4 ,i feel half angry at myself for being so dull that a mere hen can teach me1 and then ,i feel glad that she taught me such a useful lesson4 ,before learning this lesson ,i seemed to expect my pupils to take all their school work on faith1 to do it because ,i told them it would be good for them4 ,but ,i now see there is a better way4 ,in my boyhood days we always went to the county fair1 and that was one of the real events of the year4 ,on the morning of that day there was no occasion for any one to call me a second time4 ,i was out of bed in a trice1 at the first call1 and soon had my chores done ready for the start4 ,i had money in my pocket1 too1 for visions of pink lemonade1 peanuts1 ice-cream1 candy1 and colored balloons had lured me on from achievement to achievement through the preceding weeks1 and thrift had claimed me for its own4 ,so ,i had money because1 all the while1 ,i had been aiming at the county fair4 ,we used to lay out corn ground with a single-shovel plough1 and took great pride in marking out a straight furrow across the field4 ,there was one man in the neighborhood who was the champion in this art1 and ,i wondered how he could do it4 ,so ,i set about watching him to try to learn his art4 ,at either end of the field he had a stake several feet high1 bedecked at the top with a white rag4 ,this he planted at the proper distance from the preceding furrow and1 in going across the field1 kept his gaze fixed upon the white rag that topped the stake4 ,with a firm grip upon the plough1 and his eyes riveted upon the white signal1 he moved across the field in a perfectly straight line4 ,i had thought it the right way to keep my eyes fixed upon the plough until his practice showed me that ,i had pursued the wrong course4 ,my furrows were crooked and zigzag1 while his were straight4 ,i now see that his skill came from his having something to aim at4 ,i am trying to profit by the example of that farmer in my teaching4 ,i'm all the while in quest of stakes and white rags to place at the other side of the field to direct the progress of the lads and lasses in a straight course1 and raise their eyes away from the plough that they happen to be using4 ,i want to keep them thinking of things that are bigger and further along than grades4 ,the grades will come as a matter of course1 if they can keep their eyes on the object across the field4 ,i want them to be too big to work for mere grades4 ,we never give prizes in our school1 especially money prizes4 ,it would seem rather a cheap enterprise to my fine boys and girls to get a piece of money for committing to memory the ,gettysburg ,speech4 ,we respect ourselves and ,lincoln too much for that4 ,it would grieve me to know that one of my girls could be hired to read a book for an hour in the evening to a sick neighbor4 ,i want her to have her pay in a better and more enduring medium than that4 ,i'd hope she would aim at something higher than that4 ,if ,i can arrange the white rag1 ,i know the pupils will do the work4 ,there was ,jim1 for example1 who said to his father that he just couldn't do his arithmetic1 and wished he'd never have to go to school another day4 ,when his father told me about it ,i began at once to hunt for a white rag4 ,and ,i found it1 too4 ,we can generally find what we are looking for1 if we look in dead earnest4 ,well1 the next morning there was ,jim in the arithmetic class along with ,tom and ,charley4 ,i explained the absence of ,harry by telling them about his falling on the ice the night before and breaking his right arm4 ,i told them how he could get on well enough with his other studies1 but would have trouble with his arithmetic because he couldn't use his arm4 ,now1 ,tom and ,charley are quick in arithmetic1 and ,i asked ,tom to go over to ,harry's after school and help with the arithmetic1 and ,charley to go over the next day1 and ,jim the third day4 ,now1 anybody can see that white rag fluttering at the top of the stake across the field two days ahead4 ,so1 my work was done1 and ,i went on with my daily duties4 ,tom reported the next day1 and his report made our mouths water as he told of the good things that ,harry's mother had set out for them to eat4 ,the report of ,charley the next day was equally alluring4 ,then ,jim reported1 and on his day that good mother had evidently reached the climax in culinary affairs4 ,jim's eyes and face shone as if he had been communing with the supernals4 ,that was the last ,i ever heard of ,jim's trouble with arithmetic4 ,his father was eager to know how the change had been brought about1 and ,i explained on the score of the angel-food cake and ice-cream he had had over at ,harry's1 with no slight mention of my glorious white rag4 ,the books1 ,i believe1 call this social co-operation1 or something like that1 but ,i care little what they call it so long as ,jim's all right4 ,and he is all right4 ,why1 there isn't money enough in the bank to have brought that look to ,jim's face when he reported that morning1 and any offer to pay him for his help to ,harry1 either in money or school credits1 would have seemed an insult4 ,my neighbor ,john tells me many things about sheep and the way to drive them4 ,he says when he is driving twenty sheep along the road he doesn't bother about the two who frisk back to the rear of the flock so long as he keeps the other eighteen going along4 ,he says those two will join the others1 all in good time4 ,that helped me with those three boys4 ,i knew that ,tom and ,charley would go along all right1 so asked them to go over to ,harry's before ,i mentioned the matter to ,jim4 ,when ,i did ask him he came leaping and frisking into the flock as if he were afraid we might overlook him4 ,what a beautiful straight furrow he ploughed1 too4 ,his arithmetic work now must make the angels smile4 ,i shall certainly mention sheep1 the hen1 and the white rag in my book on farm pedagogy4 ,,chapter ,,xiv ,,sinners ,i take unction to myself1 sometimes1 in the reflection that ,i have a soul to save1 and in certain moments of uplift it seems to me to be worth saving4 ,some folks probably call me a sinner1 if not a dreadful sinner1 and ,i admit the fact without controversy4 ,i do not have at hand a list of the cardinal sins1 but ,i suspect ,i might prove an alibi as to some of them4 ,i don't get drunk2 ,i don't swear2 ,i go to church2 and ,i contribute1 mildly1 to charity4 ,but1 for all that1 ,i'm free to confess myself a sinner4 ,yet1 ,i still don't know what sin is1 or what is the way of salvation either for myself or for my pupils4 ,i grope around all the while trying to find this way4 ,at times1 ,i think they may find salvation while they are finding the value of x in an algebraic equation1 and possibly this is true4 ,i cannot tell4 ,if they fail to find the value of x1 ,i fall to wondering whether they have sinned or the teacher that they cannot find x4 ,i have attended revivals in my time1 and have had good from them4 ,in their pure and rarefied atmosphere ,i find myself in a state of exaltation4 ,but ,i find myself in need of a continuous revival to keep me at my best4 ,so1 in my school work1 ,i feel that ,i must be a revivalist or my pupils will sag back1 just as ,i do4 ,i find that the revival of yesterday will not suffice for to-day4 ,like the folks of old1 ,i must gather a fresh supply of manna each day4 ,stale manna is not wholesome4 ,i suspect that one of my many sins is my laziness in the matter of manna4 ,i found the value of x in the problem yesterday1 and so am inclined to rest to-day and celebrate the victory4 ,if ,i had to classify myself1 ,i'd say that ,i am an intermittent4 ,i eat manna one day1 and then want to fast for a day or so4 ,i suspect that's what folks mean by a besetting sin4 ,during my fasting ,i find myself talking almost fluently about my skill and industry as a gatherer of manna1 ,i suspect ,i am trying to make myself believe that ,i'm working in the manna field to-day1 by keeping my mind on my achievement yesterday4 ,that's another sin to my discredit1 and another occasion for a revival4 ,when ,i am fasting ,i do the most talking about how busy ,i am4 ,if ,i were harvesting manna ,i'd not have time for so much talk4 ,i should not need to tell how busy ,i am1 for folks could see for themselves4 ,i have tried to analyze this talk of mine about being so busy just to see whether ,i am trying to deceive myself or my neighbors4 ,i fell to talking about this the other day to my neighbor ,john1 and detected a faint smile on his face which ,i interpreted to be a query as to what ,i have to show for all my supposed industry4 ,well1 ,i changed the subject4 ,that smile on ,john's face made me think of revivals4 ,i read ,henderson's novel1 ,john ,percyfield1 and enjoyed it so much that when ,i came upon his other book1 ,education and the ,larger ,life1 ,i bought and read it4 ,but it has given me much discomfort4 ,in that book he says that it is immoral for any one to do less than his best4 ,i can scarcely think of that statement without feeling that ,i ought to be sent to jail4 ,i'm actually burdened with immorality1 and find myself all the while between the devil and the deep sea1 the devil of work1 and the deep sea of immorality4 ,i suppose that's why ,i talk so much about being busy1 trying to free myself from the charge of immorality4 ,i think it was ,virgil who said ,facilis descensus ,averno1 and ,i suppose ,mr4 ,henderson1 in his statement1 is trying to save me from the inconveniences of this trip4 ,i suppose ,i ought to be grateful to him for the hint1 but ,i just can't get any great comfort in such a close situation4 ,i know ,i must work or go hungry1 and ,i can stand a certain amount of fasting1 but to be stamped as immoral because ,i am fasting rather hurts my pride4 ,i'd much rather have my going hungry accounted a virtue1 and receive praise and bouquets4 ,when ,i am in a lounging mood it isn't any fun to have some ,henderson come along and tell me that ,i am in need of a revival4 ,a copy of ,baedeker in hand1 ,i have gone through a gallery of statues but did not find a sinner in the entire company4 ,the originals may have been sinners1 but not these marble statues4 ,that is some comfort4 ,to be a sinner one must be animate at the very least4 ,i'd rather be a sinner1 even1 than a mummy or a statue4 ,st4 ,paul wrote to ,timothy3 ,i have fought a good fight1 ,i have finished my course1 ,i have kept the faith4 ,there was nothing of the mummy or the statue in him4 ,he was just a straight-away sinful man1 and a glorious sinner he was4 ,i like to think of ,titian and ,michael ,angelo4 ,when their work was done and they stood upon the summit of their achievements they were up so high that all they had to do was to step right into heaven1 without any long journey4 ,tennyson did the same4 ,in his poem1 ,crossing the ,bar1 he filled all the space1 and so he had to cross over into heaven to get more room4 ,and ,riley's ,old ,aunt ,mary was another one4 ,she had been working out her salvation making jelly1 and jam1 and marmalade1 and just beaming goodness upon those boys so that they had no more doubts about goodness than they had of the peach preserves they were eating4 ,why1 there just had to be a heaven for old ,aunt ,mary4 ,she gathered manna every day1 and had some for the boys1 too1 but never said a word about being busy4 ,when ,i was reading the ,georgics with my boys1 we came upon the word bufo 7toad71 and ,i told them with much gusto that that was the only place in the language where the word occurs4 ,i had come upon this statement in a book that they did not have4 ,their looks spoke their admiration for the schoolmaster who could speak with authority4 ,after they had gone their ways1 two to ,porto ,rico1 one to ,chili1 another to ,brazil1 and others elsewhere1 ,i came upon the word bufo again in ,ovid4 ,i am still wondering what a schoolmaster ought to do in a case like that4 ,even if ,i had written to all those fellows acknowledging my error1 it would have been too late1 for they would1 long before1 have circulated the report all over ,south ,america and the ,united ,states that there is but one toad in the ,latin language4 ,if ,i hadn't believed everything ,i see in print1 hadn't been so cock-sure1 and hadn't been so ready to parade borrowed plumage as my own1 all this linguistic coil would have been averted4 ,i suppose ,mr4 ,henderson would send me to jail again for this4 ,i certainly didn't do my best1 and therefore ,i am immoral1 and therefore a sinner2 quad erat demonstrandum4 ,so1 ,i suppose1 if ,i'm to save my soul1 ,i must gather manna every day1 and if ,i find the value of x to-day1 ,i must find the value of a bigger x to-morrow4 ,then1 too1 ,i suppose ,i'll have to choose between ,mrs4 ,wiggs and ,emerson1 between the ,katzenjammers and ,shakespeare1 and between ragtime and grand opera4 ,i am very certain growing corn gives forth a sound only ,i can't hear it4 ,if my hearing were only acute enough ,i'd hear it and rejoice in it4 ,it is very trying to miss the sound when ,i am so certain that it is there4 ,the birds in my trees understand one another1 and yet ,i can't understand what they are saying in the least4 ,this simply proves my own limitations4 ,if ,i could but know their language1 and all the languages of the cows1 the sheep1 the horses1 and the chickens1 what a good time ,i could have with them4 ,if my powers of sight and hearing were increased only tenfold1 ,i'd surely find a different world about me4 ,here1 again1 ,i can't find the value of x1 try as ,i will4 ,the disquieting thing about all this is that ,i do not use to the utmost the powers ,i have4 ,i could see many more things than ,i do if ,i'd only use my eyes1 and hear things1 too1 if ,i'd try more4 ,the world of nature as it reveals itself to ,john ,burroughs is a thousand times larger than my world1 no doubt1 and this fact convicts me of doing less than my best1 and again the jail invites me4 ,,chapter ,,xv ,,hoeing ,,potatoes ,as ,i was lying in the shade of the maple-tree down there by the ravine1 yesterday1 ,i fell to thinking about my rights1 and the longer ,i lay there the more puzzled ,i became4 ,being a citizen in a democracy1 ,i have many rights that are guaranteed to me by the ,constitution1 notably life1 liberty1 and the pursuit of happiness4 ,in my school ,i become expansive in extolling these rights to my pupils4 ,but under that maple-tree ,i found myself raising many questions as to these rights1 and many others4 ,i have a right to sing tenor1 but ,i can't sing tenor at all1 and when ,i try it ,i disturb my neighbors4 ,right there ,i bump against a situation4 ,i have a right to use my knife at table instead of a fork1 and who is to gainsay my using my fingers8 ,queen ,elizabeth did4 ,i certainly have a right to lie in the shade of the maple-tree for two hours to-day instead of one hour1 as ,i did yesterday4 ,i wonder if reclining on the grass under a maple-tree is not a part of the pursuit of happiness that is specifically set out in the ,constitution8 ,i hope so1 for ,i'd like to have that wonderful ,constitution backing me up in the things ,i like to do4 ,the sun is so hot and hoeing potatoes is such a tiring task that ,i prefer to lounge in the shade with my back against the ,constitution4 ,in thinking of the pursuit of happiness ,i am inclined to personify happiness and then watch the chase1 wondering whether the pursuer will ever overtake her1 and what he'll do when he does4 ,i note that the ,constitution does not guarantee that the pursuer will ever catch her--but just gives him an open field and no favors4 ,he may run just as fast as he likes1 and as long as his endurance holds out4 ,i suspect that's where the liberty comes in4 ,i wonder if the makers of the ,constitution ever visualized that chase4 ,if so1 they must have laughed1 at least in their sleeves1 solemn crowd that they were4 ,if ,i were certain that ,i could overtake happiness ,i'd gladly join in the pursuit1 even on such a warm day as this1 but the dread uncertainty makes me prefer to loll here in the shade4 ,besides1 ,i'm not quite certain that ,i could recognize her even if ,i could catch her4 ,the photographs that ,i have seen are so very different that ,i might mistake happiness for some one else1 and that would be embarrassing4 ,if ,i should conclude that ,i was happy1 and then discover that ,i wasn't1 ,i scarcely see how ,i could explain myself to myself1 much less to others4 ,so ,i shall go on hoeing my potatoes and not bother my poor head about happiness4 ,it is just possible that ,i shall find it over there in the potato-patch1 for its latitude and longitude have never been definitely determined1 so far as ,i am aware4 ,i know ,i shall find some satisfaction over there at work1 and ,i am convinced that satisfaction and happiness are kinsfolk4 ,possibly my potatoes will prove the answer to some mother's prayer for food for her little ones next winter4 ,who knows8 ,as ,i loosen the soil about the vines ,i can look down the vista of the months1 and see some little one in his high chair smiling through his tears as mother prepares one of my beautiful potatoes for him1 and ,i think ,i can detect some moisture in mother's eyes1 too4 ,it is just possible that her tears are the consecrated incense upon the altar of thanksgiving4 ,i like to see such pictures as ,i ply my hoe1 for they give me respite from weariness1 and give fresh ardor to my hoeing4 ,if each one of my potatoes shall only assuage the hunger of some little one1 and cause the mother's eyes to distil tears of joy1 ,i shall be in the border-land of happiness1 to say the least4 ,i had fully intended to exercise my inalienable rights and lie in the shade for two hours to-day1 but when ,i caught a glimpse of that little chap in the high chair1 and heard his pitiful plea for potatoes1 ,i made for the potato-patch post-haste1 as if ,i were responding to a hurry call4 ,i suppose there is no more heart-breaking sound in nature than the crying of a hungry child4 ,i have been whistling all the afternoon along with my hoeing1 and now that ,i think of it1 ,i must be whistling because my potatoes are going to make that baby laugh4 ,well1 if they do1 then ,i shall elevate the hoeing of potatoes to the rank of a privilege4 ,oh1 ,i've read my ,tom ,sawyer1 and know about his enterprise in getting the fence whitewashed by making the task seem a privilege4 ,but ,tom was indulging in fiction1 and hoeing potatoes is no fiction4 ,still those whitewash artists had something of the feeling that ,i experience right now1 only there was no baby in their picture as there is in mine1 and so ,i have the baby as an additional privilege4 ,i wish ,i knew how to make all the school tasks rank as privileges to my boys and girls4 ,if ,i could only do that1 they would have gone far toward a liberal education4 ,if ,i could only get a baby to crying somewhere out beyond cube root ,i'm sure they would struggle through the mazes of that subject1 somehow1 so as to get to the baby to change its crying into laughter4 ',tis worth trying4 ,i wonder1 after all1 whether education is not the process of shifting the emphasis from rights to privileges4 ,i have a right1 when ,i go into the town1 to keep my seat in the car and let the old lady use the strap4 ,if ,i insist upon that right ,i feel myself a boor1 lacking the sense and sensibilities of a gentleman4 ,but when ,i relinquish my seat ,i feel that ,i have exercised my privilege to be considerate and courteous4 ,i have a right to permit weeds and briers to overrun my fences1 and the fences themselves to go to rack1 and so offend the sight of my neighbors2 but ,i esteem it a privilege to make the premises clean and beautiful1 so as to add so much to the sum total of pleasure4 ,i have a right to stay on my own side of the road and keep to myself2 but it is a great privilege to go up for a half-hour's exchange of talk with my neighbor ,john4 ,he always clears the cobwebs from my eyes and from my soul1 and ,i return to my work refreshed4 ,i have a right1 too1 to pore over the colored supplement for an hour or so1 but when ,i am able to rise to my privileges and take the ,book of ,job instead1 ,i feel that ,i have made a gain in self-respect1 and can stand more nearly erect4 ,i have a right1 when ,i go to church1 to sit silent and look bored2 but1 when ,i avail myself of the privilege of joining in the responses and the singing1 ,i feel that ,i am fertilizing my spirit for the truth that is proclaimed4 ,as a citizen ,i have certain rights1 but when ,i come to think of my privileges my rights seem puny in comparison4 ,then1 too1 my rights are such cold things1 but my privileges are full of sunshine and of joy4 ,my rights seem mathematical1 while my privileges seem curves of beauty4 ,in his scientific laboratory at ,princeton1 on one occasion1 the celebrated ,doctor ,hodge1 in preparing for an experiment said to some students who were gathered about him3 ,gentlemen1 please remove your hats2 ,i am about to ask ,god a question4 ,so it is with every one who esteems his privileges4 ,he is asking ,god questions about the glory of the sunrise1 the fragrance of the flowers1 the colors of the rainbow1 the music of the brook1 and the meaning of the stars4 ,but ,i hear a baby crying and must get back to my potatoes4 ,,chapter ,,xvi ,,changing ,,the ,,mind ,i have been reading1 in this book1 of a man who couldn't change his mind because his intellectual wardrobe was not sufficient to warrant a change4 ,i was feeling downright sorry for the poor fellow till ,i got to wondering how many people are feeling sorry for me for the same reason4 ,that reflection changed the situation greatly1 and ,i began to feel some resentment against the blunt statement in the book as being rather too personal4 ,just as ,i begin to think that we have standardized a lot of things1 along comes some one in a book1 or elsewhere1 and completely upsets my fine and comforting theories and projects me into chaos again4 ,no sooner do ,i get a lot of facts all nicely settled1 and begin to enjoy complacency1 than some disturber of the peace knocks all my facts topsy-turvy1 and says they are not facts at all1 but the merest fiction4 ,then ,i cry aloud with my old friend ,cicero1 ,ubinam gentium sumus1 which1 being translated in the language of the boys1 means1 ,where in the world 7or nation7 are we at8 ,they are actually trying to reform my spelling4 ,i do wish these reformers had come around sooner1 when ,i was learning to spell phthisic1 syzygy1 daguerreotype1 and caoutchouc4 ,they might have saved me a deal of trouble and helped me over some of the high places at the old-fashioned spelling-bees4 ,i have a friend who is quite versed in science1 and he tells me that any book on science that is more than ten years old is obsolete4 ,now1 that puzzles me no little4 ,if that is true1 why don't they wait till matters scientific are settled1 and then write their books8 ,why write a book at all when you know that day after tomorrow some one will come along and refute all the theories and mangle the facts8 ,these science chaps must spend a great deal of their time changing their intellectual clothing4 ,it would be great fun to come back a hundred years from now and read the books on science1 psychology1 and pedagogy4 ,i suppose the books we have now will seem like joke books to our great-grandchildren1 if people are compelled to change their mental garments every day from now on4 ,i wonder how long it will take us human coral insects1 to get our building up to the top of the water4 ,whoever it was that said that consistency is a jewel would need to take treatment for his eyes in these days4 ,if ,i must change my mental garb each day ,i don't see how ,i can be consistent4 ,if ,i said yesterday that some theory of science is the truth1 the whole truth1 and nothing but the truth1 and then find a revision of the statement necessary to-day1 ,i certainly am inconsistent4 ,this jewel of consistency certainly loses its lustre1 if not its identity1 in such a process of shifting4 ,i do hope these chameleon artists will leave us the multiplication table1 the yardstick1 and the ablative absolute4 ,i'm not so particular about the wine-gallon1 for prohibition will probably do away with that anyhow4 ,when ,i was in school ,i could tell to a foot the equatorial and the polar diameter of the earth1 and what makes the difference4 ,why1 ,i knew all about that flattening at the poles1 and how it came about4 ,then ,mr4 ,peary went up there and tramped all over the north pole1 and never said a word about the flattening when he came back4 ,i was very much disappointed in ,mr4 ,peary4 ,i know1 quite as well as ,i know my own name1 that the length of the year is three hundred and sixty-five days1 five hours1 forty-eight minutes1 and forty-eight seconds1 and if ,i find any one trying to lop off even one second of my hard-learned year1 ,i shall look upon him as a meddler4 ,that is one of my settled facts1 and ,i don't care to have it disturbed4 ,if any one comes along trying to change the length of my year1 ,i shall begin to tremble for the safety of the ,ten ,commandments4 ,if ,i believe that a grasshopper is a quadruped1 what satisfaction could ,i possibly take in discovering that he has six legs8 ,it would merely disturb one of my settled facts1 and ,i am more interested in my facts than ,i am in the grasshopper4 ,the trouble is1 though1 that my neighbor ,john keeps referring to the grasshopper's six legs2 so ,i suppose ,i shall1 in the end1 get me a grasshopper suit of clothes so as to be in the fashion4 ,this discarding of my four-legged grasshopper and supplying myself with one that has six legs may be what the poet means when he speaks of our dead selves4 ,he may refer to the new suit of mental clothing that ,i am supposed to get each day1 to the change of mind that ,i am supposed to undergo as regularly as a daily bath4 ,possibly ,mr4 ,holmes meant something like that when he wrote his ,chambered ,nautilus4 ,at each advance from one of these compartments to another1 ,i suppose ,i acquire a new suit of clothes1 or1 in other words1 change my mind4 ,let's see1 wasn't it ,theseus whose eternal punishment in ,hades was just to sit there forever8 ,that seems somewhat heavenly to me4 ,but here on earth ,i suppose ,i must try to keep up with the styles1 and change my mental gear day by day4 ,i think ,i might come to enjoy a change of suits every day if only some one would provide them for me2 but1 if ,i must earn them myself1 the case is different4 ,i'd like to have some one bestow upon me a beautiful ,greek suit for ,monday1 with its elegance1 grace1 and dignity1 a ,roman suit for ,tuesday1 a science suit for ,wednesday1 a suit of poetry for ,thursday1 and so on1 day after day4 ,but when ,i must read all of ,homer before ,i can have the ,greek suit1 the price seems a bit stiff1 and ,i'm not so avid about changing my mind4 ,we had a township picnic back home1 once1 and it seemed to me that ,i was attending a congress of nations1 for there were people there who had driven five or six miles from the utmost bounds of the township4 ,that was a real mental adventure1 and it took some time for me to adjust myself to my new suit4 ,then ,i went to the county fair1 where were gathered people from all the townships1 and my poor mind had a mighty struggle trying to grasp the immensity of the thing4 ,i felt much the same as when ,i was trying to understand the mathematical sign of infinity4 ,and when ,i came upon the statement1 in my geography1 that there are eighty-eight counties in our ,state1 the mind balked absolutely and refused to go on4 ,i felt as did the old gentleman who saw an aeroplane for the first time4 ,after watching its gyrations for some time he finally exclaimed3 ,they ain't no sich thing4 ,my college roommate1 ,mack1 went over to ,london1 once1 on some errand1 and of course went to the ,british ,museum4 ,near the entrance he came upon the ,rosetta ,stone1 and stood inthralled4 ,he reflected that he was standing in the presence of a monument that marks the beginning of recorded history1 that back of that all was dark1 and that all the books in all the libraries emanate from that beginning4 ,the thought was so big1 so overmastering1 that there was no room in his mind for anything else1 so he turned about and left without seeing anything else in the ,museum4 ,since then we have had many a big laugh together as he recounts to me his wonderful visit to the ,rosetta ,stone4 ,i see clearly that in the presence of that modest stone he got all the mental clothing he could possibly wear at the time4 ,changing the mind sometimes seems to amount almost to surgery4 ,sometime1 if ,i can get my stub pen limbered up ,i shall try my hand at writing a bit of a composition on the subject of ,the ,inequality of ,equals4 ,i know that the ,declaration tells us that all men are born free and equal1 and ,i shall explain in my essay that it means us to understand that while they are born equal1 they begin to become unequal the day after they are born1 and become more so as one changes his mind and the other one does not4 ,i try1 all the while1 to make myself believe that ,i am the equal of my neighbor1 the judge1 and then ,i feel foolish to think that ,i ever tried it4 ,the neighbors all know it isn't true1 and so do ,i when ,i quit arguing with myself4 ,he has such a long start of me now that ,i wonder if ,i can ever overtake him4 ,one thing1 though1 ,i'm resolved upon1 and that is to change my mind as often as possible4 ,,chapter ,,xvii ,,the ,,point ,,of ,,view ,just why a boy is averse to washing his neck and ears is one of the deep problems of social psychology1 and yet the psychologists have veered away from the subject4 ,there must be a reason1 and these mind experts ought to be able and willing to find it1 so as to relieve the anxiety of the rest of us4 ,it is easy for me to say1 with a full-arm gesture1 that a boy is of the earth earthy1 but that only begs the question1 as full-arm gestures are wont to do4 ,many a boy has shed copious tears as he sat on a bench outside the kitchen door removing1 under compulsion1 the day's accumulations from his feet as a prerequisite for retiring4 ,he would much prefer to sleep on the floor to escape the foot-washing ordeal4 ,why1 pray1 should he wash his feet when he knows full well that tomorrow night will find them in the same condition8 ,why all the bother and trouble about a little thing like that8 ,why can't folks let a fellow alone1 anyhow8 ,and1 besides1 he went in swimming this afternoon1 and that surely ought to meet all the exactions of capricious parents4 ,he exhibits his feet as an evidence of the virtue of going swimming1 for he is arranging the preliminaries for another swimming expedition to-morrow4 ,i recall very distinctly how strange it seemed that my father could sit there and calmly talk about being a ,democrat1 or a ,republican1 or a ,baptist1 or a ,methodist1 or about some one's discovering the north pole1 or about the ,president's message when the dog had a rat cornered under the corn-crib and was barking like mad4 ,but1 then1 parents can't see things in their right relations and proportions4 ,and there sat mother1 too1 darning stockings1 and the dog just stark crazy about that rat4 ',tis enough to make a boy lose faith in parents forevermore4 ,a dog1 a rat1 and a boy--there's a combination that recks not of the fall of empires or the tottering of thrones4 ,even chicken-noodles must take second place in such a scheme of world activities4 ,and yet a mother would hold a boy back from the forefront of such an enterprise to wash his neck4 ,oh1 these mothers6 ,i have read ,adam's ,diary1 by ,mark ,twain1 in which he tells what events were forward in ,eden on ,monday1 what on ,tuesday1 and so on throughout the week till he came to ,sunday1 and his only comment on that day was ,pulled through4 ,in the ,new ,england ,primer we gather the solemn information that ,in ,adam's fall1 we sinned all4 ,i admit the fact freely1 but beg to be permitted to plead extenuating circumstances4 ,adam could go to church just as he was1 but ,i had to be renovated and1 at times1 almost parboiled and1 in addition to these indignities1 had to wear shoes and stockings2 and the stockings scratched my legs1 and the shoes were too tight4 ,if ,adam could barely manage to pull through1 just think of me4 ,besides1 ,adam didn't have to wear a paper collar that disintegrated and smeared his neck4 ,the more ,i think of ,adam's situation1 the more sorry ,i feel for myself4 ,why1 he could just reach out and pluck some fruit to help him through the services1 but ,i had to walk a mile after church1 in those tight shoes1 and then wait an hour for dinner4 ,and ,i was supposed to feel and act religious while ,i was waiting1 but ,i didn't4 ,if ,i could only have gone to church barefoot1 with my shirt open at the throat1 and with a pocket full of cookies to munch ad lib throughout the services1 ,i am sure that the spiritual uplift would have been greater4 ,the soul of a boy doesn't expand violently when encased in a starched shirt and a paper collar1 and these surmounted by a thick coat1 with the mercury at ninety-seven in the shade4 ,i think ,i can trace my religious retardation back to those hungry ,sundays1 those tight shoes1 that warm coat1 and those frequent jabs in my ribs when ,i fain would have slept4 ,in my childhood there was such a host of people who were pushing and pulling me about in an effort to make me good that1 even yet1 ,i shy away from their style of goodness4 ,the wonder is that ,i have any standing at all in polite and upright society4 ,so many folks said ,i was bad and naughty1 and applied so many other no less approbrious epithets to me that1 in time1 ,i came to believe them1 and tried somewhat diligently to live up to the reputation they gave me4 ,i recall that one of my aunts came in one day and1 seeing me out in the yard most ingloriously tousled1 asked my good mother3 ,is that your child8 ,poor mother6 ,i have often wondered how much travail of spirit it must have cost her to acknowledge me as her very own4 ,one thumb1 one great toe1 and an ankle were decorated with greasy rags1 and ,i was far from being ornamental4 ,i had been hulling walnuts1 too1 and my stained hands served to accentuate the human scenery4 ,this same aunt had three boys of her own1 later on1 and a more disreputable-looking crew it would be hard to find4 ,i confess that ,i took a deal of grim satisfaction in their dilapidated ensemble1 just for my aunt's benefit1 of course4 ,they were fine1 wholesome1 natural boys in spite of their parentage1 and ,i liked them even while ,i gloried in their cuts1 bruises1 and dirt4 ,at that time ,i was wearing a necktie and had my shoes polished but1 even so1 ,i yearned to join with them in their debauch of sand1 mud1 and general indifference to convention4 ,they are fine1 upstanding young chaps now1 and of course their mother thinks that her scolding1 nagging1 and baiting made them so4 ,they know better1 but are too kind and considerate to reveal the truth to their mother4 ,even yet ,i have something like admiration for the ingenuity of my elders in conjuring up spooks1 hob-goblins1 and bugaboos with which to scare me into submission4 ,i conformed1 of course1 but ,i never gave them a high grade in veracity4 ,i yielded simply to gain time1 for ,i knew where there was a chipmunk in a hole1 and was eager to get to digging him out just as soon as my apparent submission for a brief time had proved my complete regeneration4 ,they used to tell me that children should be seen but not heard1 and ,i knew they wanted to do the talking4 ,i often wonder whether their notion of a good child would have been satisfactorily met if ,i had suddenly become paralyzed1 or ossified1 or petrified4 ,in either of these cases ,i could have been seen but not heard4 ,one day1 not long ago1 when ,i felt at peace with all the world and was comfortably free from care1 a small1 thumb-sucking seven-year-old asked3 ,how long since the world was born8 ,after ,i told him that it was about four thousand years he worked vigorously at his thumb for a time1 and then said3 ,that isn't very long4 ,then ,i wished ,i had said four millions1 so as to reduce him to silence1 for one doesn't enjoy being routed and put to confusion by a seven-year-old4 ,after quite a silence he asked again3 ,what was there before the world was born8 ,that was an easy one2 so ,i said in a tone of finality3 ,there wasn't anything4 ,then ,i went on with my meditations1 thinking ,i had used the soft pedal effectively4 ,silence reigned supreme for some minutes1 and then was rudely shattered4 ,his thumb flew from his mouth1 and he laughed so lustily that he could be heard throughout the house4 ,when his laughter had spent itself somewhat1 ,i asked meekly3 ,what are you laughing at8 ,his answer came on the instant1 but still punctuated with laughter3 ,i was laughing to see how funny it was when there wasn't anything4 ,no wonder that folks want children to be seen but not heard4 ,and some folks are scandalized because a chap like that doesn't like to wash his neck and ears4 ,,chapter ,,xviii ,,picnics ,the code of table etiquette in the days of my boyhood1 as ,i now recall it1 was expressed something like3 ,eat what is set before you and ask no questions4 ,we heeded this injunction with religious fidelity1 but yearned to ask why they didn't set more before us4 ,about the only time that a real boy gets enough to eat is when he goes to a picnic and1 even there and then1 the rounding out of the programme is connected with clandestine visits to the baskets after the formal ceremonies have been concluded4 ,at a picnic there is no such expression as from soup to nuts1 for there is no soup1 and perhaps no nuts1 but there is everything else in tantalizing abundance4 ,if ,i find a plate of deviled eggs near me1 ,i begin with deviled eggs2 or1 if the cold tongue is nearer1 ,i begin with that4 ,in this way ,i reveal1 for the pleasure of the hostesses1 my unrestricted and democratic appetite4 ,or1 in order to obviate any possible embarrassment during the progress of the chicken toward me1 ,i may take a piece of pie or a slice of cake1 thinking that they may not return once they have been put in circulation4 ,certainly ,i take jelly when it passes along1 as well as pickles1 olives1 and cheese4 ,there is no incongruity1 at such a time1 in having a slice of baked ham and a slice of angel-food cake on one's plate or in one's hands4 ,they harmonize beautifully both in the color scheme and in the gastronomic scheme4 ,at a picnic my boyhood training reaches its full fruition3 ,eat what is set before you and ask no questions4 ,these things ,i do4 ,that's a good rule for reading1 too1 just to read what is set before you and ask no questions4 ,i'm thinking now of the reader member of my dual nature1 not the student member4 ,i like to cater somewhat to both these members4 ,when the reader member is having his inning1 ,i like to give him free rein and not hamper him by any lock-step or stereotyped method or course4 ,i like to lead him to a picnic table and dismiss him with the mere statement that ,heaven helps those who help themselves1 and thus leave him to his own devices4 ,if ,southey's1 ,the ,curse of ,kehama1 happens to be nearest his plate1 he will naturally begin with that as ,i did with the deviled eggs4 ,or he may nibble at ,the ,house-,boat on the ,styx while some one is passing the ,shakespeare along4 ,he may like ,emerson1 and ask for a second helping1 and that's all right1 too1 for that's a nourishing sort of food4 ,having partaken of this generously1 he will enjoy all the more the jelly when it comes along in the form of ,nonsense ,anthology4 ,the more ,i think of it the more ,i see that reading is very like a picnic dinner4 ,it is all good1 and one takes the food which is nearest him1 whether pie or pickles4 ,when any one asks me what ,i am reading1 ,i become much embarrassed4 ,i may be reading a catalogue of books at the time1 or the book notices in some magazine1 but such reading may not seem orthodox at all to the one who asks the question4 ,my reading may be too desultory or too personal to be paraded in public4 ,i don't make it a practice to tell all the neighbors what ,i ate for breakfast4 ,i like to saunter along through the book just as ,i ride in a gondola when in ,venice4 ,i'm not going anywhere1 but get my enjoyment from merely being on the way4 ,i pay the gondolier and then let him have his own way with me4 ,so with the book4 ,i pay the money and then abandon myself to it4 ,if it can make me laugh1 why1 well and good1 and ,i'll laugh4 ,if it causes me to shed tears1 why1 let the tears flow4 ,they may do me good4 ,if ,i ever become conscious of the number of the page of the book ,i am reading1 ,i know there is something the matter with that book or else with me4 ,if ,i ever become conscious of the page number in ,david ,grayson's ,adventures in ,contentment1 or ,the ,friendly ,road1 ,i shall certainly consult a physician4 ,i do become semiconscious at times that ,i am approaching the end of the feast1 and feel regret that the book is not larger4 ,i have spasms and enjoy them4 ,sometimes1 ,i have a ,dickens spasm1 and read some of his books for the nth time4 ,i have frittered away much time in my life trying to discover whether a book is worth a second reading4 ,if it isn't1 it is hardly worth a first reading1 ,i don't get tired of my friend ,brown1 so why should ,i put ,dickens off with a mere society call8 ,if ,i didn't enjoy ,brown ,i'd not visit him so frequently2 but1 liking him1 ,i go again and again4 ,so with ,dickens1 ,mark ,twain1 and ,shakespeare4 ,the story goes that a second ,uncle ,remus was sitting on a stump in the depths of a forest sawing away on an old discordant violin4 ,a man1 who chanced to come upon him1 asked what he was doing4 ,with no interruption of his musical activities1 he answered3 ,boss1 ,i'se serenadin' m' soul4 ,book or violin1 'tis all the same4 ,uncle ,remus and ,i are serenading our souls and the exercise is good for us4 ,i was laid by with typhoid fever for a few weeks once1 and the doctor came at eleven o'clock in the morning and at five o'clock in the afternoon4 ,if he happened to be a bit late ,i grew impatient1 and my fever increased4 ,he discovered this fact1 and was no more tardy4 ,he was reading ,john ,fiske at the time1 and ,grant's ,memoirs1 and at each visit reviewed for me what he had read since the previous visit4 ,he must have been glad when ,i no longer needed to take my history by proxy1 for ,i kept him up to the mark1 and bullied him into reciting twice a day4 ,i don't know what drugs he gave me1 but ,i do know that ,fiske and ,grant are good for typhoid1 and heartily commend them to the general public4 ,i am rather glad now that ,i had typhoid fever4 ,i listen with amused tolerance to people who grow voluble on the weather and their symptoms1 and often wish they would ask me to prescribe for them4 ,i'd probably tell them to become readers of ,william ,j4 ,locke4 ,but1 perhaps1 their symptoms might seem preferable to the remedy4 ,a neighbor came in to borrow a book1 and ,i gave her ,les ,miserables1 which she returned in a day or so1 saying that she could not read it4 ,i knew that ,i had overestimated her1 and that ,i didn't have a book around of her size4 ,i had loaned my ,robin ,hood1 ,rudder ,grange1 ,uncle ,remus1 and ,sonny to the children round about4 ,i like to browse around among my books1 and am trying to have my boys and girls acquire the same habit4 ,reading for pure enjoyment isn't a formal affair any more than eating4 ,sometimes ,i feel in the mood for a grapefruit for breakfast1 sometimes for an orange1 and sometimes for neither4 ,i'm glad not to board at a place where they have standardized breakfasts and reading4 ,if ,i feel in the mood for an orange ,i want an orange1 even if my neighbor has a casaba melon4 ,so1 if ,i want my ,middlemarch1 ,i'm quite eager for that book1 and am quite willing for my neighbor to have his ,henry ,esmond4 ,the appetite for books is variable1 the same as for food1 and ,i'd rather consult my appetite than my neighbor when choosing a book as a companion through a lazy afternoon beneath the maple-tree1 ,i refuse to try to supervise the reading of my pupils4 ,why1 ,i couldn't supervise their eating4 ,i'd have to find out whether the boy was yearning for porterhouse steak or ice-cream1 first2 then ,i might help him make a selection4 ,the best ,i can do is to have plenty of steak1 potatoes1 pie1 and ice-cream around1 and allow him to help himself4 ,,chapter ,,xix ,,make-,,believe ,the text may be found in ,over ,bemerton's1 by ,e4 ,v4 ,lucas1 and reads as follows3 ,a gentle hypocrisy is not only the basis but the salt of civilized life4 ,this statement startled me a bit at first2 but when ,i got to thinking of my experience in having a photograph of myself made ,i saw that ,mr4 ,lucas has some warrant for his statement4 ,there has been only one ,oliver ,cromwell to say3 ,paint me as ,i am4 ,the rest of us humans prefer to have the wart omitted4 ,if my photograph is true to life ,i don't want it4 ,i'm going to send it away1 and ,i don't want the folks who get it to think ,i look like that4 ,if ,i were a woman and could wear a disguise of cosmetics when sitting for a picture the case might not be quite so bad4 ,the subtle flattery of the photograph is very grateful to us mortals whether we admit it or not4 ,my friend ,baxter introduced me once as a man who is not two-faced1 and went on to explain that if ,i had had two faces ,i'd have brought the other instead of this one4 ,and that's true4 ,i expect the photographer to evoke another face for me1 and hence my generous gift of money to him4 ,i like that chap immensely4 ,he takes my money1 gives me another face1 bows me out with the grace of a finished courtier1 and never1 by word or look1 reveals his knowledge of my hypocrisy4 ,as a boy ,i had a full suit of company manners which ,i wore only when guests were present1 and so was always sorry to have guests come4 ,i sat back on the chair instead of on its edge2 ,i didn't swing my legs unless ,i had a lapse of memory2 ,i said1 ,yes1 ma'am1 and1 ,no1 ma'am1 like any other parrot1 just as ,i did at rehearsal2 and1 in short1 ,i was a most exemplary child save for occasional reactions to unlooked-for situations4 ,the folks knew ,i was posing1 and were on nettles all the while from fear of a breakdown2 the guests knew ,i was posing1 and ,i knew ,i was posing4 ,but we all pretended to one another that that was the regular order of procedure in our house4 ,so we had a very gratifying concert exercise in hypocrisy4 ,we said our prayers that night just as usual4 ,with such thorough training in my youth it is not at all strange that ,i now consider myself rather an adept in the prevailing social usages4 ,at a musicale ,i applaud fit to blister my hands1 even though ,i feel positively pugnacious4 ,but ,i know the singer has an encore prepared1 and ,i feel that it would be ungracious to disappoint her4 ,besides1 ,i argue with myself that ,i can stand it for five minutes more if the others can4 ,professor ,james1 ,i think it is1 says that we ought to do at least one disagreeable thing each day as an aid in the development of character4 ,being rather keen on character development1 ,i decide on a double dose of the disagreeable while opportunity favors4 ,hence my vigorous applauding4 ,then1 too1 ,i realize that the time and place are not opportune for an expression of my honest convictions2 so ,i choose the line of least resistance and well-nigh blister my hands to emphasize my hypocrisy4 ,at a formal dinner ,i have been known to sink so low into the depths of hypocrisy as to eat shrimp salad4 ,but when one is sitting next to a lady who seems a confirmed celibate1 and who seems to find nothing better than to become voluble on the subject of her distinguished ancestors1 even shrimp salad has its uses4 ,now1 under normal conditions my perverted and plebeian taste regards shrimp salad as a banality1 but at that dinner ,i ate it with apparent relish1 and tried not to make a wry face4 ,but1 worst of all1 ,i complimented the hostess upon the excellence of the dinner1 and extolled the salad particularly1 although we both knew that the salad was a failure1 and that the dinner itself convicted the cook of a lack of experience or else of a superfluity of potations4 ,when the refreshments are served ,i take a thimbleful of ice-cream and an attenuated wafer1 and then solemnly declare to the maid that ,i have been abundantly served4 ,in the hallowed precincts that ,i call my den ,i could absorb nine rations such as they served and never bat an eye4 ,and yet1 in making my adieus to the hostess1 ,i thank her most effusively for a delightful evening1 refreshments included1 and then hurry grumbling home to get something to eat4 ,such are some of the manifestations of social hypocrisy4 ,these all pass current at their face value1 and yet we all know that nobody is deceived4 ,still it is great fun to play make-believe1 and the world would have convulsions if we did not indulge in these pleasing deceptions4 ,in the clever little book ,molly ,make-,believe the girl pretends at first that she loves the man1 and later on comes to love him to distraction1 and she lived happy ever after1 too4 ,when1 in my fever1 ,i would ask about my temperature1 the nurse would give a numeral about two degrees below the real record to encourage me1 and ,i can't think that ,st4 ,peter will bar her out just for that4 ,the psychologists give mild assent to the theory that a physical attitude may generate an emotion4 ,if ,i assume a belligerent attitude1 they claim that1 in time1 ,i shall feel really belligerent2 that in a loafing attitude ,i shall presently be loafing2 and that1 if ,i assume the attitude of a listener1 ,i shall soon be listening most intently4 ,this seems to be justified by the experiences of ,edwin ,booth on the stage4 ,he could feign fighting for a time1 and then it became real fighting1 and great care had to be taken to avert disastrous consequences when his sword fully struck its gait4 ,i believe the psychologists have never fully agreed on the question whether the man is running from the bear because he is scared or is scared because he is running4 ,i dare say ,mr4 ,shakespeare was trying to express this theory when he said3 ,assume a virtue1 though you have it not4 ,that's exactly what ,i'm trying to have my pupils do all the while4 ,i'm trying to have them wear their company manners continually1 so that1 in good time1 they will become their regular working garb4 ,i'm glad to have them assume the attitudes of diligence and politeness1 thinking that their attitudes may generate the corresponding emotions4 ,it is a severe strain on a boy at times to seem polite when he feels like hurling missiles4 ,we both know that his politeness is mere make-believe1 but we pretend not to know1 and so move along our ways of hypocrisy hoping that good may come4 ,there is a telephone-girl over in the central station1 wherever that is1 who certainly is beautiful if the voice is a true index4 ,her tones are dulcet1 and her voice is so mellow and well modulated that ,i visualize her as another ,venus4 ,i suspect that1 when she began her work1 some one told her that her tenure of position depended upon the quality of her voice4 ,so1 ,i imagine1 she assumed a tonal quality of voice that was really a sublimated hypocrisy1 and persisted in this until now that quality of voice is entirely natural4 ,i can't think that ,shakespeare had her specially in mind1 but1 if ,i ever have the good fortune to meet her1 ,i shall certainly ask her if she reads ,shakespeare4 ,now that ,i think of it1 ,i shall try this treatment on my own voice1 for it sorely needs treatment4 ,possibly ,i ought to take a course of training at the telephone-station4 ,i am now thoroughly persuaded that ,mr4 ,lucas gave expression to a great principle of pedagogy in what he said about hypocrisy1 and ,i shall try to be diligent in applying it4 ,if ,i can get my boys to assume an arithmetical attitude1 they may come to have an arithmetical feeling1 and that would give me great joy4 ,i don't care to have them express their honest feelings either about me or the work1 but would rather have them look polite and interested1 even if it is hypocrisy4 ,i'd like to have all my boys and girls act as if they consider me absolutely fair1 just1 and upright1 as well as the most kind1 courteous1 generous1 scholarly1 skillful1 and complaisant schoolmaster that ever lived1 no matter what they really think4 ,,chapter ,,xx ,,behavior ,if ,i only knew how to teach ,english1 ,i'd have far more confidence in my schoolmastering4 ,but ,i don't seem to get on4 ,the system breaks down too often to suit me4 ,just when ,i think ,i have some lad inoculated with elegant ,english through the process of reading from some classic1 he says1 might of came1 and ,i become obfuscated again4 ,i have a book here in which ,i read that it is the business of the teacher so to organize the activities of the school that they will function in behavior4 ,well1 my boys' behavior in the use of ,english indicates that ,i haven't organized the activities of my ,english class very effectively4 ,i seem to be more of a success in a cherry-orchard than in an ,english class4 ,my cherries are large and round1 a joy to the eye and delightful to the taste4 ,the fruit expert tells me they are perfect1 and so ,i feel that ,i organized the activities in that orchard efficiently4 ,in fact1 the behavior of my cherry-trees is most gratifying4 ,but when ,i hear my pupils talk or read their essays1 and find a deal of imperfect fruit in the way of solecisms and misspelled words1 ,i feel inclined to discredit my skill in organizing the activities in this human orchard4 ,i think my trouble is 7and it is trouble71 that ,i proceed upon the agreeable assumption that my pupils can catch ,english as they do the measles if only they are exposed to it4 ,so ,i expose them to the objective complement and the compellative1 and then stand aghast at their behavior when they make all the mistakes that can possibly be made in using a given number of words4 ,i have occasion to wonder whether ,i juggle these big words merely because ,i happen to see them in a book1 or whether ,i am trying to be impressive4 ,i recall how often ,i have felt a thrill of pride as ,i have ladled out deliberative subjunctives1 ethical datives1 and hysteron proteron to my 7supposedly7 admiring ,latin pupils4 ,if ,i were a soldier ,i should want to wear one of those enormous three-story military hats to render me tall and impressive4 ,i have no desire to see a drum-major minus his plumage4 ,the disillusionment would probably be depressing4 ,liking to wear my shako1 ,i must continue to talk of objective complements instead of using simple ,english4 ,i had watched men make a hundred barrels1 but when ,i tried my skill ,i didn't produce much of a barrel4 ,then ,i knew making barrels is not violently infectious4 ,but ,i suspect that it is quite the same as ,english in this respect4 ,my behavior in that cooper-shop1 for a time1 was quite destructive of materials1 until ,i had acquired skill by much practice4 ,if ,i could only organize the activities in my ,english class so that they would function in such behavior as ,lincoln's ,letter to ,mrs4 ,bixby1 ,i should feel that ,i might continue my teaching instead of devoting all my time to my cherry-orchard4 ,or1 if ,i could see that my pupils were acquiring the habit of correct ,english as the result of my work1 ,i'd give myself a higher grade as a schoolmaster4 ,my neighbor over here teaches agriculture1 and one of his boys produced one hundred and fifty bushels of corn on an acre of ground4 ,that's what ,i call excellent behavior1 and that schoolmaster certainly knows how to organize the activities of his class4 ,my boy's yield of thirty-seven bushels1 mostly nubbins1 does not compare favorably with the yield of his boy1 and ,i feel that ,i ought to reform1 or else wear a mask4 ,here is my boy saying might of came1 and his boy is raising a hundred and fifty bushels of corn per acre4 ,if ,i could only assemble all my boys and girls twenty years hence and have them give an account of themselves for all the years after they left school1 ,i could grade them with greater accuracy than ,i can possibly do now4 ,of course1 ,i'd simply grade them on behavior1 and if ,i could muster up courage1 ,i might ask them to grade mine4 ,i wonder how ,i'd feel if ,i'd find among them such folks as ,edison1 ,burbank1 ,goethals1 ,clara ,barton1 and ,frances ,willard4 ,my neighbor ,john says the most humiliating experience that a man can have is to wear a pair of his son's trousers that have been cut down to fit him4 ,i might have some such feelings as that in the presence of pupils who had made such notable achievements4 ,but1 should they tell me that these achievements were due1 in some good measure1 to the work of the school1 well1 that would be glory enough for me4 ,one of my boys was telling me only yesterday of a bit of work he did the day before in the way of revealing a process in chemistry to a firm of jewellers and hearing the superintendent say that that bit of information is worth a thousand dollars to the establishment4 ,if he keeps on doing things like that ,i shall grade his behavior one of these days4 ,i suppose ,mr4 ,goethals must have learned the multiplication table1 once upon a time1 and used it1 too1 in constructing the ,panama ,canal4 ,he certainly made it effective1 and the activities of that class in arithmetic certainly did function4 ,i tell my boys that this multiplication table is the same one that ,mr4 ,goethals has been using all the while1 and then ask them what use they expect to make of it4 ,one man made use of this table in tunnelling the ,alps1 and another in building the ,brooklyn ,bridge1 and it seems to be good for many more bridges and tunnels if ,i can only organize the activities aright4 ,i was standing in front of ,st4 ,marks1 there in ,venice1 one morning1 regaling myself with the beauty of the festive scene1 and talking to a friend1 when four of my boys came strolling up1 and they seemed more my boys than ever before4 ,what a reunion we had6 ,the folks all about us didn't understand it in the least1 but we did1 and that was enough4 ,i forgot my coarse clothes1 my well-nigh empty pockets1 my inability to buy the many beautiful things that kept tantalizing me1 and the meagreness of my salary4 ,these were all swallowed up in the joy of seeing the boys1 and ,i wanted to proclaim to all and sundry2 ,these are my jewels4 ,those boys are noble1 clean1 upstanding fellows1 and no schoolmaster could help being proud of them4 ,such as they nestle down in the heart of the schoolmaster and cause him to know that life is good4 ,i was sorry not to be able to share my joy with my friend who stood near1 but that could not be4 ,i might have used words to him1 but he would not have understood4 ,he had never yearned over those fellows and watched them1 day by day1 hoping that they might grow up to be an honor to their school4 ,he had never had the experience of watching from the schoolhouse window1 fervently wishing that no harm might come to them1 and that no shadows might come over their lives4 ,he had never known the joy of sitting up far into the night to prepare for the coming of those boys the next day4 ,he had never seen their eyes sparkle in the classroom when1 for them1 truth became illumined4 ,of course1 he stood aloof1 for he couldn't know4 ,only the schoolmaster can ever know how those four boys became the focus of all that wondrous beauty on that splendid morning4 ,if ,i had had my grade-book along ,i would have recorded their grades in behavior1 for as ,i looked upon those glorious chaps and heard them recount their experiences ,i had a feeling of exaltation1 knowing that the activities of our school had functioned in right behavior4 ,,chapter ,,xxi ,,forefingers ,this left forefinger of mine is certainly a curiosity4 ,it looks like a miniature totem-pole1 and ,i wish ,i had before me its life history4 ,i'd like to know just how all these seventeen scars were acquired4 ,it seems to have come in contact with about all sorts and sizes of cutlery4 ,if only teachers or parents had been wise enough to make a record of all my bloodletting mishaps1 with occasions1 causes1 and effects1 that record would afford a fruitful study for students of education4 ,the pity of it is that we take no account of such matters as phases or factors of education4 ,we keep saying that experience is the best teacher1 and then ignore this eloquent forefinger4 ,i call that criminal neglect arising from crass ignorance4 ,why1 these scars that adorn many parts of my body are the foot-prints of evolution1 if1 indeed1 evolution makes tracks4 ,the scars on the faces of those students at ,heidelberg are accounted badges of honor1 but they cannot compare with the big scar on my left knee that came to me as the free gift of a corn-knife4 ,those students wanted their scars to take home to show their mothers4 ,i didn't want mine1 and made every effort to conceal it1 as well as the hole in my trousers4 ,i got my scar as a warning4 ,i profited by it1 too1 for never were there two cuts in exactly the same place4 ,in fact1 they were widely1 if not wisely1 distributed4 ,they are the indices of the soaring sense of my youthful audacity4 ,and yet neither parents nor teachers ever graded my scars4 ,i recall quite distinctly that1 at one time1 ,i proclaimed boldly over one entire page of a copy-book1 that knowledge is power1 and became so enthusiastic in these numerous proclamations that ,i wrote on the bias1 and zigzagged over the page with fine abandon4 ,but no teacher ever even hinted to me that the knowledge ,i acquired from my contest with a nest of belligerent bumblebees had the slightest connection with power4 ,when ,i groped my way home with both eyes swollen shut ,i was never lionized4 ,indeed1 no6 ,anything but that6 ,i couldn't milk the cows that evening1 and couldn't study my lesson1 and therefore1 my newly acquired knowledge was called weakness instead of power4 ,they did not seem to realize that my swollen face was prominent in the scheme of education1 nor that bumblebees and yellow-jackets may be a means of grace4 ,they wanted me to be solving problems in common 7sometimes called vulgar7 fractions4 ,i don't fight bumblebees any more1 which proves that my knowledge generated power4 ,the emotions of my boyhood presented a scene of grand disorder1 and those bumblebees helped to organize them1 and to clarify and define my sense of values4 ,i can philosophize about a bumblebee far more judicially now than ,i could when my eyes were swollen shut4 ,i went to the town to attend a circus one day1 and concluded ,i'd celebrate the day with eclat by getting my hair cut4 ,at the conclusion of this ceremony the tonsorial ,beau ,brummel1 in the most seductive tones1 suggested a shampoo4 ,i just couldn't resist his blandishments1 and so consented4 ,then he suggested tonic1 and grew quite eloquent in recounting the benefits to the scalp1 and ,i took tonic4 ,i felt quite a fellow1 till ,i came to pay the bill1 and then discovered that ,i had but fifteen cents left from all my wealth4 ,that1 of course1 was not sufficient for a ticket to the circus1 so ,i bought a bag of peanuts and walked home1 five miles1 meditating1 the while1 upon the problem of life4 ,my scalp was all right1 but just under that scalp was a seething1 soundless hubbub4 ,i learned things that day that are not set down in the books1 even if ,i did get myself laughed at4 ,when ,i get to giving school credits for home work ,i shall certainly excuse the boy who has had such an experience as that from solving at least four problems in vulgar fractions1 and ,i shall include that experience in my definition of education1 too4 ,i have tried to back-track ,paul ,laurence ,dunbar1 now and then1 and have found it good fun4 ,once ,i started with his expression1 the whole sky overhead and the whole earth underneath1 and tried to get back to where that started4 ,he must have been lying on his back on some grass-plot1 right in the centre of everything1 with that whole half-sphere of sky luring his spirit out toward the infinite1 with a pillow that was eight thousand miles thick4 ,if ,i had been his teacher ,i might have called him lazy and shiftless as he lay there1 because he was not finding how to place a decimal point1 ,i'm glad1 on the whole1 that ,i was not his teacher1 for ,i'd have twinges of conscience every time ,i read one of his big thoughts4 ,i'd feel that1 while he was lying there growing big1 ,i was doing my best to make him little4 ,when ,i was lying on my back there in the ,pantheon in ,rome1 looking up through that wide opening1 and watching a moving-picture show that has no rival1 the fleecy clouds in their ever-changing forms against that blue background of matchless ,italian sky1 those gendarmes debated the question of arresting me for disorderly conduct4 ,my conduct was disorderly because they couldn't understand it4 ,but1 if ,raphael could have risen from his tomb only a few yards away1 he would have told those fellows not to disturb me while ,i was being so liberally educated4 ,then1 that other time1 when my friend ,reuben and ,i stood on the very prow of the ship when the sea was rolling high1 swinging us up into the heights1 and then down into the depths1 with the roar drowning out all possibility of talk--well1 somehow1 ,i thought of that copy-book back yonder with its message that ,knowledge is power4 ,and ,i never think of power without recalling that experience as ,i watched that battle royal between the power of the sea and the power of the ship that could withstand the angry buffeting of the waves1 and laugh in glee as it rode them down4 ,i know that six times nine are fifty-four1 but ,i confess that ,i forgot this fact out there on the prow of that ship4 ,some folks might say that ,reuben and ,i were wasting our time1 but ,i can't think so4 ,i like1 even now1 to stand out in the clear during a thunder-storm4 ,i want the head uncovered1 too1 that the wind may toss my hair about while ,i look the lightning-flashes straight in the eye and stand erect and unafraid as the thunder crashes and rolls and reverberates about me4 ,i like to watch the trees swaying to and fro1 keeping time to the majestic rhythm of the elements4 ,to me such an experience is what my neighbor ,john calls growing weather1 and at such a time the bigness of the affair causes me to forget for the time that there are such things as double datives4 ,one time ,i spent the greater part of a forenoon watching logs go over a dam4 ,it seems a simple thing to tell1 and hardly worth the telling1 but it was a great morning in actual experience4 ,in time those huge logs became things of life1 and when they arose from their mighty plunge into the watery deeps they seemed to shake themselves free and laugh in their freedom4 ,and there were battles1 too4 ,they struggled and fought and rode over one another1 and their mighty collisions produced a very thunder of sound4 ,i tried to read the book which ,i had with me1 but could not4 ,in the presence of such a scene one cannot read a book unless it is one of ,victor ,hugo's4 ,that copy-book looms up again as ,i think of those logs1 and ,i wonder whether knowledge is power1 and whether experience is the best teacher4 ,but1 dear me6 ,here ,i've been frittering away all this good time1 and these papers not graded yet6 ,,chapter ,,xxii ,,story-,,telling ,my boys like to have me tell them stories1 and1 if the stories are true ones1 they like them all the better4 ,so ,i sometimes become reminiscent when they gather about me and let them lead me along as if ,i couldn't help myself when they are so interested4 ,in this way ,i become one of them4 ,i like to whittle a nice pine stick while ,i talk1 for then the talk seems incidental to the whittling and so takes hold of them all the more4 ,in the midst of the talking a boy will sometimes slip into my hand a fresh stick1 when ,i have about exhausted the whittling resources of the other4 ,that's about the finest encore ,i have ever received4 ,a boy knows how to pay a compliment in a delicate way when the mood for compliments is on him1 and if that mood of his is handled with equal delicacy great things may be accomplished4 ,well1 the other day as ,i whittled the inevitable pine stick ,i let them lure from me the story of ,sant4 ,now1 ,sant was my seatmate in the village school back yonder1 and ,i now know that ,i loved him whole-heartedly4 ,i didn't know this at the time1 for ,i took him as a matter of course1 just as ,i did my right hand4 ,his name was ,sanford1 but boys don't call one another by their right names4 ,they soon find affectionate nicknames4 ,i have quite a collection of these nicknames myself1 but have only a hazy notion of how or where they were acquired4 ,when some one calls me by one of these names1 ,i can readily locate him in time and place1 for ,i well know that he must belong in a certain group or that name would not come to his lips4 ,these nicknames that we all have are really historical4 ,well1 we called him ,sant1 and that name conjures up before me one of the most wholesome boys ,i have ever known4 ,he was brimful of fun4 ,a heartier1 more sincere laugh a boy never had1 and my affection for him was as natural as my breathing4 ,he knew ,i liked him1 though ,i never told him so4 ,had ,i told him1 the charm would have been broken4 ,in those days spelling was one of the high lights of school work1 and we were incited to excellence in this branch of learning by head tickets1 which were a promise of still greater honor1 in the form of a prize1 to the winner4 ,the one who stood at the head of the class at the close of the lesson received a ticket1 and the holder of the greatest number of these tickets at the end of the school year bore home in triumph the much-coveted prize in the shape of a book as a visible token of superiority4 ,i wanted that prize1 and worked for it4 ,tickets were accumulating in my little box with exhilarating regularity1 and ,i was nobly upholding the family name when ,i was stricken with pneumonia1 and my victorious career had a rude check4 ,my nearest competitor was ,sam1 who almost exulted in my illness because of the opportunity it afforded him for a rich harvest of head tickets4 ,in the exuberance of his joy he made some remark to this effect1 which ,sant overheard4 ,up to this time ,sant had taken no interest in the contests in spelling1 but ,sam's remark galvanized him into vigorous life1 and spelling became his overmastering passion4 ,indeed1 he became the wonder of the school1 and in consequence poor ,sam's anticipations were not realized4 ,day after day ,sant caught the word that ,sam missed1 and thus added another ticket to his collection4 ,so it went until ,i took my place again1 and then ,sant lapsed back into his indifference1 leaving me to look after ,sam myself4 ,when ,i tried to face him down with circumstantial evidence he seemed pained to think that ,i could ever consider him capable of such designing4 ,the merry twinkle in his eye was the only confession he ever made4 ,small wonder that ,i loved ,sant4 ,if ,i were writing a testimonial for myself ,i should say that it was much to my credit that ,i loved a boy like that4 ,as a boy my risibilities were easily excited1 and ,i'm glad that1 even yet1 ,i have not entirely overcome that weakness4 ,if ,i couldn't have a big laugh1 now and then1 ,i'd feel that ,i ought to consult a physician4 ,my boys and girls and ,i often laugh together1 but never at one another4 ,sant had a deal of fun with my propensity to laugh4 ,when we were conning our geography lesson1 he would make puns upon such names as ,chattahoochee and ,appalachicola1 and ,i would promptly explode4 ,then1 enter the teacher4 ,but ,i drop the mantle of charity over the next scene1 for his school-teaching was altogether personal1 and not pedagogical4 ,he didn't know that puns and laughter were the reactions on the part of us boys that caused us to know the facts of the book4 ,but he wanted us to learn those facts in his way1 and not in our own4 ,poor fellow6 ,requiescat in pace1 if he can4 ,sant was the first one of our crowd to go to college1 and we were all proud of him1 and predicted great things for him4 ,we all knew he was brilliant and felt certain that the great ones in the college would soon find it out4 ,and they did2 for ever and anon some news would filter through to us that ,sant was battening upon ,latin1 ,greek1 mathematics1 science1 and history4 ,of course1 we gave all the credit to our little school1 and seemed to forget that the ,lord may have had something to do with it4 ,when we proved by ,sant's achievements that our school was ne plus ultra1 ,i noticed that the irascible teacher joined heartily in the chorus4 ,i intend to get all the glory ,i can from the achievements of my pupils1 but ,i do hope that they may not be my sole dependence at the distribution of glory4 ,yes1 ,sant graduated1 and his name was written high upon the scroll4 ,but he could not deliver his oration1 for he was sick1 and a friend read it for him4 ,and when he arose to receive his diploma he had to stand on crutches4 ,they took him home in a carriage1 and within a week he was dead4 ,the fires of genius had burned brightly for a time and then went out in darkness1 because his father and mother were first cousins4 ,at the conclusion of this story1 the boys were silent for a long time1 and ,i knew the story was having its effect4 ,then there was a slight movement1 and one of them put into my hand another pine stick4 ,i whittled in silence for a time1 and then told them of a woman ,i know who is well-known and highly esteemed in more than one ,state because of her distinctive achievements4 ,one day ,i saw her going along the street leading by the hand a little four-year-old boy4 ,he was the picture of health1 and rollicked along as only such a healthy little chap can4 ,he was eager to see all the things that were displayed in the windows1 but to me he and the proud mother were the finest show on the street4 ,she beamed upon him like another ,madonna1 and it seemed to me that the ,master must have been looking at some such glorious child as that when he said2 ,suffer the little children to come unto me4 ,a few weeks later ,i was riding on the train with that mother1 and she was telling me that the little fellow had been ill1 and told how anxious she had been through several days and nights because the physicians could not discover the cause of his illness4 ,then she told how happy she was that he had about recovered1 and how bright he seemed when she kissed him good-by that morning4 ,i saw her several times that week and at each meeting she gave me good news of the little boy at home4 ,inside of another month that noble little fellow was dead4 ,apparently he was his own healthy1 happy little self1 and then was stricken as he had been before4 ,the pastor of the church of which the parents are members told me of the death scene4 ,it occurred at about one o'clock in the morning1 and the mother was worn and haggard from anxiety and days of watching4 ,the members of the family1 the physician1 and the pastor were standing around the bed1 but the mother was on her knees close beside the little one1 who was writhing in the most awful convulsions4 ,then the stricken mother looked straight into heaven and made a personal appeal to ,god to come and relieve the little fellow's sufferings4 ,again and again she prayed3 ,oh1 ,god1 do come and take my little boy4 ,and the ,angel of ,death1 in answer to that prayer1 came in and touched the baby1 and he was still4 ,the mother of that child may or may not know that the grandfather of that child came into that room that night1 though he had been long in his grave1 and murdered her baby--murdered him with tainted blood4 ,that grandfather had not lived a clean life1 and so broke a mother's heart and forced her in agony to pray for the death of her own child4 ,when ,i had finished ,i walked quietly away1 leaving the boys to their own thoughts1 and as ,i walked ,i breathed the wish that my boys may live such clean1 wholesome1 upright1 temperate lives that no child or grandchild may ever have occasion to reproach them1 or point the finger of scorn at them1 and that no mother may ever pray for death to come to her baby because of a taint in their blood4 ,,chapter ,,xxiii ,,grandmother ,my grandmother was about the nicest grandmother that a boy ever had1 and in memory of her1 ,i am quite partial to all the grandmothers4 ,i like ,whistler's portrait of his mother there in the ,luxembourg--the serene face1 the cap and strings1 and the folded hands--because it takes me back to the days and to the presence of my grandmother4 ,she got into my heart when ,i was a boy1 and she is there yet2 and there she will stay4 ,the bread and butter that she somehow contrived to get to us boys between meals made us feel that she could read our minds4 ,i attended a banquet the other night1 but they had no such bread and butter as we boys had there in the shade of that apple-tree4 ,it was real bread and real butter1 and the appetite was real1 too1 and that helped to invest grandmother with a halo4 ,sometimes she would add jelly1 and that caused our cup of joy to run over4 ,she just could not bear a hungry look on the face of a boy1 and when such a look appeared she exorcised it in the way that a boy likes4 ,what ,i liked about her was that she never attached any conditions to her bread and butter--no1 not even when she added jelly1 but her gifts were as free as salvation4 ,the more ,i think of the matter1 the more ,i am convinced that her gifts were salvation1 for ,i know1 by experience1 that a hungry boy is never a good boy1 at least1 not to excess4 ,whatever the vicissitudes of life might be to me1 ,i knew that ,i had a city of refuge beside grandmother's big armchair1 and when trouble came ,i instinctively sought that haven1 often with rare celerity4 ,in that hallowed place there could be no hunger1 nor thirst1 nor persecution4 ,in that place there was peace and plenty1 whatever there might be elsewhere4 ,i often used to wonder how she could know a boy so well4 ,i would be aching to go over to play with ,tom1 and the first thing ,i knew grandmother was sending me over there on some errand1 telling me there was no special hurry about coming back4 ,my father might set his foot down upon some plan of mine ever so firmly1 but grandmother had only to smile at him and he was reduced to a degree of limpness that contributed to my escape4 ,i have often wondered whether that smile on the face of grandmother did not remind him1 of some of his own boyish pranks4 ,we boys knew1 somehow1 what she expected of us1 and her expectation was the measuring rod with which we tested our conduct4 ,boy-like1 we often wandered away into a far country1 but when we returned1 she had the fatted calf ready for us1 with never a question as to our travels abroad4 ,in that way foreign travel lost something of its glamour1 and the home life made a stronger appeal4 ,she made her own bill of fare so appetizing that we lost all our relish for husks and the table companions connected with them4 ,she never asked how or where we acquired the cherry-stains on our shirts1 but we knew that she recognized cherry-stains when she saw them4 ,the next day our shirts were innocent of foreign cherry-stains1 and we experienced a feeling of righteousness4 ,she made us feel that we were equal partners with her in the enterprise of life1 and that hoeing the garden and eating the cookies were our part of the compact4 ,when we went to stay with her for a week or two we carried with us a book or so of the lurid sort1 but returned home leaving them behind1 generally in the form of ashes4 ,she found the book1 of course1 beneath the pillow1 and replaced it when she made the bed1 but never mentioned the matter to us4 ,then1 in the afternoon1 while we munched cookies she would read to us from some book that made our own book seem tame and unprofitable4 ,she never completed the story1 however1 but left the book on the table where we could find it easily4 ,no need to tell that we finished the story1 without help1 in the evening1 and the next day cremated the other book1 having found something more to our liking4 ,one evening1 as we sat together1 she said she wished she knew the name of ,jephthah's daughter1 and then went on with her knitting as if she had forgotten her wish4 ,at that age we boys were not specially interested in daughters1 no matter whose they were2 but that challenge to our curiosity was too much for us1 and before we went to bed we knew all that is known of that fine girl4 ,that was the beginning of our intimate1 personal knowledge of ,bible characters--,ruth1 ,esther1 ,david1 and the rest2 but grandmother made us feel that we had known about them all along4 ,i know1 even yet1 just how tall ,ruth was1 and what was the color of her eyes and hair2 and ,esther is the standard by which ,i measure all the queens of earth1 whether they wear crowns or not4 ,one day when we went over to play with ,tom we saw a peacock for the first time1 and at supper became enthusiastic over the discovery4 ,in the midst of our rhapsodizing grandmother asked us if we knew how those beautiful spots came to be in the feathers of the peacock4 ,we confessed our ignorance1 and like ,ajax1 prayed for light4 ,but we soon became aware that our prayer would not be answered until after the supper dishes had been washed4 ,our alacrity in proffering our services is conclusive evidence that grandmother knew about motivation whether she knew the word or not4 ,we suggested the omission of the skillets and pans for that night only1 but the suggestion fell upon barren soil1 and the regular order of business was strictly observed4 ,then came the story1 and the narrator made the characters seem lifelike to us as they passed in review4 ,there were ,jupiter and ,juno2 there were ,argus with his hundred eyes1 the beautiful heifer that was ,io1 and the crafty ,mercury4 ,in rapt attention we listened until those eyes of ,argus were transferred to the feathers of the peacock4 ,if ,mercury's story of his musical pipe closed the eyes of ,argus1 grandmother's story opened ours wide1 and we clamored for another1 as boys will do4 ,nor did we ask in vain1 and we were soon learning of the ,flying ,mercury1 and how light and airy ,mercury was1 seeing that an infant's breath could support him4 ,after telling of the wild ride of ,phaeton and his overthrow1 she quoted from ,john ,g4 ,saxe3 ,don't set it down in your table of forces ,that any one man equals any four horses4 ,don't swear by the ,styx6 ,it is one of old ,nick's ,diabolical tricks ,to get people into a regular 'fix1' ,and hold 'em there as fast as bricks6 ,be it said to our credit that after such an evening dish-washing was no longer a task1 but rather a delightful prelude to another mythological feast4 ,we wandered with ,ulysses and shuddered at ,polyphemus2 we went in quest of the ,golden ,fleece1 and watched the sack of ,troy2 we came to know ,orpheus and ,eurydice and ,pyramus and ,thisbe2 and we sowed dragon's teeth and saw armed men spring up before us4 ,since those glorious evenings with grandmother the classic myths have been among my keenest delights4 ,i read again and again ,lowell's extravaganza upon the story of ,daphne1 and can hear grandmother's laugh over his delicious puns4 ,i can hear her voice as she reads ,shelley's musical ,arethusa1 and then turns to his ,skylark to compare their musical qualities4 ,i feel downright sorry for the boy who has no such grandmother to teach him these poems1 but not more sorry than ,i do for those boys who took that ,diamond ,dick book with them when they went visiting4 ,even now1 when people talk to me of omniscience ,i always think of grandmother4 ,,chapter ,,xxiv ,,my ,,world ,the world is too much with us2 late and soon1 ,getting and spending1 we lay waste our powers2 ,little we see in nature that is ours2 ,we have given our hearts away1 a sordid boon6 ,this sea that bares her bosom to the moon1 ,the winds that will be howling at all hours ,and are up-gather'd now like sleeping flowers1 ,for this1 for everything1 we are out of tune2 ,it moves us not4 ,great ,god6 ,i'd rather be ,a pagan suckled in a creed out-worn-- ,so might ,i1 standing on this pleasant lea1 ,have glimpses that would make me less forlorn2 ,have sight of ,proteus rising from the sea2 ,and hear old ,triton blow his wreathed horn4 --,wordsworth4 ,i have heard many times that this is one of the best of ,wordsworth's many sonnets1 and in the matter of sonnets1 ,i find myself compelled to depend upon others for my opinions4 ,i'm sorry that such is the case1 for ,i'd rather not deal in second-hand judgments if ,i could help it4 ,about the most this sonnet can do for me is to make me wonder what my world is4 ,i suppose that the size of my world is the measure of myself1 and that in my schoolmastering ,i am simply trying to enlarge the world of my pupils4 ,i saw a gang-plough the other day that is drawn by a motor1 and that set me to thinking of ploughs in general and their evolution2 and1 by tracing the plough backward1 ,i saw that the original one must have been the forefinger of some cave-dweller4 ,when his forefinger got sore1 he got a forked stick and used that instead2 then he got a larger one and used both hands2 then a still larger one1 and used oxen as the motive power2 and then he fitted handles to it1 and other parts till he finally produced a plough4 ,but the principle has not been changed1 and the gang-plough is but a multifold forefinger4 ,it is great fun to loose the tether of the mind and let it go racing along1 in and out1 till it runs to earth the original plough4 ,whether the solution is the correct one makes but little difference4 ,if friend ,brown cannot disprove my theory1 ,i am on safe ground1 and have my fun whether he accepts or rejects my findings4 ,this is one way of enlarging one's world1 ,i take it1 and if this sort of thing is a part of the process of education1 ,i am in favor of it1 and wish ,i knew how to set my boys and girls going on such excursions4 ,i wish ,i might have gone to school to ,agassiz just to get my eyes opened4 ,if ,i had1 ,i'd probably assign to my pupils such subjects as the evolution of a snowflake1 the travels of a sunbeam1 the mechanism of a bird's wing1 the history of a dewdrop1 the changes in a blade of grass1 and the evolution of a grain of sand4 ,if ,i could only take them away from books for a month or so1 they'd probably be able to read the books to better advantage when they came back4 ,i'd like to take them on a walking trip over the ,alps and through rural ,england and ,scotland for a few weeks4 ,if they could only gather broom1 heather1 shamrock1 and edelweiss1 they would be able to see clover1 alfalfa1 arbutus1 and mignonette when they came back home4 ,if they could see black robins in ,wales and ,germany1 the robin redbreast here at home would surely be thought worthy of notice4 ,if they could see stalactites and stalagmites in ,luray ,cave1 their world would then include these formations4 ,one of my boys was a member of an exploring expedition in the ,andes1 and one night they were encamped near a glacier4 ,this glacier protruded into a lake1 and on that particular night the end of that river of ice broke off and thus formed an iceberg4 ,the glacier was nearly a mile wide1 and when the end broke off the sound was such as to make the loudest thunder seem a whisper by comparison4 ,it was a rare experience for this young fellow to be around where icebergs are made1 and vicariously ,i shared his experience4 ,i want to know the price of eggs1 bacon1 and coffee1 but ,i need not go into camp on the price-list4 ,having purchased my bacon and eggs1 ,i like to move along to where my friend is sitting1 and hear him tell of his experiences with glaciers and icebergs1 and so become inoculated with the world-enlarging virus4 ,or1 if he comes in to share my bacon and eggs1 these mundane delights lose none of their flavor by being garnished with conversation on ,andean themes4 ,i'm glad to have my friend push that greatest of monuments1 ,the ,christ of the ,andes1 over into my world4 ,i arise from the table feeling that ,i have had full value for the money ,i expended for eggs and bacon4 ,i'd like to have in my world a liberal sprinkling of stars1 for when ,i am looking at stars ,i get away from sordid things1 for a time1 and get my soul renovated4 ,i think ,st4 ,paul must have been associating with starry space just before he wrote the last two verses of that eighth chapter of ,romans4 ,i can't see how he could have written such mighty thoughts if he had been dwelling upon clothes or symptoms4 ,the reading of a patent-medicine circular is not specially conducive to thoughts of infinity4 ,so ,i like1 in my meditations1 to take trips from star to star1 and from planet to planet4 ,i like to wonder whether these planets were rightly named--whether ,venus is as beautiful as the name implies1 and whether the ,martians are really disciples of the warlike ,mars4 ,i like to drift along upon the canals on the planet ,mars1 with heroic ,martians plying the oars4 ,i have great fun on such spatial excursions1 and am glad that ,i ever annexed these planets to my world4 ,i can take these stellar companions with me to my potato-patch1 and they help the day along4 ,i want pictures in my world1 too1 and statues2 for they show me the hearts of the artists1 and that is a sort of baptism4 ,sometimes ,i grow a bit impatient to see how slowly some work of mine proceeds4 ,then ,i think of ,ghiberti1 who worked for forty-two years on the bronze doors of the ,baptistry there in ,florence1 which ,michael ,angelo declared to be worthy of paradise4 ,then ,i reflect that it was worth a lifetime of work to win the praise of such as ,angelo4 ,this reflection calms me1 and ,i plod on more serenely1 glad of the fact that ,i can count ,ghiberti and the bronze doors as a part of my world4 ,when ,i can have ,titian1 ,rembrandt1 ,leonardo da ,vinci1 ,andrea del ,sarto1 ,raphael1 and ,rosa ,bonheur around1 ,i feel that ,i have good company and must be on my good behavior4 ,if ,corot1 ,reynolds1 ,leighton1 ,watts1 and ,landseer should be banished from my world ,i'd feel that ,i had suffered a great loss4 ,i like to hobnob with such folks as these1 both for my own pleasure and also for the reputation ,i gain through such associations4 ,i must have people in my world1 also1 or it wouldn't be much of a world4 ,and ,i must be careful in my selection of people1 if ,i am to achieve any distinction as a world builder4 ,i just can't leave ,cordelia out1 for she helps to make my world luminous4 ,but she must have companions2 so ,i shall select ,antigone1 ,evangeline1 ,miranda1 ,mary1 and ,martha if she can spare the time4 ,among the male contingent ,i shall want ,job1 ,erasmus1 ,petrarch1 ,dante1 ,goethe1 ,shakespeare1 ,milton1 and ,burns4 ,i want men and women in whose presence ,i must stand uncovered to preserve my self-respect4 ,i want big people1 wise people1 and dynamic people in my world1 people who will teach me how to work and how to live4 ,if ,i can get my world made and peopled to my liking1 ,i shall refute ,mr4 ,wordsworth's statement that the world is too much with us4 ,if ,i can have the right sort of folks about me1 they will see to it that ,i do not waste my powers1 for ,i shall be compelled to use my powers in order to avert expulsion from their good company4 ,if ,i get my world built to suit me1 ,i shall have no occasion to imitate the poet's plaint4 ,i suspect there is no better fun in life than in building a world of one's own4 ,,chapter ,,xxv ,,this ,,or ,,that ,one day in ,london a friend told me that on the market in that city they have eggs of five grades--new-laid eggs1 fresh eggs1 imported fresh eggs1 good eggs1 and eggs4 ,a few days later we were in the ,tate ,gallery looking at the ,turner collection when he told me a story of ,turner4 ,it seems that a friend of the artist was in his studio watching him at his work1 when suddenly this friend said3 ,really1 ,mr4 ,turner1 ,i can't see in nature the colors that you portray on canvas4 ,the artist looked at him steadily for a moment1 and then replied3 ,don't you wish you could8 ,life1 even at its best1 certainly is a maze4 ,i find myself in the labyrinth1 all the while groping about1 but quite unable to find the exit4 ,theseus was most fortunate in having an ,ariadne to furnish him with the thread to guide him4 ,but there seems to be no second ,ariadne for me1 and ,i must continue to grope with no thread to guide4 ,there in the ,tate ,gallery ,i was standing enthralled before pictures by ,watts and ,leighton1 and paying small heed to the ,turners1 when the story of my friend held a mirror before me1 and as ,i looked ,i asked myself the question3 ,don't you wish you could8 ,those ,barbizon chaps1 artists that they were1 used to laugh at ,corot and tell him he was parodying nature1 but he went right on painting the foliage of his trees silver-gray until1 finally1 the other artists discovered that he was the only one who was telling the truth on canvas4 ,every one of my dilemmas seems to have at least a dozen horns1 and ,i stand helpless before them1 fearful that ,i may lay hold of the wrong one4 ,i was reading in a book the other day the statement of a man who says he'd rather have been ,louis ,agassiz than the richest man in ,america4 ,in another little book1 ,the ,kingdom of ,light1 the author1 who is a lawyer1 says that ,concord1 ,massachusetts1 has influenced ,america to a greater degree than ,new ,york and ,chicago combined4 ,i think ,i'll blot out the superlative degree in my grammar1 for the comparative gives me all the trouble ,i can stand4 ,everything seems to be better or worse than something else1 and there doesn't seem to be any best or worst4 ,so ,i'll dispense with the superlative degree4 ,whether ,i buy new-laid eggs1 or just eggs1 ,i can't be certain that ,i have the best or the worst eggs that can be found4 ,if ,i go over to ,paris ,i may find other grades of eggs4 ,our ,sunday-school teacher wanted a generous contribution of money one day1 and1 by way of causing purse-strings to relax1 told of a boy who was putting aside choice bits of meat as he ate his dinner4 ,upon being asked by his father why he was doing so1 he replied that he was saving the bits for ,rover4 ,he was reminded that ,rover could do with scraps and bones1 and that he himself should eat the bits he had put aside4 ,when he went out to ,rover with the plate of leavings1 he patted him affectionately and said3 ,poor doggie6 ,i was going to bring you an offering to-day2 but ,i guess you'll have to put up with a collection4 ,i like ,robert ,burns and think his ,to ,mary in ,heaven is his finest poem4 ,but the critics seem to prefer his ,highland ,mary4 ,so ,i suppose these critics will look at me1 with something akin to pity in the look1 and say3 ,don't you wish you could8 ,years ago some one planted trees about my house for shade1 and selected poplar4 ,now the roots of these trees invade the cellar and the cistern1 and prove themselves altogether a nuisance4 ,of course1 ,i can cut out the trees1 but then ,i should have no shade4 ,that man1 whoever he was1 might just as well have planted elms or maples1 but1 by some sort of perversity or ignorance1 planted poplars1 and here am ,i1 years afterward1 in a state of perturbation about the safety of cellar and cistern on account of those pesky roots4 ,i do wish that man had taken a course in arboriculture before he planted those trees4 ,it might have saved me a deal of bother1 and been no worse for him4 ,back home1 after we had passed through the autograph-album stage of development1 we became interested in another sort of literary composition4 ,it was a book in which we recorded the names of our favorite book1 author1 poem1 statesman1 flower1 name1 place1 musical instrument1 and so on throughout an entire page4 ,that experience was really valuable and caused us to do some thinking4 ,it would be well1 ,i think1 to use such a book as that in the examination of teachers and pupils4 ,i wish ,i might come upon one of the books now in which ,i set down the record of my favorites4 ,it would afford me some interesting if not valuable information4 ,if ,i were called upon to name my favorite flower now ,i'd scarcely know what to say4 ,in one mood ,i'd certainly say lily-of-the-valley1 but in another mood ,i might say the rose4 ,i do wonder if1 in those books back yonder1 ,i ever said sunflower1 dandelion1 dahlia1 fuchsia1 or daisy4 ,if ,i should find that ,i said heliotrope1 ,i'd give my adolescence a pretty high grade4 ,if ,i were using one of these books in my school1 and some boy should name the sunflower as his favorite1 ,i'd find myself facing a big problem to get him converted to the lily-of-the-valley1 and ,i really do not know quite how ,i should proceed4 ,it might not help him much for me to ask him3 ,don't you wish you could8 ,if ,i should let him know that my favorite is the lily-of-the-valley1 he might name that flower as the line of least resistance to my approval and a high grade1 with the mental reservation that the sunflower is the most beautiful plant that grows4 ,such a course might gratify me1 but it certainly would not make for his progress toward the lily-of-the-valley1 nor yet for the salvation of his soul4 ,i have a boy of my own1 but have never had the courage to ask him what kind of father he thinks he has4 ,he might tell me4 ,again ,i am facing a dilemma4 ,dilemmas are quite plentiful hereabouts4 ,i must determine whether to regard him as an asset or a liability4 ,but1 that is not the worst of my troubles4 ,i plainly see that sooner or later he is going to decide whether his father is an asset or a liability4 ,we must go over our books some day so as to find out which of us is in debt to the other4 ,i know that ,i owe him his chance1 but parents often seem backward about paying their debts to their children1 and ,i'm wondering whether ,i shall be able to cancel that debt1 to his present and ultimate satisfaction4 ,i'd be decidedly uncomfortable1 years hence1 to find him but the runt of something good because ,i had failed to pay that debt4 ,when ,i was a lad they used to say that ,i was stubborn1 but that may have been my unsophisticated way of trying to collect a debt4 ,i take some comfort1 in these later days1 in knowing that the folks at home credit me with the virtue of perseverance1 and ,i wish they had used the milder word when ,i was a boy4 ,there is a picture show just around the corner1 and ,i'm in a quandary1 right now1 whether to follow the crowd to that show or sit here and read ,ruskin's ,sesame and ,lilies4 ,if ,i go to see the picture film ,i'll probably see an exhibition of cowboy equestrian dexterity1 with a happy ever after finale1 and may also acquire the reputation among the neighbors of being up to date4 ,but1 if ,i spend the evening with ,ruskin1 ,i shall have something worth thinking over as ,i go about my work to-morrow4 ,so here is another dilemma1 and there is no one to decide the matter for me4 ,this being a free moral agent is not the fun that some folks try to make it appear4 ,i don't really see how ,i shall ever get on unless ,i subscribe to ,sam ,walter ,foss's lines3 ,no other song has vital breath ,through endless time to fight with death1 ,than that the singer sings apart ,to please his solitary heart4 ,,chapter ,,xxvi ,,rabbit ,,pedagogy ,as ,i think back over my past life as a schoolmaster ,i keep wondering how many inebriates ,i have produced in my career4 ,i'd be glad to think that ,i have not a single one to my discredit1 but that seems beyond the wildest hope1 considering the character of my teaching4 ,i am a firm believer in temperance in all things2 but1 in the matter of pedagogy1 my practice cannot be made to square with my theory4 ,in fact1 ,i find1 upon reflection1 that ,i have been teaching intemperance all the while4 ,i'm glad the officers of my church do not know of my pedagogical practice4 ,if they did1 they would certainly take action against me1 and in that case ,i cannot see what adequate defense ,i could offer4 ,being a schoolmaster1 ,i could scarcely bring myself to plead ignorance1 for such a plea as that might abrogate my license4 ,so ,i shall just keep quiet and look as nearly wise as possible4 ,it is embarrassing to me to reflect how long it has taken me to see the error of my practice4 ,if ,i had asked one of my boys he could have told me of the better way4 ,when we got the new desks in our school1 back home1 our teacher seemed very anxious to have them kept in their virgin state1 and became quite animated as he walked up and down the aisle fulminating against the possible offender4 ,in the course of his sulphury remarks he threatened condign punishment upon the base miscreant who should dare use his penknife on one of those desks4 ,his address was equal to a course in ,paradise ,lost1 nor was it without its effect upon the audience4 ,every boy in the room felt in his pocket to make sure that it contained his knife1 and every one began to wonder just where he would find the whetstone when he went home4 ,we were all eager for school to close for the day that we might set about the important matter of whetting our knives4 ,henceforth wood-carving was a part of the regular order in our school1 but it was done without special supervision4 ,of course1 each boy could prove an alibi when his own desk was under investigation4 ,it would not be seemly1 in this connection1 to give a verbatim report of the conversations of us boys when we assembled at our rendezvous after school4 ,suffice it to say that the teacher's ears must have burned4 ,the consensus of opinion was that1 if the teacher didn't want the desks carved1 he should not have told us to carve them4 ,we seemed to think that he had said1 in substance1 that he knew we were a gang of young rascallions1 and that1 if he didn't intimidate us1 we'd surely be guilty of some form of vandalism4 ,then he proceeded to point out the way by suggesting penknives2 and the trick was done4 ,we were ever open to suggestions4 ,we had another teacher whose pet aversion was match heads4 ,cicero and ,demosthenes would have apologized to him could they have come in when he was delivering one of his eloquent orations upon this engaging theme4 ,his vituperative vocabulary seemed unlimited1 inexhaustible1 and cumulative4 ,he raved1 and ranted1 and exuded epithets with the most lavish prodigality4 ,it seemed to us that he didn't care much what he said1 if he could only say it rapidly and forcibly4 ,in the very midst of an eloquent period another match head would explode under his foot1 and that seemed to answer the purpose of an encore4 ,the class in arithmetic did not recite that afternoon4 ,there was no time for arithmetic when match heads were to the fore4 ,i sometimes feel a bit guilty that ,i was admitted to such a good show on a free pass4 ,the next day1 of course1 the ,gatling guns resumed their activity2 the girls screeched as they walked toward the water-pail to get a drink2 we boys studied our geography lesson with faces garbed in a look of innocence and wonder2 our mothers at home were wondering what had become of all the matches2 and the teacher--but the less said of him the better4 ,we boys needed only the merest suggestion to set us in motion1 and like ,dame ,rumor in the ,aeneid1 we gathered strength by the going4 ,one day the teacher became somewhat facetious and recounted a red-pepper episode in the school of his boyhood4 ,that was enough for us2 and the next day1 in our school1 was a day long to be remembered4 ,i recall in the school reader the story of ,meddlesome ,matty4 ,her name was really ,matilda4 ,one day her curiosity got the better of her1 and she removed the lid from her grandmother's snuff-box4 ,the story goes on to say3 ,poor eyes1 and nose1 and mouth1 and chin ,a dismal sight presented2 ,and as the snuff got further in ,sincerely she repented4 ,barring the element of repentance1 the red pepper was equally provocative of results in our school4 ,i certainly cannot lay claim to any great degree of docility1 for1 in spite of all the experiences of my boyhood1 ,i fell into the evil ways of my teachers when ,i began my schoolmastering1 and suggested to my pupils numberless short cuts to wrong-doing4 ,i railed against intoxicants1 and thus made them curious4 ,that's why ,i am led to wonder if ,i have incited any of my boys to strong drink as my teachers incited me to desk-carving1 match heads1 and red pepper4 ,i have come to think that a rabbit excels me in the matter of pedagogy4 ,the tar-baby story that ,joel ,chandler ,harris has given us abundantly proves my statement4 ,the rabbit had so often outwitted the fox that1 in desperation1 the latter fixed up a tar-baby and set it up in the road for the benefit of the rabbit4 ,in his efforts to discipline the tar-baby for impoliteness1 the rabbit became enmeshed in the tar1 to his great discomfort and chagrin4 ,however1 ,brer ,rabbit's knowledge of pedagogy shines forth in the following dialogue3 ,w'en ,brer ,fox fine ,brer ,rabbit mixt up wid de ,tar-,baby he feel mighty good1 en he roll on de groun' en laff4 ,bimeby he up'n say1 sezee3 ,well1 ,i speck ,i got you dis time1 ,brer ,rabbit1 sezee4 ,maybe ,i ain't1 but ,i speck ,i is4 ,you been runnin' roun' here sassin' atter me a mighty long time1 but ,i speck you done come ter de een' er de row4 ,you bin cuttin' up yo' capers en bouncin' 'roun' in dis neighborhood ontwel you come ter b'leeve yo'se'f de boss er de whole gang4 ,en den youer allers some'rs whar you got no bizness1 sez ,brer ,fox1 sezee4 ,who ax you fer ter come en strike up a'quaintance wid dish yer ,tar-,baby8 ,en who stuck you up dar whar you is8 ,nobody in de roun' worril4 ,you des tuck en jam yo'se'f on dat ,tar-,baby widout watin' fer enny invite1 sez ,brer ,fox1 sezee1 en dar you is1 en dar you'll stay twel ,i fixes up a bresh-pile and fires her up1 kaze ,i'm gwineter bobby-cue you dis day1 sho1 sez ,brer ,fox1 sezee4 ,den ,brer ,rabbit talk mighty 'umble4 ,i don't keer w'at you do wid me1 ,brer ,fox1 sezee1 so you don't fling me in dat brier-patch4 ,roas' me1 ,brer ,fox1 sezee1 but don't fling me in dat brier-patch1 sezee4 ,hit's so much trouble fer ter kindle a fier1 sez ,brer ,fox1 sezee1 dat ,i speck ,i'll hatter hang you1 sezee4 ,hang me des ez high as you please1 ,brer ,fox1 sez ,brer ,rabbit1 sezee1 but do fer de ,lord's sake don't fling me in dat brier-patch1 sezee4 ,i ain't got no string1 sez ,brer ,fos1 sezee1 en now ,i speck ,i'll hatter drown you1 sezee4 ,drown me des ez deep ez you please1 ,brer ,fox1 sez ,brer ,rabbit1 sezee1 but do don't fling me in dat brier-patch1 sezee4 ,dey ain't no water nigh1 sez ,brer ,fox1 sezee1 en now ,i speck ,i'll hatter skin you1 sezee4 ,skin me1 ,brer ,fox1 sez ,brer ,rabbit1 sezee1 snatch out my eyeballs1 t'ar out my years by de roots1 en cut off my legs1 sezee1 but do please1 ,brer ,fox1 don't fling me in dat brier-patch1 sezee4 ,co'se ,brer ,fox wanter hurt ,brer ,rabbit bad ez he kin1 so he cotch 'im by de behime legs en slung 'im right in de middle er de brier-patch4 ,dar wuz a considerbul flutter whar ,brer ,rabbit struck de bushes1 en ,brer ,fox sorter hang 'roun' fer ter see w'at wuz gwineter happen4 ,bimeby he hear somebody call 'im1 en way up de hill he see ,brer ,rabbit settin' cross-legged on a chinkapin log koamin' de pitch outen his har wid a chip4 ,den ,brer ,fox know dat he bin swop off mighty bad4 ,brer ,rabbit was bleedzed fer ter fling back some er his sass1 en he holler out3 ,bred en bawn in a brier-patch1 ,brer ,fox--bred en bawn in a brier-patch6 en wid dat he skip out des ez lively ez a cricket in de embers4 ,,chapter ,,xxvii ,,perspective ,i wish ,i could ever get the question of majors and minors settled to my complete satisfaction4 ,i thought my college course would settle the matter for all time1 but it didn't4 ,i suspect that those erudite professors thought they were getting me fitted out with enduring habits of majors and minors1 but they seem to have made no allowance for changes of styles nor for growth4 ,when ,i received my diploma they seemed to think ,i was finished1 and would stay just as they had fixed me4 ,they used to talk no little about finished products1 and1 on commencement day1 appeared to look upon me as one of them4 ,on the whole1 ,i'm glad that ,i didn't fulfil their apparent expectations4 ,i have never been able to make out whether their attentions1 on commencement day1 were manifestations of pride or relief4 ,i can see now that ,i must have been a sore trial to them4 ,in my callow days1 when they occupied pedestals1 ,i bent the knee to them by way of propitiating them1 but ,i got bravely over that4 ,at first1 what they taught and what they represented were my majors1 but when ,i came to shift and reconstruct values1 some of them climbed down off their pedestals1 and my knee lost some of its flexibility4 ,we had one little professor who afforded us no end of amusement by his taking himself so seriously4 ,the boys used to say that he wrote letters and sent flowers to himself4 ,he would strut about the campus as proudly as a pouter-pigeon1 never realizing1 apparently1 that we were laughing at him4 ,at first1 he impressed us greatly with his grand air and his clothes1 but after we discovered that1 in his case at least1 clothes do not make the man1 we refused to be impressed4 ,he could split hairs with infinite precision1 and smoke a cigarette in the most approved style1 but ,i never heard any of the boys express a wish to become that sort of man4 ,had there occurred a meeting1 on the campus1 between him and ,zeus he would have been offended1 ,i am sure1 if ,zeus had failed to set off a few thunderbolts in his honor4 ,we used to have at home a bantam rooster that could create no end of flutter in the chicken yard1 and could crow mightily2 but when ,i reflected that he could neither lay eggs nor occupy much space in a frying-pan1 ,i demoted him1 in my thinking1 from major rank to a low minor1 and awarded the palm to one of the less bumptious but more useful fowls4 ,our little professor had degrees1 of course1 and has them yet1 ,i suspect2 but no one ever discovered that he put them to any good use4 ,for that reason we boys lost interest in the man as well as his garnishments4 ,our professor of chemistry was different4 ,he was never on dress-parade2 he did not pose2 he was no snob4 ,we loved him because he was so genuine4 ,he had degrees1 too1 but they were so obscured by the man that we forgot them in our contemplation of him4 ,we knew that they do not make degrees big enough for him4 ,i often wonder what degrees the colleges would want to confer upon ,william ,shakespeare if he could come back4 ,then1 too1 ,i often think what a wonderful letter ,abraham ,lincoln could and might have written to ,mrs4 ,bixby1 if he had only had a degree4 ,agassiz may have had degrees1 but he didn't really need them4 ,like ,browning1 he was big enough1 even lacking degrees1 to be known without the identification of his other names4 ,if people need degrees they ought to have them1 especially if they can live up to them4 ,possibly the time may come when degrees will be given for things done1 rather than for things hoped for2 given for at least one stage of the journey accomplished rather than for merely packing a travelling-bag4 ,if this time ever comes ,thomas ,a4 ,edison will bankrupt the alphabet4 ,in this coil of degrees and the absence of them1 ,i become more and more confused as to majors and minors4 ,there in college were those two professors both wearing degrees of the same size4 ,judged by that criterion they should have been of equal size and influence4 ,but they weren't4 ,in the one case you couldn't see the man for the degree2 in the other you couldn't see the degree for the man4 ,small wonder that ,i find myself in such a hopeless muddle4 ,i once thought1 in my innocence1 that there was a sort of metric scale in degrees--that an ,a4,m4 was ten times the size of an ,a4,b42 that a ,ph4,d4 was equal to ten ,a4,m4's2 and that the ,,ll4,d4 degree could be had only on the top of ,mt4 ,olympus4 ,but here ,i am1 stumbling about among folks1 and can't tell a ,ph4,d4 from an ,a4,b4 ,i do wish all these degree chaps would wear tags so that we wayfaring folks could tell them apart4 ,it would simplify matters if the railway people would arrange compartments on their trains for these various degrees4 ,the ,ph4,d4 crowd would certainly feel more comfortable if they could herd together1 so that they need not demean themselves by associating with mere ,a4,m4's or the more lowly ,a4,b4's4 ,we might hope1 too1 that by way of diversion they would put their heads together and compound some prescription by the use of which the world might avert war1 reduce the high cost of living1 banish a woman's tears1 or save a soul from perdition4 ,be it said to my shame1 that ,i do not know what even an ,a4,b4 means1 much less the other degree hieroglyphics4 ,sometimes ,i receive a letter having the writer's name printed at the top with an ,a4,b4 annex2 but ,i do not know what the writer is trying to say to me by means of the printing4 ,he probably wants me to know that he is a graduate of some sort1 but he fails to make it clear to me whether his degree was conferred by a high school1 a normal school1 a college1 or a university4 ,i know of one high school that confers this degree1 as well as many normal schools and colleges4 ,there are still other institutions where this same degree may be had1 that freely admit that they are colleges1 whether they can prove it or not4 ,i'll be glad to send a stamped envelope for reply1 if some one will only be good enough to tell me what ,a4,b4 does really mean4 ,i do hope that the earth may never be scourged with celibacy1 but the ever-increasing variety of bachelors1 male and female1 creates in me a feeling of apprehension4 ,nor can ,i make out whether a bachelor of arts is bigger and better than bachelors of science and pedagogy4 ,the arts folks claim that they are1 and proceed to prove it by one another4 ,i often wonder what a bachelor of arts can do that the other bachelors cannot do1 or vice versa4 ,they should all be required to submit a list of their accomplishments1 so that1 when any of the rest of us want a bit of work done1 we may be able to select wisely from among these differentiated bachelors4 ,if we want a bridge built1 a beefsteak broiled1 a mountain tunnelled1 a loaf of bread baked1 a railroad constructed1 a hat trimmed1 or a book written1 we ought to know which class of bachelors will serve our purpose best4 ,some one asked me just a few days ago to cite him to some man or woman who can write a prize-winning short story1 but ,i couldn't decide whether to refer him to the bachelors of arts or the bachelors of pedagogy4 ,i might have turned to the ,litt4,d4's1 but ,i didn't suppose they would care to bother with a little thing like that4 ,in college ,i studied ,greek and1 in fact1 won a gold medal for my agility in ramping through ,mr4 ,xenophon's parasangs4 ,that medal is lost1 so far as ,i know1 and no one now has the remotest suspicion that ,i ever even halted along through those parasangs1 not to mention ramping1 or that ,i ever made the acquaintance of ox-eyed ,juno4 ,but ,i need no medal to remind roe of those experiences in the ,greek class4 ,every bluebird ,i see does that for me4 ,the good old doctor1 one morning in early spring1 rhapsodized for five minutes on the singing of a bluebird he had heard on his way to class1 telling how the little fellow was pouring forth a melody that made the world and all life seem more beautiful and blessed4 ,we loved him for that1 because it proved that he was a big-souled human being2 and pupils like to discover human qualities in their teachers4 ,the little professor may have heard the bluebird's singing1 too2 but if he did1 he probably thought it was serenading him4 ,if colleges of education and normal schools would select teachers who can delight in the song of a bluebird their academic attainments would be ennobled and glorified1 and their students might come to love instead of fearing them4 ,only a man or a woman with a big soul can socialize and vitalize the work of the schools4 ,the mere academician can never do it4 ,the more ,i think of all these degree decorations in my efforts to determine what is major in life and what is minor1 the more ,i think of ,george4 ,he was an earnest schoolmaster1 and was happiest when his boys and girls were around him1 busy at their tasks4 ,one year there were fourteen boys in his school1 fifteen including himself1 for he was one of them4 ,the school day was not long enough1 so they met in groups in the evening1 at the various homes1 and continued the work of the day4 ,these boys absorbed his time1 his strength1 and his heart4 ,their success in their work was his greatest joy4 ,of those fourteen boys one is no more4 ,of the other thirteen one is a state official of high rank1 five are attorneys1 two are ministers of the ,gospel1 two are bankers1 one is a successful business man1 and two are engineers of prominence4 ,george is the ideal of those men4 ,they all say he gave them their start in the right direction1 and always speak his name with reverence4 ,george has these thirteen stars in his crown that ,i know of4 ,he had no degrees1 but ,i am thinking that some time he will hear the plaudit3 ,well done1 good and faithful servant4 ,,chapter ,,xxviii ,,purely ,,pedagogical ,it was a dark1 cold1 rainy night in ,november4 ,the wind whistled about the house1 the rain beat a tattoo against the window-panes and flooded the sills4 ,the big base-burner1 filled with anthracite coal1 was illuminating the room through its mica windows1 on all sides1 and dispensing a warmth that smiled at the storm and cold outside4 ,there was a book in the picture1 also2 and a pair of slippers2 and a smoking-jacket2 and an armchair4 ,from the ceiling was suspended a great lamp that joined gloriously in the chorus of light and cheer4 ,the man who sat in the armchair1 reading the book1 was a schoolmaster--a college professor to be exact4 ,soft music floated up from below stairs as a soothing accompaniment to his reading4 ,subconsciously1 as he turned the pages1 he felt a pity for the poor fellows on top of freight-trains who must endure the pitiless buffeting of the storm4 ,he could see them bracing themselves against the blasts that tried to wrest them from their moorings4 ,he felt a pity for the belated traveller who tries1 well-nigh in vain1 to urge his horses against the driving rain onward toward food and shelter4 ,but the leaves of the book continued to turn at intervals2 for the story was an engaging one1 and the schoolmaster was ever responsive to well-told stories4 ,it was nine o'clock or after1 and the fury of the storm was increasing4 ,as if responding to the challenge outside1 he opened the draft of the stove and then settled back1 thinking he would be able to complete the story before retiring4 ,in the midst of one of the many compelling passages he heard a bell toll1 or imagined he did4 ,brought to check by this startling sensation1 he looked back over the page to discover a possible explanation4 ,finding none1 he smiled at his own fancy1 and then proceeded with his reading4 ,but1 again1 the bell tolled1 and he wondered whether anything he had eaten at dinner could be held responsible for the hallucination4 ,scarcely had he resumed his reading when the bell again tolled4 ,he could stand it no longer1 and must come upon the solution of the mystery4 ,bells do not toll at nine o'clock1 and the weirdness of the affair disconcerted him4 ,the nearer he drew to the foot of the stair1 in his quest for information1 the more foolish he felt his question would seem to the members of the family4 ,but the question had scarce been asked when the boy of the house burst forth3 ,yes1 been tolling for half an hour4 ,meekly he asked3 ,why are they tolling the bell8 ,child lost4 ,whose child8 ,little girl belonging to the ,norwegians who live in the shack down there by the woods4 ,so1 that was it6 ,well1 it was some satisfaction to have the matter cleared up1 and now he could go back to his book4 ,he had noticed the shack in question1 which was made of slabs set upright1 with a precarious roof of tarred paper2 and had heard1 vaguely1 that a gang of ,norwegians were there to make a road through the woods to ,minnehaha ,falls4 ,beyond these bare facts he had never thought to inquire4 ,these people and their doings were outside of his world4 ,besides1 the book and the cheery room were awaiting his return4 ,but the reading did not get on well4 ,the tolling bell broke in upon it and brought before his mind the picture of a little girl wandering about in the storm and crying for her mother4 ,he tried to argue with himself that these ,norwegians did not belong in his class1 and that they ought to look after their own children4 ,he was under no obligations to them--in fact1 did not even know them4 ,they had no right1 therefore1 to break in upon the serenity of his evening4 ,but the bell tolled on4 ,if he could have wrenched the clapper from out that bell1 the page of his book might not have blurred before his eyes4 ,as the wind moaned about the house he thought he heard a child crying1 and started to his feet4 ,it was inconceivable1 he argued1 that he1 a grown man1 should permit such incidental matters in life to so disturb his composure4 ,there were scores1 perhaps hundreds1 of children lost somewhere in the world1 for whom regiments of people were searching1 and bells were tolling1 too4 ,so why not be philosophical and read the book8 ,but the words would not keep their places1 and the page yielded forth no coherent thought4 ,he could endure the tension no longer4 ,he became a whirlwind--slamming the book upon the table1 kicking off the slippers1 throwing the smoking-jacket at random1 and rushing to the closet for his gear4 ,at ten o'clock he was ready--hip-boots1 slouch-hat1 rubber coat1 and lantern1 and went forth into the storm4 ,arriving at the scene1 he took his place in the searching party of about twenty men4 ,they were to search the woods1 first of all1 each man to be responsible for a space about two or three rods wide and extending to the road a half-mile distant4 ,lantern in hand1 he scrutinized each stone and stump1 hoping and fearing that it might prove to be the little one4 ,in the darkness he stumbled over logs and vines1 became entangled in briers and brambles1 and often was deluged with water from trees as he came in contact with overhanging boughs4 ,but his blood was up1 for he was seeking a lost baby4 ,when he fell full-length in the swale1 he got to his feet the best he could and went on4 ,book and room were forgotten in the glow of a larger purpose4 ,so for two hours he splashed and struggled1 but had never a thought of abandoning the quest until the child should be found4 ,at twelve o'clock they had reached the road and were about to begin the search in another section of the wood when the church-bell rang4 ,this was the signal that they should return to the starting-point to hear any tidings that might have come in the meantime4 ,scarcely had they heard that a message had come from police headquarters in the city1 and that information could be had there concerning a lost child when the schoolmaster called out3 ,come on1 ,craig6 ,and away went these two toward the barn to arouse old ,blackie out of her slumber and hitch her to a buggy4 ,little did that old nag ever dream1 even in her palmiest days1 that she could show such speed as she developed in that four-mile drive4 ,the schoolmaster was too much wrought up to sit supinely by and see another do the driving2 so he did it himself4 ,and he drove as to the manner born4 ,the information they obtained at the police station was meagre enough1 but it furnished them a clew4 ,a little girl had been found wandering about1 and could be located on a certain street at such a number4 ,the name of the family was not known4 ,with this slender clew they began their search for the street and house4 ,the map of streets which they had hastily sketched seemed hopelessly inadequate to guide them in and out of by-streets and around zigzag corners4 ,they had adventures a plenty in pounding upon doors of wrong houses and thus arousing the fury of sleepy men and sleepless dogs4 ,one of the latter tore away a quarter-section of the schoolmaster's rubber coat1 and became so interested in this that the owner escaped with no further damage4 ,after an hour filled with such experiences they finally came to the right house4 ,joy flooded their hearts as the man inside called out3 ,yes1 wait a minute4 ,once inside1 questions and answers flew back and forth like a shuttle4 ,yes1 a little girl--about five years old--light hair--braided and hanging down her back--check apron4 ,she's the one--and we want to take her home4 ,then the lady appeared1 and said it was too bad to take the little one out into such a night4 ,but the schoolmaster bore her argument down with the word-picture of the little one's mother pacing back and forth in front of the shack1 her hair hanging in strings1 her clothing drenched with rain and clinging to her body1 her eyes upturned1 and her face expressing the most poignant agony4 ,when they left she had thus been pacing to and fro for seven hours and was1 no doubt1 doing so yet4 ,the mother-heart of the woman could not withstand such an appeal1 and soon she was busy in the difficult task of trying to get the little arms into the sleeves of dress and apron4 ,meanwhile1 the two bedraggled men were on their knees striving with that acme of awkwardness of which only men are capable1 to ensconce the little feet in stockings and shoes4 ,the dressing of that child was worthy the brush of ,raphael or the smile of angels4 ,at three o'clock in the morning the schoolmaster stepped from the buggy and placed the sleeping baby in the mother's arms1 and only the heavenly ,father knows the language she spoke as she crooned over her little one4 ,as the schoolmaster wended his way homeward1 cold1 hungry1 and worn he was buoyant in spirit to the point of ecstasy4 ,but he was chastened1 for he had stood upon the ,mount of ,transfiguration and knew as never before that the mission of the schoolmaster is to find and restore the lost child4 ,,chapter ,,xxix ,,longevity ,i'm quite in the notion of playing a practical joke on ,atropos1 and1 perhaps1 on ,methuselah1 while ,i'm about it4 ,i'm not partial to ,atropos at the best4 ,she's such a reckless1 uppish1 heedless sort of tyrant4 ,she rushes into huts1 palaces1 and even into the grand stand1 and lays about her with her scissors1 snipping off threads with the utmost abandon4 ,she wields her shears without any sort of apology or by your leave4 ,not even a check-book can stay her ravages4 ,her devastation knows neither ruth nor gentleness4 ,i don't like her1 and have no compunction about playing a joke at her expense4 ,i don't imagine it will daunt her1 in the least1 but ,i can have my fun1 at any rate4 ,it is now just seven o'clock in the evening1 and ,i shall not retire before ten o'clock at the earliest4 ,so here are three good hours for me to dispose of2 and ,i am the sole arbiter in the matter of disposing of them4 ,my neighbor ,john has a cow1 and he is applying the efficiency test to her4 ,he charges her with every pound of corn1 bran1 fodder1 and hay that she eats1 and doctor's bills1 too1 ,i suppose1 if there are any4 ,then he credits her with all the milk she furnishes4 ,there is quite a book-account in her name1 and ,john has a good time figuring out whether1 judged by net results1 she is a consumer or a producer4 ,if ,i can resurrect sufficient mathematical lore1 ,i think ,i shall try to apply this efficiency test to my three hours just to see if ,i can prove that hours are as important as cows4 ,i ought to be able1 somehow1 to determine whether these hours are consumers or producers4 ,i read a book the other evening whose title is ,stories of ,thrift for ,young ,americans1 and it made me feel that ,i ought to apply the efficiency test to myself1 and repeat the process every waking hour of the day4 ,but1 in order to do this1 ,i must apply the test to these three hours4 ,in my dreamy moods1 ,i like to personify an ,hour and spell it with a capital4 ,i like to think of an hour as the singular of ,houri which the ,mohammedans call nymphs of paradise1 because they were1 or are1 beautiful-eyed4 ,my ,hour then becomes a goddess walking through my life1 and1 as the poet says1 et vera incessu patuit dea4 ,if ,i show her that ,i appreciate her she comes again just after the clock strikes1 in form even more winsome than before1 and smiles upon me as only a goddess can4 ,once1 in a sullen mood1 ,i looked upon her as if she were a hag4 ,when she returned she was a hag2 and not till after ,i had done full penance did she become my beautiful goddess again4 ,a young man who had been spending the evening in the home of a neighbor complained that they did not play any games1 and did nothing but talk4 ,i could not ask what games he meant1 fearing that ,i might smile in his face if he should say crokinole1 tiddledy-winks1 or button-button4 ,later on ,i learned that much of the talking was done that evening by a very cultivated man who has travelled widely and intelligently1 and has a most engaging manner in his fluent discussions of art1 literature1 archaeology1 architecture1 places1 and peoples4 ,i was sorry to miss such an evening1 and think ,i could forego tiddledywinks with a fair degree of amiability if1 instead1 ,i could hear such a man talk4 ,i have seen people yawn in an art gallery4 ,i fear to play tiddledywinks lest my hour may resume the guise of a hag4 ,but that makes me think of ,atropos again1 and the joke ,i am planning to play on her4 ,still1 ,i see that ,i shall not soon get around to that joke if ,i persist in these dim generalities1 as a schoolmaster is so apt to do4 ,well1 as ,i was saying1 these three hours are at my disposal1 and ,i must decide what to do with them here and now4 ,in deciding concerning hours ,i must sit in the judgment-seat whether ,i like it or not4 ,tomorrow evening ,i shall have other three hours to dispose of the same as these1 and the next evening three others1 and my decision to-night may be far-reaching4 ,in six days ,i shall have eighteen such hours1 and in fifty weeks nine hundred4 ,i suppose that a generous estimate of a college year would be ten hours a day for one hundred and eighty days1 or eighteen hundred hours in all4 ,i am quite aware that some college boys will feel inclined to apply a liberal discount to this estimate1 but ,i am not considering those fellows who try to do a month's work in the week of examination1 and spend their fathers' money for coaching4 ,now1 if eighteen hundred hours constitute a college year then my nine hundred hours are one-half a college year1 and it makes a deal of difference what ,i do with these three hours4 ,if ,i had only started this joke on ,atropos earlier and had applied these nine hundred hours on my college work1 ,i could have graduated in three years instead of four1 and that surely would have been in the line of efficiency4 ,but in those days ,i was devoting more time and attention to ,clotho than to ,atropos4 ,i would fain have ignored ,lachesis altogether1 but she made me painfully conscious of her presence1 especially during the finals when1 it seemed to me1 she was unnecessarily diligent in her vocation4 ,i could have dispensed with much of her torsion with great equanimity4 ,i suppose that now ,i am trying to square accounts with her by playing this joke on her sister4 ,so ,i have decided that ,i shall read a play of ,shakespeare to-night1 another one to-morrow evening1 and continue this until ,i have read all that he wrote4 ,in the fifty weeks of the year ,i can easily do this and then reread some of them many times4 ,i ought to be able to commit to memory several of the plays1 too1 and that would be good fun4 ,if those chaps back yonder could recite the ,koran word for word ,i shall certainly be able to learn equally well some of these plays4 ,it would be worth while to recite ,king ,lear1 ,macbeth1 ,othello1 ,hamlet1 ,the ,tempest1 and ,as ,you ,like ,it1 the last week of the year just before ,i take my vacation of two weeks4 ,if ,i can recite even these six plays in those six evenings ,i shall feel that ,i did well in deciding for ,shakespeare instead of tiddledywinks4 ,next year ,i shall read history1 and that will be rare fun1 too4 ,in the nine hundred hours ,i shall certainly be able to read all of ,fiske1 ,mommsen1 ,rhodes1 ,bancroft1 ,mc,master1 ,channing1 ,bryce1 ,hart1 ,motley1 ,gibbon1 and von ,holst not to mention ,american statesmen4 ,about the ,ides of ,december ,i shall hold a levee and sit in state as the characters of history file by4 ,i shall be able to call them all by name1 to tell of the things they did and why they did them1 and to connect their deeds with the world as it now is4 ,i can't conceive of any picture-show equal to that1 and all through my year with ,shakespeare ,i shall be looking forward eagerly to my year with the historians4 ,i plainly see that the neighbors will not need to bring in any playthings to amuse and entertain me1 though1 of course1 ,i shall be grateful to them for their kindly interest4 ,then1 the next year ,i shall devote to music1 and if1 by practising for nine hundred hours1 ,i cannot acquire a good degree of facility in manipulating a piano or a violin1 ,i must be too dull to ever aspire to the favor of ,terpsichore4 ,if ,i but measure up to my hopes during this year ,i shall be saved the expense of buying my music ready-made4 ,the next year ,i shall devote to art1 and by spending one entire evening with a single artist ,i shall thus become acquainted with three hundred of them4 ,if ,i become intimate with this number ,i shall not be lonesome1 even if ,i do not know the others4 ,i think ,i shall give an art party at the holiday time of that year1 and have three hundred people impersonate these artists4 ,this will afford me a good review of my studies in art4 ,it may diminish the gate receipts of the picture-show for a few evenings1 but ,i suspect the world will be able to wag along4 ,then the next year ,i shall study poetry1 the next astronomy1 and the next botany4 ,thus ,i shall come to know the plants of earth1 the stars of heaven1 and the emotions of men4 ,that ought to ward off ennui and afford entertainment without the aid of the saloon4 ,in the succeeding twelve years ,i shall want to acquire as many languages1 for ,i am eager to excel ,elihu ,burritt in linguistic attainments even if ,i must yield to him as a disciple of ,vulcan4 ,if ,i can learn a language and read the literature of that language each year1 possibly some college may be willing to grant me a degree for work in absentia4 ,if not1 ,i shall poke along the best ,i can and try to drown my grief in more copious drafts of work4 ,and ,i shall have quite enough to do1 for mathematics1 the sciences1 and the arts and crafts all lie ahead of me in my programme4 ,i plainly see that ,i have played my last game of tiddledywinks and solitaire4 ,but ,i'll have fun anyhow4 ,if ,i gain a half-year in each twelve-month as ,i have my programme mapped out1 in seventy years ,i shall have a net gain of thirty-five years4 ,then1 when ,atropos comes along with her scissors to snip the thread1 thinking ,i have reached my threescore and ten1 ,i shall laugh in her face and let her know1 between laughs1 that ,i am really one hundred and five1 and have played a thirty-five-year joke on her4 ,then ,i shall quote ,bacon at her to clinch the joke3 ,a man may be young in years but old in hours if he have lost no time4 ,,chapter ,,xxx ,,four-,,leaf ,,clover ,i have no ambition to become either a cynic1 a pessimist1 or an iconoclast4 ,to aspire in either of these directions is bad for the digestion1 and good digestion is the foundation and source of much that is desirable in human affairs4 ,introspection has its uses1 to be sure1 but the stomach should have exemption as an objective4 ,a stomach is a valuable asset if only one is not conscious of it4 ,one of the emoluments of schoolmastering is the opportunity it affords for communing with elect souls whose very presence is a tonic4 ,will is one of these4 ,he has a way of shunting my introspection over to the track of the head or the heart4 ,he just talks along and the first thing ,i know the heart is singing its way through and above the storm1 while the head has been connected up to the heart1 and they are doing team-work that is good for me and good for all who meet me4 ,at church ,i like to have them sing the hymn whose closing couplet is3 ,i'll drop my burden at his feet ,and bear a song away4 ,i come out strong in singing that couplet1 for ,i like it4 ,in a human sense1 that is just what happens when ,i chat with ,will for an hour4 ,when ,i ask him for bread1 he never gives me a stone4 ,on the contrary1 he gives me good1 white bread1 and a bit of cake1 besides4 ,in one of our chats the other day he was dilating upon ,henry van ,dyke's four rules1 and very soon had banished all my little clouds and made my mental sky clear and bright4 ,when ,i get around to evolving a definition of education ,i think ,i shall say that it is the process of furnishing people with resources for profitable and pleasant conversation4 ,why1 those four rules just oozed into the talk1 without any sort of flutter or formality1 and made our chat both agreeable and fruitful4 ,henry ,ward ,beecher said many good things4 ,here is one that ,i caught in the school reader in my boyhood3 ,the man who carries a lantern on a dark night can have friends all about him1 walking safely by the help of its rays and he be not defrauded4 ,education is just such a lantern and this schoolmaster1 ,will1 knows how to carry it that it may afford light to the friends about him4 ,well1 the first of van ,dyke's rules is3 ,you shall learn to desire nothing in the world so much but that you can be happy without it4 ,i do wonder if he had been reading in ,proverbs3 ,better is a dinner of herbs where love is than a stalled ox and hatred therewith4 ,or he may have been reading the statement of ,st4 ,paul3 ,for ,i have learned1 in whatever state ,i am1 therewith to be content4 ,or1 possibly1 he may have been thinking of the lines of ,paul ,laurence ,dunbar1 ,sometimes the sun1 unkindly hot1 ,my garden makes a desert spot2 ,sometimes the blight upon the tree ,takes all my fruit away from me2 ,and then with throes of bitter pain ,rebellious passions rise and swell-- ,but life is more than fruit or grain1 ,and so ,i sing1 and all is well4 ,i am plebeian enough to be fond of milk and crackers as a luncheon2 but ,i have just a dash of the patrician in my make-up and prefer the milk unskimmed4 ,sometimes1 ,i find that the cream has been devoted to other1 if not higher1 uses and that my crackers must associate perforce with milk of cerulean hue4 ,such a situation is a severe test of character1 and ,i am hoping that at such junctures along life's highway ,i may find some support in the philosophy of ,mr4 van ,dyke4 ,i suspect that he is trying to make me understand that happiness is subjective rather than objective--that happiness depends not upon what we have1 but upon what we do with what we have4 ,i couldn't be an anarchist if ,i'd try4 ,i don't grudge the millionaire his turtle soup and caviar4 ,but ,i do feel a bit sorry for him that he does not know what a royal feast crackers and unskimmed milk afford4 ,if the king and the anarchist would but join me in such a feast ,i think the king would soon forget his crown and the anarchist his plots1 and we'd be just three good fellows together1 living at the very summit of life and wishing that all men could be as happy as we4 ,the next rule is a condensed moral code3 ,you shall seek that which you desire only by such means as are fair and lawful1 and this will leave you without bitterness toward men or shame before ,god4 ,no one could possibly dissent from this rule1 unless it might be a burglar4 ,i know the grocer makes a profit on the things ,i buy from him1 and ,i am glad he does4 ,otherwise1 he would have to close his grocery and that would inconvenience me greatly4 ,he thanks me when ,i pay him1 but ,i feel that ,i ought to thank him for supplying my needs1 for having his goods arranged so invitingly1 and for waiting upon me so promptly and so politely4 ,i can't really see how any customer can feel any bitterness toward him4 ,he gives full weight1 tells the exact truth as to the quality of the goods1 and in all things is fair and lawful4 ,i have no quarrel with him and cannot understand why others should1 unless they are less fair1 lawful1 and agreeable than the grocer himself4 ,i suspect that the grocer and the butcher take on the color of the glasses we happen to be wearing1 and that ,mr4 van ,dyke is admonishing us to wear clear glasses and to keep them clean4 ,the third rule needs to be read at least twice if not oftener3 ,you shall take pleasure in the time while you are seeking1 even though you obtain not immediately that which you seek2 for the purpose of a journey is not only to arrive at the goal1 but also to find enjoyment by the way4 ,i have seen people rushing along in automobiles at the mad rate of thirty or forty miles an hour1 missing altogether the million-dollar scenery along the way1 in their haste to get to the end of their journey1 where a five-cent bag of peanuts awaited them4 ,had ,i been riding in an automobile through the streets of ,tacoma ,i might not have seen that glorious cluster of five beautiful roses on a single branch in that attractive lawn4 ,because of them ,i always think of ,tacoma as the city of roses1 for ,i stopped to look at them4 ,i have quite forgotten the objective point of my stroll2 ,i recollect the roses4 ,when we were riding out from ,florence on a tram-car to see the ancient ,fiesole ,i plucked a branch from an olive-tree from the platform of the car4 ,on that branch were at least a dozen young olives1 the first ,i had ever seen4 ,i have but the haziest recollection of the old theatre and the subterranean passages where ,catiline and his crowd had their rendezvous2 but ,i do recall that olive branch most distinctly4 ,i cannot improve upon ,doctor van ,dyke's statement of the rule1 but ,i can interpret it in terms of my own experiences by way of verifying it4 ,i am sure he has it right4 ,the fourth rule is worthy of meditation and prayer2 ,when you attain that which you have desired1 you shall think more of the kindness of your fortune than of the greatness of your skill4 ,this will make you grateful and ready to share with others that which ,providence hath bestowed upon you2 and truly this is both reasonable and profitable1 for it is but little that any of us would catch in this world were not our luck better than our deserts4 ,i shall omit the lesson in arithmetic to-morrow and have1 instead1 a lesson in life and living1 using these four rules as the basis of our lesson4 ,my boys and girls are to have many years of life1 ,i hope1 and ,i'd like to help them to a right start if ,i can4 ,some of my many mistakes might have been avoided if my teachers had given me some lessons in the art of living1 for it is an art and must be learned4 ,these rules would have helped1 could ,i have known them4 ,i am glad to know that my pupils have faith in me4 ,when ,i pointed out a nettle to them one day1 they avoided it2 when ,i showed them a mushroom that is edible1 they accepted the statement without question4 ,so ,i'll see what ,i can do for them to-morrow with these four rules4 ,then1 if we have time1 we shall learn the lines of ,mrs4 ,higginson3 ,i know a place where the sun is like gold1 ,and the cherry blooms burst with snow1 ,and down underneath is the loveliest nook1 ,where the four-leaf clovers grow4 ,one leaf is for hope1 and one is for faith1 ,and one is for love1 you know1 ,and ,god put another in for luck-- ,if you search1 you will find where they grow4 ,but you must have hope1 and you must have faith1 ,you must love and be strong--and so1 ,if you work1 if you wait1 you will find the place ,where the four-leaf clovers grow4 ,,chapter ,,xxxi ,,mountain-,,climbing ,mountain-climbing is rare sport4 ,and it is sport if only one has the courage to do it4 ,we had gone to the top of ,vesuvius on the funicular railway2 but one man decided to make the climb4 ,we forgot the volcano in our admiration of the climber4 ,foot by foot he made his way zigzagging this way and that1 slipping1 falling1 and struggling till at last he reached the summit4 ,then1 fifty throats poured forth a lusty cheer to do him honor4 ,he was not good to look at1 for his clothing was crumpled and soiled1 the veins stood out on his neck1 his hair was tousled1 his face was red and streaming with sweat2 yet1 for all that1 we cheered him and meant it1 too4 ,he acknowledged our applause in an honest1 simple way1 and then disappeared in the crowd4 ,he was not posing as a heroic figure1 but was just an honest mountain-climber who accepted the challenge of the mountain and won4 ,in our cheering we did just what the world does3 we gave the laurel wreath to the man who wins in a test of courage4 ,i think ,excelsior is pretty good stuff in the way of depicting mountain-climbing1 and ,i always want to cheer that young chap as he fights his way toward the top4 ,he could have stopped down there in the valley1 where everything was snug and comfortable1 but he chose to climb so as to have a look around4 ,i thought of him one day at ,scheidegg4 ,there we were1 nearly a mile and a half above sea-level1 shivering in the midst of ice and snow in mid-,july1 but we had a look around that made us glad in spite of the cold4 ,as ,virgil says3 ,it will be pleasing to remember these things hereafter4 ,i have often noticed that the old soldiers seem to recall the hardest marches1 the most severe battles1 and the greatest privations more vividly than their every-day experiences4 ,so the mountain-climbing that ,i have been doing with my boys and girls stands out like a cameo in my retrospective view4 ,sometimes we looked back toward the valley1 and it seemed so peaceful and beautiful that it caused the mountain before us to seem ominous4 ,at such times1 when courage seemed to be oozing1 we needed to reinforce one another with words of cheer4 ,the steep places seemed perilously rough at times1 and ,i could hear a stifled sob somewhere in my little company4 ,at such times ,i would urge myself along at a more rapid pace1 that ,i might reach a higher level and call out to them in heartening tones to hurry on up to our resting-place4 ,we would often sing a bit in the midst of our resting1 and when the sob had been changed to a laugh ,i felt that life was well worth while4 ,as we toiled upward ,i was ever on the lookout for a patch of sunlight in the midst of the shadows that it might lure them on4 ,and it never failed4 ,like magic that sun-spot always quickened their pace1 and they often hailed it with a shout4 ,they would even race toward that sunny place1 their weariness all gone4 ,when a bird sang we always stopped to listen2 and the song acted upon them as the music of a band acts upon drooping soldiers4 ,on the next stage of the journey their eyes sparkled1 and their step was more elastic4 ,when one stumbled and fell1 we helped him to his feet and praised his effort1 wholly ignoring the fall4 ,sometimes one would become discouraged and would want to drop out of the company and return home4 ,when this happened1 we would gather about him and tell him how good it was to have him with us1 how he helped us on1 and how sorry we should be to have him absent when we reached the top4 ,when he decided to keep on with us1 we gave a mighty cheer and then went whistling on our upward way4 ,we constantly vied with one another in discovering chaste bits of scenery along the way1 and we were ever too generous to withhold praise or to appropriate to ourselves the credit that belonged to another4 ,if one found the nest of a bird hidden away in the foliage1 we all stopped in admiration4 ,when another discovered a spring gushing out from beneath the rocks1 we all refreshed ourselves with the limpid water and poured out our thanks to the discoverer4 ,when a rare flower was found1 we took time to examine it minutely till we all felt joy in the flower and in the finder4 ,to us nothing was ever small or negligible that any one of our company discovered4 ,if one started a song we all joined in heartily as if we had been waiting for that one to lead us in the singing4 ,thus each one1 according to his gifts and inclinations1 became a leader on one or another of the enterprises connected with our journey4 ,so1 in time1 it seemed to us that the big tree came to meet us in order to give its kindly shade for our comfort2 that the bird poured forth its song as a special gift to us to give us new courage2 that the flower met us at the right time and place to smile its beauty into our lives2 that each stream laughed its way to our feet to quench our thirst1 and to share with us its coolness2 that the mossy bank gave us a special invitation to enjoy its hospitality2 that the cloud had heard our wishes and came to shield us from the sun1 and that the path came forth from among the thickets to guide us on our way4 ,because we were winning1 all nature seemed to be cheering us on as the people cheered the man at ,vesuvius4 ,having reached the summit1 we sat together in eloquent silence4 ,we had toiled1 and struggled1 and suffered together1 and so had learned to think and feel in unison4 ,our spirits had become fused in a common purpose1 and we could sit in silence and not be abashed4 ,we had become honest with our surroundings1 honest with one another1 and honest with ourselves1 and so could smile at mere conventions and find joy in one another without words4 ,we had encountered honest difficulties--rocks1 trees1 streams1 sloughs1 tangles1 sand1 and sun1 and had overcome them by honest effort and so had achieved honesty4 ,we had met and overcome big things1 too1 and in doing so had grown big4 ,no longer did our hearts flutter in the presence of little things1 for we had won poise and serenity4 ,the fogs had been banished from our minds2 our sight had become clear2 our spirits had been enlarged2 our courage had been made strong1 and our faith was lifted up4 ,a new horizon opened up before us that stretched on and on and made us know that life is a big thing4 ,the sky became our companion with all its myriad stars2 the sea became our neighbor with all the life it holds1 and the landscape became our dooryard1 with all its varied beauty and grandeur4 ,the ships upon the sea and the trains upon the land became our messengers of service4 ,the wires and the air sped our thoughts abroad and linked us to the world4 ,we looked straight into the faces of the big elemental things of life and were not afraid4 ,when we came back among our own people1 they seemed to know that some change had taken place and loved us all the more4 ,they came to us for counsel and comfort1 paying silent tribute to the wisdom that had come to us from the mountain4 ,they looked upon us not as superiors1 but as larger equals4 ,we had learned another language1 but had not forgotten theirs4 ,we nestled down in their affections and told them of our mountain1 and they were glad4 99 99 99 99 99 ,and now ,i sit before the fire and watch the pictures in the flickering flames4 ,in my reverie ,i see my boys and girls1 companions in the mountain-climbing1 going upon their appointed ways4 ,i see them healing and comforting the sick1 relieving distress1 ministering to the needy1 and supplanting darkness with light4 ,i see them in their efforts to make the world better and more beautiful1 and life more blessed4 ,i see them bringing hope and courage and cheer into many lives4 ,they are bringing the spirit of the mountain down into the valley1 and men rejoice4 ,seeing them thus engaged1 and hearing them singing as they go1 ,i can but smile and smile4