The first school that I ever tried to teach was, indeed, fearfully and wonderfully taught. The teaching was of the sort that might well be called elemental. If there was any pedagogy connected with the work, it was purely accidental. I was not conscious either of its presence or its absence, and so deserve neither praise nor censure. I had one pupil who was nine years my senior, and I did not even know that he was retarded. I recall quite distinctly that he had a luxuriant crop of chin-whiskers but even these did not disturb the procedure of that school. We accepted him as he was, whiskers included, and went on our complacent way. He was blind in one eye and somewhat deaf, but no one ever thought of him as abnormal or subnormal. Even if we had known these words we should have been too polite to apply them to him. In fact, we had no black-list, of any sort, in that school. I have never been able to determine whether the absence of such a list was due to ignorance, or innocence, or both. So long as he found the school an agreeable place in which to spend the winter, and did not interfere with the work of others, I could see no good reason why he should not be there and get what he could from the lessons in spelling, geography, and arithmetic. I do not mention grammar for that was quite beyond him. The agreement of subject and verb was one of life's great mysteries to him. So I permitted him to browse around in such pastures as seemed finite to him, and let the infinite grammar go by default so far as he was concerned.
I have but the most meagre acquaintance with the pedagogical dicta of the books—a mere bowing acquaintance—but, at that time, I had not even been introduced to any of these. But, as the saying goes, "The Lord takes care of fools and children," and, so, somehow, by sheer blind luck, I instinctively veered away from the Procrustean bed idea, and found some work for my bewhiskered disciple that connected with his native dispositions. Had any one told me I was doing any such things I think I should, probably, have asked him how to spell the words he was using. I only knew that this man-child was there yearning for knowledge, and I was glad to share my meagre store of crumbs with him. His gratitude for my small gifts was really pathetic, and right there I learned the joys of the teacher. That man sought me out on our way home from school and asked questions that would have puzzled Socrates, but forgot my ignorance of hard questions in his joy at my answers of easy ones. When some light would break in upon him he cavorted about me like a glad dog, and became a second Columbus, discovering a new world.
I almost lose patience with myself, at times, when I catch myself preening my feathers before some pedagogical mirror, as if I were getting ready to appear in public as an accredited schoolmaster. At such a time, I long to go back to the country road and saunter along beside some pupil, either with or without whiskers, and give him of my little store without rules or frills and with no pomp or parade. 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 test, or give us a rating either as individuals or as a school. We were too busy and happy for that. We kept right on at our work with our doors and our hearts wide open for every good thing that came our way, whether knowledge or people. As I have said, our work was elemental.
I am glad I came across this little book of William James, "On Some of Life's Ideals," for it takes me back, inferentially, to that elemental school, especially in this paragraph which says: "Life is always worth living, if one have such responsive sensibilities. But we of the highly educated classes (so-called) have most of us got far, far away from Nature. We are trained to seek the choice, the rare, the exquisite exclusively and to overlook the common. We are stuffed with abstract conceptions, and glib with verbalities and verbosities; and in the culture of these higher functions the peculiar sources of joy connected with our simpler functions often dry up, and we grow stone-blind and insensible to life's more elementary and general goods and joys."
I wish I might go home from school one evening by way of the top of Mt. Vesuvius, another by way of Mt. Rigi, and, another, by way of Lauterbrunnen. Then the next evening I should like to spend an hour or two along the borders of Yellowstone Canyon, and the next, watch an eruption or two of Old Faithful geyser. Then, on still another evening, I'd like to ride for two hours on top of a bus in London. I'd like to have these experiences as an antidote for emptiness. It would prepare me far better for to-morrow work than pondering Johnny's defections, or his grades, whether high or low, or marking silly papers with marks that are still sillier. I like Walt Whitman because he was such a sublime loafer. His loafing gave him time to grow big inside, and so, he had big elemental thoughts that were good for him and good for me when I think them over after him.
If I should ever get a position in a normal school I'd want to give a course in William J. Locke's "The Beloved Vagabond," so as to give the young folks a conception of big elemental teaching. If I were giving a course in ethics, I'd probably select another book, but, in pedagogy, I'd certainly include that one. I'd lose some students, to be sure, for some of them would be shocked; 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 sake. If we could only lose the consciousness of the fact that we are schoolmasters for a few hours each day, it would be a great help to us and to our boys and girls.
I am quite partial to the "Madonna of the Chair," and wish I might visit the Pitti Gallery frequently just to gaze at her. She is so wholesome and gives one the feeling that a big soul looks out through her eyes. She would be a superb teacher. She would fill the school with her presence and still do it all unconsciously. The centre of the room would be where she happened to be. She would never be mistaken for one of the pupils. Her pupils would learn arithmetic but the arithmetic would be laden with her big spirit, and that would be better for them than the arithmetic could possibly be. If I had to be a woman I'd want to be such as this Madonna—serene, majestic, and big-souled.
I have often wondered whether bigness of soul can be cultivated, and my optimism inclines to a vote in the affirmative. I spent a part of one summer in the pine woods far away from the haunts of men. When I had to leave this sylvan retreat it required eleven hours by stage to reach the railway-station. There for some weeks I lived in a log cabin, accompanied by a cook and a professional woodsman. I was not there to camp, to fish, or to loaf, and yet I did all these. There were some duties and work connected with the enterprise and these gave zest to the fishing and the loafing. Giant trees, space, and sky were my most intimate associates, and they told me only of big things. They had never a word to say of styles of clothing or becoming shades of neckwear or hosiery. In all that time I was never disturbed by the number and diversity of spoons and forks beside my plate at the dinner-table. Many a noble meal I ate as I sat upon a log supported in forked stakes, and many a big thought did I glean from the talk of loggers about me in their picturesque costumes. In the evening I sat upon a great log in front of the cabin or a friendly stump, and forgot such things as hammocks and porch-swings. Instead of gazing at street-lamps only a few yards away I was gazing at stars millions of miles away, and, somehow, the soul seemed to gain freedom.
And I had luxury, too. I had a room with bath. The bath was at the stream some fifty yards away, but such discrepancies are minor affairs in the midst of such big elemental things as were all about me. My mattress was of young cherry shoots, and never did king have a more royal bed, or ever such refreshing sleep. And, while I slept, I grew inside, for the soft music of the pines lulled me to rest, and the subdued rippling of my bath-stream seemed to wash my soul clean. When I arose I had no bad taste in my mouth or in my soul, and each morning had for me the glory of a resurrection. My trees were there to bid me good morning, the big spaces spoke to me in their own inspiriting language, and the big sun, playing hide-and-seek among the great boles of the trees as he mounted from the horizon, gave me a panorama unrivalled among the scenes of earth.
When I returned to what men called civilization, I experienced a poignant longing for my big trees, my sky, and my spaces, and felt that I had exchanged them for many things that are petty and futile. If my school were only out in the heart of that big forest, 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 technicalities, but that the soul would be free to revel in the truth that sky and space proclaim. I do hope I may never know so much about technical pedagogy that I shall not know anything else. This may be what those people mean who speak of the "revolt of the ego."
I am just now quite in the mood to join the band; I mean the vocational-education band. The excitement has carried me off my feet. I can't endure the looks of suspicion or pity that I see on the faces of my colleagues. They stare at me as if I were wearing a tie or a hat or a coat that is a bit below standard. I want to seem, if not be, modern and up-to-date, and not odd and peculiar. So I shall join the band. I am not caring much whether I beat the drum, carry the flag, or lead the trick-bear. 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 rush. In times past, when these vocational folks have piped unto me I have not danced; but I now see the error of my ways and shall proceed at once to take dancing lessons. When these folks lead in the millennium I want to be sitting well up in front; and when they get the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow I want to participate in the distribution. I do hope, though, that I may not exhaust my resources on the band and have none left for the boys and girls. I hope I may not imitate Mark Twain's steamboat that stopped dead still when the whistle blew, because blowing the whistle required all the steam.
I suspect that, like the Irishman, I shall have to wear my new boots awhile before I can get them on, for this new role is certain to entail many changes in my plans and in my ways of doing things. I can see that it will be a wrench for me to think of the boys and girls as pedagogical specimens and not persons. I have contracted the habit of thinking of them as persons, and it will not be easy to come to thinking of them as mere objects to practise on. The folks in the hospital speak of their patients as "cases," but I'd rather keep aloof from the hospital plan in my schoolmastering. But, being a member of the band, 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 panacea, the balm in Gilead.
As a member of the band, in good and regular standing, I shall find myself saying that the school should have the boys and girls pursue such studies as will fit them for their life-work. This has a pleasing sound. Now, if I can only find out, somehow, what the life-work of each one of my pupils is to be, I'll be all right, and shall proceed to fit each one out with his belongings. I have asked them to tell me what their life-work is to be, but they tell me they do not know. So I suspect that I must visit all their parents in order to get this information. Until I get this information I cannot begin on my course of study. If their parents cannot tell me I hardly know what I shall do, unless I have recourse to their maiden aunts. They ought to know. But if they decline to tell I must begin on a long series of guesses, unless, in the meantime, I am endowed with omniscience.
This whole plan fascinates me; I dote upon it. It is so pliable, so dreamy, and so opalescent that I can scarce restrain my enthusiasm. But if I should fit one of my boys out with the equipment necessary for a blacksmith, and then he should become a preacher, I'd find the situation embarrassing. My reputation as a prophet would certainly decline. If I could know that this boy is looking forward to the ministry as his life-work, the matter would be simple. I'd proceed to fit him out with a fire-proof suit of Greek, Hebrew, and theology and have the thing done. But even then some of my colleagues might protest on the assumption that Greek and Hebrew are not vocational studies. The preacher might assert that they are vocational for his work, in which case I'd find myself in the midst of an argument. I know a young man who is a student in a college of medicine. He is paying his way by means of his music. He both plays and sings, and can thus pay his bills. In the college he studies chemistry, anatomy, and the like. I'm trying to figure out whether or not, in his case, either his music or his chemistry is vocational.
I have been perusing the city directory to find out how many and what vocations there are, that I may plan my course of study accordingly when I discover what the life-work of each of my pupils is to be. If I find that one boy expects to be an undertaker he ought to take the dead languages, of course. If another boy expects to be a jockey he might take these same languages with the aid of a "pony." If a girl decides upon marriage as her vocation, I'll have her take home economics, of course, but shall have difficulty in deciding upon her other studies. If I omit Latin, history, and algebra, she may reproach me later on because of these omissions. She may find that such studies as these are essential to success in the vocation of wife and mother. She may have a boy of her own who will invoke her aid in his quest for the value of x, and a mother hesitates to enter a plea of ignorance to her own child.
I can fit out the dancing-master easily enough, but am not so certain about the barber, the chauffeur, and the aviator. The aviator would give me no end of trouble, especially if I should deem it necessary to teach him by the laboratory method. Then, again, if one boy decides to become a pharmacist, I may find it necessary to attend night classes in this subject myself in order to meet the situation with a fair degree of complacency. Nor do I see my way clear in providing for the steeple-climber, the equilibrist, the railroad president, or the tea-taster. I'll probably have my troubles, too, with the novel-writer, the poet, the politician, and the bareback rider. But I must manage somehow if I hope to retain my membership in the band.
I see that I shall have to serve quite an apprenticeship in the band before I write my treatise on the subject of pedagogical predestination. The world needs that essay, and I must get around to it just as soon as possible. Of course, that will be a great step beyond the present plan of finding out what a boy expects to do, and then teaching him accordingly. My predestination plan contemplates the process of arranging such a course of study for him as will make him what we want him to be. 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 stuff. He failed to tell me just what this queen stuff is. That process of producing a queen bee is what gave me the notion as to my treatise. If the parents want their boy to become a lawyer I shall feed him lawyer stuff; if a preacher, then preacher stuff, and so on.
This will necessitate a deal of research work, for I shall have to go back into history, first of all, to find out the course of study that produced Newton, Humboldt, Darwin, Shakespeare, Dante, Edison, Clara Barton, and the rest of them. If a roast-beef diet is responsible for Shakespeare, surely we ought to produce another Shakespeare, considering the excellence of the cattle we raise. 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 London. Of course, this plan of mine seems not to take into account the Lord's work to any large extent. But that seems to be the way of us vocationalists. We seem to think we can do certain things in spite of what the Lord has or has not done.
The one danger that I foresee in all this work that I have planned is that it may produce overstimulation. Some one was telling me that the trees on the Embankment there in London are dying of arboreal insomnia. The light of the sun keeps them awake all day, and the electric lights keep them awake all night. So the poor things are dying from lack of sleep. Macbeth had some trouble of that sort, too, as I recall it. I'm going to hold on to the vocational stimulation unless I find it is producing pedagogical insomnia. Then I'll resign from the band and take a long nap. I'll continue to advocate pudding, pastry, and pie until I find that they are not producing the sort of men and women the world needs, and then I'll beat an inglorious retreat and again espouse the cause of orthodox beefsteak.
I have often wondered what conjunction of the stars caused me to become a schoolmaster, if, indeed, the stars, lucky or otherwise, had anything to do with it. It may have been the salary that lured me, for thirty-five dollars a month bulks large on a boy's horizon. Possibly the fact that in those days there was no anteroom to the teaching business may have been the deciding factor. One had but to exchange his hickory shirt for a white one, and the trick was done. There was not even a fence between the corn-field and the schoolhouse. I might just as easily have been a preacher but for the barrier in the shape of a theological seminary, or a hod-carrier but for the barrier of learning how. As it was, I could draw my pay for husking corn on Saturday night, and begin accumulating salary as a schoolmaster on Monday. The plan was simplicity itself, and that may account for my choice of a vocation.
I have sometimes tried to imagine myself a preacher, but with poor success. The sermon would bother me no little, to make no mention of the other functions. I think I never could get through with a marriage ceremony, and at a christening I'd be on nettles all the while, fearing the baby would cry and thus disturb the solemnity of the occasion and of the preacher. I'd want to take the baby into my own arms and have a romp with him—and so would forget about the baptizing. In casting about for a possible text for this impossible preacher, I have found only one that I think I might do something with. Hence, my preaching would endure but a single week, and even at that we'd have to have a song service on Sunday evening in lieu of a sermon.
My one text would be: "Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free." I do not know how big truth is, but it must be quite extensive if science, mathematics, history, and literature are but small parts of it. I have never explored these parts very far inland, but they seem to my limited gaze to extend a long distance before me; 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 affair. I suspect the text means that the more of this truth we know the greater freedom we have. My friend Brown has an automobile, and sometimes he takes me out riding. On one of these occasions we had a puncture, with the usual attendant circumstances. While Brown made the needful repairs, I sat upon the grassy bank. The passers-by probably regarded me as a lazy chap who disdained work of all sorts, and perhaps thought of me as enjoying myself while Brown did the work. In this they were grossly mistaken, for Brown was having the good time, while I was bored and uncomfortable. Why, Brown actually whistled as he repaired that puncture. He had freedom because he knew which tool to use, where to find it, and how to use it. But there I sat in ignorance and thraldom—not knowing the truth about the tools or the processes.
In the presence of that episode I felt like one in a foreign country who is ignorant of the language, while Brown was the concierge who understands many languages. He knew the truth and so had freedom. 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 truth. It must be a very trying experience not to understand the language that is spoken all about one. 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 labels. I have no freedom because I do not know the truth. The dapper clerk who takes down one bottle after another with refreshing freedom relegates me to the kindergarten, and I certainly feel and act the part.
I had this same feeling, too, when I was making ready to sow my little field with alfalfa. I wanted to have alfalfa growing in the field next to the road for my own pleasure and for the pleasure of the passers-by. A field of alfalfa is an ornament to any landscape, and I like to have my landscapes ornamental, even if I must pay for it in terms of manual toil. I had never even seen alfalfa seed and did not in the least know how to proceed in preparing the soil. If I ever expected to have any freedom I must first learn the truth, and a certain modicum of freedom necessarily precedes the joy of alfalfa.
Thus it came to pass that I set about learning the truth. I had to learn about the nature of the soil, about drainage, about the right kinds of fertilizer, and all that, before I could even hitch the team to a plough. Some of this truth I gleaned from books and magazines, but more of it I obtained from my neighbor John, who lives about two hundred yards up the pike from my little place. John is a veritable encyclopedia of truth when it comes to the subject of alfalfa. There I would sit at the feet of this alfalfa Gamaliel. 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 eye. And I now feel qualified to give lessons in alfalfa culture to all and sundry, so great is my sense of freedom.
I came upon a forlorn-looking woman once in a large railway-station who was in great distress. She wanted to get a train, but did not know through which gate to go nor where to obtain the necessary information. She was overburdened with luggage and a little girl was tugging at her dress and crying pitifully. That woman was as really in bondage as if she had been in prison looking out through the barred windows. When she had finally been piloted to the train the joy of freedom manifested itself in every lineament of her face. She had come to know the truth, and the truth had set her free.
I know how she felt, for one night I worked for more than two hours on what, to me, was a difficult problem, and when at last I had it solved the manifestations of joy caused consternation to the family and damage to the furniture. I never was in jail for any length of time, but I think I know, from my experience with that problem, just how a prisoner feels when he is set free. The big out-of-doors must seem inexpressibly good to him. My neighbor John taught me how to spray my trees, and now, when I walk through my orchard and see the smooth trunks and pick the beautiful, smooth, perfect apples, I feel that sense of freedom that can come only through a knowledge of the truth.
I haven't looked up the etymology ofgrippe, but the word itself seems to tell its own story. It seems to mean restriction, subjection, slavery. It certainly spells lack of freedom. I have seen many boys and girls who seemed afflicted with arithmetical, grammatical, and geographical grippe, and I have sought to free them from its tyranny and lead them forth into the sunlight and pure air of freedom. If I only knew just how to do this effectively I think I'd be quite reconciled to the work of a schoolmaster.
I keep resolving and resolving to reform and lead the simple life, but something always happens that prevents the execution of my plans. When I am grubbing out willows along the ravine, the grubbing-hoe, a lunch-basket well filled, 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 contentment. There is a friendly maple-tree near the scene of the grubbing activities, and an hour at noon beneath that tree with free access to the basket and the jug seems to meet the utmost demands of life. The grass is luxuriant, the shade is all-embracing, and the willows can wait. So, what additions can possibly be needed? I lie there in the shade, my hunger and thirst abundantly satisfied, and contemplate the results of my forenoon's toil with the very acme of satisfaction. There is now a large, clear space where this morning there was a jungle of willows. The willows have been grubbed outimis sedibus, as our friend Virgil would say it, and not merely chopped off; and the thoroughness of the work gives emphasis to the satisfaction.
The overalls, the heavy shoes, and the sunshade hat all belong in the picture. But the entire wardrobe costs less than the hat I wear on Sunday. Then the comfort of these inexpensive habiliments! I need not be fastidious in such a garb, but can loll on the grass without compunction. When I get mud upon my big shoes I simply scrape it off with a chip, and that's all there is to it. The dirt on my overalls is honest dirt, and honestly come by, and so needs no apology. I can talk to my neighbor John of the big things of life and feel no shame because of overalls.
Then, in the evening, when resting from my toil, I sit out under the leafy canopy and revel in the sounds that can be heard only in the country—the croaking of the frogs, the soft twittering of the birds somewhere near, yet out of sight, the cosey crooning of the chickens as they settle upon their perches for the night, and the lonely hooting of the owl somewhere in the big tree down in the pasture. 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 listening. Under the magic of such music the body relaxes and the soul expands. The soft breezes caress the brow, and the moon makes shimmering patterns on the grass.
But when I return to the town to resume my school-mastering, then the strain begins, and then the reign of complexities is renewed. When I am fully garbed in my town clothing I find myself the possessor of nineteen pockets. What they are all for is more than I can make out. If I had them all in use I'd have to have a detective along with me to help me find things. Out there on the farm two pockets quite suffice, but in the town I must have seventeen more. The difference between town and country seems to be about the difference between grubbing willows and schoolmastering. Among the willows I find two pockets are all I require; but among the children I must needs have nineteen, whether I have anything in them or not.
One of these seems to be designed for a college degree; another is an efficiency pocket; another a discipline pocket; another a pocket for methods; another for professional spirit; another for loyalty to all the folks who are in need of loyalty, and so on. I really do not know all the labels. When I was examined for a license to teach they counted my pockets, and, finding I had the requisite nineteen, they bestowed upon me the coveted document with something approachingeclat. In my teaching I become so bewildered ransacking these pockets, trying to find something that will bear some resemblance to the label, that I come near forgetting the boys and girls. But they are very nice and polite about it, and seem to feel sorry that I must look after all my pockets when I'd so much rather be teaching.
Out in the willow thicket I can go right on with my work without so much care or perplexity. Why, I don't need to do any talking out there, and so have time to do some thinking. But here I do so much talking that neither I nor my pupils have any chance for thinking. I know it is not the right way, but, somehow, I keep on doing it. I think it must be a bad habit, but I don't do it when I am grubbing willows. I seem to get to the bottom of things out there without talking, and I can't make out why I don't do the same here in the school. Out there I do things; in here I say things. I do wonder if there is any forgiveness for a schoolmaster who uses so many words and gets such meagre results.
And then the words I use here are such ponderous things. They are not the sort of human, flesh-and-blood words that I use when talking to neighbor John as we sit on top of the rail fence. These all seem so like words in a book, as if I had rehearsed them in advance. It may be just the town atmosphere, but, whatever it is, 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 John. He seems to understand me, and I think they could.
Possibly it is just the tension of town life. I know that I seem to get keyed up as soon as I come into the town. There are so many things here, and many of them are so artificial that I seem unable to relax as I do out there where there are just frogs, and moon, and chickens, and cows. When I am here I seem to have a sort of craze for things. The shop-windows are full of things, and I seem to want all of them. I know I have no use for them, and yet I get them. My neighbor Brown bought a percolator, and within a week I had one. I had gone on for years without a percolator, not even knowing about such a thing, but no sooner had Brown bought one than every sound I heard seemed to be inquiring: "What is home without a percolator?"
So I go on accumulating things, and my den is a veritable medley of things. They don't make me any happier, and they are a great bother. There are fifty-seven things right here in my den, and I don't need more than six or seven of them. There are twenty-two pictures, large and small, in this room, but I couldn't have named five of them had I not just counted them. Why I have them is beyond my comprehension. I inveigh against the mania of people for drugs and narcotics, but my mania for things only differs in kind from theirs. I have a little book called "Things of the Mind," and I like to read it. Now, if my mind only had as many things in it as my den, I'd be a far more agreeable associate for Brown and my neighbor John. Or, if I were as careful about getting things for my mind as I am in accumulating useless bric-a-brac, it would be far more to my credit.
If the germs that are lurking in and about these fifty-seven things should suddenly become as large as spiders, I'd certainly be the unhappy possessor of a flourishing menagerie, and I think my progress toward the simple life would be very promptly hastened.
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 way, or even the best way. I think I learn more from my boys and girls than they learn from me, and so long as I can keep an open mind I am certain to get some valuable lessons from them. I got to telling the college chap about a hen that taught me a good lesson, and the first thing I knew I was going to school to this college youth, and he was enlightening me on the subject of animal psychology, and especially upon the trial-and-error theory. That set me wondering how many trials and errors that hen made before she finally succeeded in surmounting that fence. At any rate, the hen taught me another lesson besides the lesson of perseverance.
I have a high wire fence enclosing the chicken-yard, and in order to make steady the posts to which the gate is attached, I joined them at the top by nailing a board across. The hen that taught me the lesson must be both ambitious and athletic, for time after time have I found her outside the chicken-yard. I searched diligently for the place of exit, but could not find it. So, in desperation, I determined one morning to discover how that hen gained her freedom if it took all day. So I found a comfortable seat and waited. In an hour or so the hen came out into the open and took a survey of the situation. Then, presently, with skill born of experience, she sidled this way and that, advanced a little and then retreated until she found the exact location she sought, poised herself for a moment, and went sailing right over the board that connected the posts. Having made this discovery, I removed the board and used wire instead, and thus reduced the hen to the plane of obedience.
Just as soon as the hen lacked something to aim at, she could not get over the wire barrier, and she taught me the importance of giving my pupils something to aim at. I like my boys and girls, and believe they are just as smart as any hen that ever was, and that, if I'll only supply things for them to aim at, they will go high and far. Every time I see that hen I am the subject of diverse emotions. I feel half angry at myself for being so dull that a mere hen can teach me, and then I feel glad that she taught me such a useful lesson. Before learning this lesson I seemed to expect my pupils to take all their school work on faith, to do it because I told them it would be good for them. But I now see there is a better way. In my boyhood days we always went to the county fair, and that was one of the real events of the year. On the morning of that day there was no occasion for any one to call me a second time. I was out of bed in a trice, at the first call, and soon had my chores done ready for the start. I had money in my pocket, too, for visions of pink lemonade, peanuts, ice-cream, candy, and colored balloons had lured me on from achievement to achievement through the preceding weeks, and thrift had claimed me for its own. So I had money because, all the while, I had been aiming at the county fair.
We used to lay out corn ground with a single-shovel plough, and took great pride in marking out a straight furrow across the field. There was one man in the neighborhood who was the champion in this art, and I wondered how he could do it. So I set about watching him to try to learn his art. At either end of the field he had a stake several feet high, bedecked at the top with a white rag. This he planted at the proper distance from the preceding furrow and, in going across the field, kept his gaze fixed upon the white rag that topped the stake. With a firm grip upon the plough, and his eyes riveted upon the white signal, he moved across the field in a perfectly straight line. 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 course. My furrows were crooked and zigzag, while his were straight. I now see that his skill came from his having something to aim at.
I am trying to profit by the example of that farmer in my teaching. 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 course, and raise their eyes away from the plough that they happen to be using. I want to keep them thinking of things that are bigger and further along than grades. The grades will come as a matter of course, if they can keep their eyes on the object across the field. I want them to be too big to work for mere grades. We never give prizes in our school, especially money prizes. 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 Speech." We respect ourselves and Lincoln too much for that. 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 neighbor. I want her to have her pay in a better and more enduring medium than that. I'd hope she would aim at something higher than that.
If I can arrange the white rag, I know the pupils will do the work. There was Jim, for example, who said to his father that he just couldn't do his arithmetic, and wished he'd never have to go to school another day. When his father told me about it I began at once to hunt for a white rag. And I found it, too. We can generally find what we are looking for, if we look in dead earnest. Well, the next morning there was Jim in the arithmetic class along with Tom and Charley. I explained the absence of Harry by telling them about his falling on the ice the night before and breaking his right arm. I told them how he could get on well enough with his other studies, but would have trouble with his arithmetic because he couldn't use his arm. Now, Tom and Charley are quick in arithmetic, and I asked Tom to go over to Harry's after school and help with the arithmetic, and Charley to go over the next day, and Jim the third day. Now, anybody can see that white rag fluttering at the top of the stake across the field two days ahead. So, my work was done, and I went on with my daily duties. Tom reported the next day, and his report made our mouths water as he told of the good things that Harry's mother had set out for them to eat. The report of Charley the next day was equally alluring. Then Jim reported, and on his day that good mother had evidently reached the climax in culinary affairs. Jim's eyes and face shone as if he had been communing with the supernals.
That was the last I ever heard of Jim's trouble with arithmetic. His father was eager to know how the change had been brought about, and I explained on the score of the angel-food cake and ice-cream he had had over at Harry's, with no slight mention of my glorious white rag. The books, I believe, call this social co-operation, or something like that, but I care little what they call it so long as Jim's all right. And he is all right. Why, there isn't money enough in the bank to have brought that look to Jim's face when he reported that morning, and any offer to pay him for his help to Harry, either in money or school credits, would have seemed an insult. My neighbor John tells me many things about sheep and the way to drive them. 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 along. He says those two will join the others, all in good time. That helped me with those three boys. I knew that Tom and Charley would go along all right, so asked them to go over to Harry's before I mentioned the matter to Jim. When I did ask him he came leaping and frisking into the flock as if he were afraid we might overlook him. What a beautiful straight furrow he ploughed, too. His arithmetic work now must make the angels smile. I shall certainly mention sheep, the hen, and the white rag in my book on farm pedagogy.
I take unction to myself, sometimes, in the reflection that I have a soul to save, and in certain moments of uplift it seems to me to be worth saving. Some folks probably call me a sinner, if not a dreadful sinner, and I admit the fact without controversy. I do not have at hand a list of the cardinal sins, but I suspect I might prove an alibi as to some of them. I don't get drunk; I don't swear; I go to church; and I contribute, mildly, to charity. But, for all that, I'm free to confess myself a sinner. Yet, I still don't know what sin is, or what is the way of salvation either for myself or for my pupils. I grope around all the while trying to find this way. At times, I think they may find salvation while they are finding the value ofxin an algebraic equation, and possibly this is true. I cannot tell. If they fail to find the value ofx, I fall to wondering whether they have sinned or the teacher that they cannot findx.
I have attended revivals in my time, and have had good from them. In their pure and rarefied atmosphere I find myself in a state of exaltation. But I find myself in need of a continuous revival to keep me at my best. So, in my school work, I feel that I must be a revivalist or my pupils will sag back, just as I do. I find that the revival of yesterday will not suffice for to-day. Like the folks of old, I must gather a fresh supply of manna each day. Stale manna is not wholesome. I suspect that one of my many sins is my laziness in the matter of manna. I found the value ofxin the problem yesterday, and so am inclined to rest to-day and celebrate the victory. If I had to classify myself, I'd say that I am an intermittent. I eat manna one day, and then want to fast for a day or so. I suspect that's what folks mean by a besetting sin.
During my fasting I find myself talking almost fluently about my skill and industry as a gatherer of manna, I suspect I am trying to make myself believe that I'm working in the manna field to-day, by keeping my mind on my achievement yesterday. That's another sin to my discredit, and another occasion for a revival. When I am fasting I do the most talking about how busy I am. If I were harvesting manna I'd not have time for so much talk. I should not need to tell how busy I am, for folks could see for themselves. 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 neighbors. I fell to talking about this the other day to my neighbor John, 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 industry. Well, I changed the subject. That smile on John's face made me think of revivals.
I read Henderson's novel, "John Percyfield," and enjoyed it so much that when I came upon his other book, "Education and the Larger Life," I bought and read it. But it has given me much discomfort. In that book he says that it is immoral for any one to do less than his best. I can scarcely think of that statement without feeling that I ought to be sent to jail. I'm actually burdened with immorality, and find myself all the while between the "devil and the deep sea," the "devil" of work, and the "deep sea" of immorality. I suppose that's why I talk so much about being busy, trying to free myself from the charge of immorality. I think it was Virgil who saidFacilis descensus Averno, and I suppose Mr. Henderson, in his statement, is trying to save me from the inconveniences of this trip. I suppose I ought to be grateful to him for the hint, but I just can't get any great comfort in such a close situation.
I know I must work or go hungry, and I can stand a certain amount of fasting, but to be stamped as immoral because I am fasting rather hurts my pride. I'd much rather have my going hungry accounted a virtue, and receive praise and bouquets. 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 revival. A copy of "Baedeker" in hand, I have gone through a gallery of statues but did not find a sinner in the entire company. The originals may have been sinners, but not these marble statues. That is some comfort. To be a sinner one must be animate at the very least. I'd rather be a sinner, even, than a mummy or a statue. St. Paul wrote to Timothy: "I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith." There was nothing of the mummy or the statue in him. He was just a straight-away sinful man, and a glorious sinner he was.
I like to think of Titian and Michael Angelo. 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 heaven, without any long journey. Tennyson did the same. In his poem, "Crossing the Bar," he filled all the space, and so he had to cross over into heaven to get more room. And Riley's "Old Aunt Mary" was another one. She had been working out her salvation making jelly, and jam, and marmalade, 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 eating. Why, there just had to be a heaven for old Aunt Mary. She gathered manna every day, and had some for the boys, too, but never said a word about being busy.
When I was reading theGeorgicswith my boys, we came upon the wordbufo(toad), and I told them with much gusto that that was the only place in the language where the word occurs. I had come upon this statement in a book that they did not have. Their looks spoke their admiration for the schoolmaster who could speak with authority. After they had gone their ways, two to Porto Rico, one to Chili, another to Brazil, and others elsewhere, I came upon the wordbufoagain in Ovid. I am still wondering what a schoolmaster ought to do in a case like that. Even if I had written to all those fellows acknowledging my error, it would have been too late, for they would, long before, have circulated the report all over South America and the United States that there is but one toad in the Latin language. If I hadn't believed everything I see in print, hadn't been so cock-sure, and hadn't been so ready to parade borrowed plumage as my own, all this linguistic coil would have been averted. I suppose Mr. Henderson would send me to jail again for this. I certainly didn't do my best, and therefore I am immoral, and therefore a sinner;quad erat demonstrandum.
So, I suppose, if I'm to save my soul, I must gather manna every day, and if I find the value ofxto-day, I must find the value of a biggerxto-morrow. Then, too, I suppose I'll have to choose between Mrs. Wiggs and Emerson, between the Katzenjammers and Shakespeare, and between ragtime and grand opera. I am very certain growing corn gives forth a sound only I can't hear it. If my hearing were only acute enough I'd hear it and rejoice in it. It is very trying to miss the sound when I am so certain that it is there. The birds in my trees understand one another, and yet I can't understand what they are saying in the least. This simply proves my own limitations. If I could but know their language, and all the languages of the cows, the sheep, the horses, and the chickens, what a good time I could have with them. If my powers of sight and hearing were increased only tenfold, I'd surely find a different world about me. Here, again, I can't find the value ofx, try as I will.
The disquieting thing about all this is that I do not use to the utmost the powers I have. I could see many more things than I do if I'd only use my eyes, and hear things, too, if I'd try more. The world of nature as it reveals itself to John Burroughs is a thousand times larger than my world, no doubt, and this fact convicts me of doing less than my best, and again the jail invites me.
As I was lying in the shade of the maple-tree down there by the ravine, yesterday, I fell to thinking about my rights, and the longer I lay there the more puzzled I became. Being a citizen in a democracy, I have many rights that are guaranteed to me by the Constitution, notably life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. In my school I become expansive in extolling these rights to my pupils. But under that maple-tree I found myself raising many questions as to these rights, and many others. I have a right to sing tenor, but I can't sing tenor at all, and when I try it I disturb my neighbors. Right there I bump against a situation. I have a right to use my knife at table instead of a fork, and who is to gainsay my using my fingers? Queen Elizabeth did. I certainly have a right to lie in the shade of the maple-tree for two hours to-day instead of one hour, as I did yesterday. 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 Constitution? I hope so, for I'd like to have that wonderful Constitution backing me up in the things I like to do. 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 Constitution.
In thinking of the pursuit of happiness I am inclined to personify happiness and then watch the chase, wondering whether the pursuer will ever overtake her, and what he'll do when he does. I note that the Constitution does not guarantee that the pursuer will ever catch her—but just gives him an open field and no favors. He may run just as fast as he likes, and as long as his endurance holds out. I suspect that's where the liberty comes in. I wonder if the makers of the Constitution ever visualized that chase. If so, they must have laughed, at least in their sleeves, solemn crowd that they were. If I were certain that I could overtake happiness I'd gladly join in the pursuit, even on such a warm day as this, but the dread uncertainty makes me prefer to loll here in the shade. Besides, I'm not quite certain that I could recognize her even if I could catch her. The photographs that I have seen are so very different that I might mistake happiness for some one else, and that would be embarrassing.
If I should conclude that I was happy, and then discover that I wasn't, I scarcely see how I could explain myself to myself, much less to others. So I shall go on hoeing my potatoes and not bother my poor head about happiness. It is just possible that I shall find it over there in the potato-patch, for its latitude and longitude have never been definitely determined, so far as I am aware. I know I shall find some satisfaction over there at work, and I am convinced that satisfaction and happiness are kinsfolk. Possibly my potatoes will prove the answer to some mother's prayer for food for her little ones next winter. Who knows? As I loosen the soil about the vines I can look down the vista of the months, and see some little one in his high chair smiling through his tears as mother prepares one of my beautiful potatoes for him, and I think I can detect some moisture in mother's eyes, too. It is just possible that her tears are the consecrated incense upon the altar of thanksgiving.
I like to see such pictures as I ply my hoe, for they give me respite from weariness, and give fresh ardor to my hoeing. If each one of my potatoes shall only assuage the hunger of some little one, and cause the mother's eyes to distil tears of joy, I shall be in the border-land of happiness, to say the least. I had fully intended to exercise my inalienable rights and lie in the shade for two hours to-day, but when I caught a glimpse of that little chap in the high chair, and heard his pitiful plea for potatoes, I made for the potato-patch post-haste, as if I were responding to a hurry call. I suppose there is no more heart-breaking sound in nature than the crying of a hungry child. I have been whistling all the afternoon along with my hoeing, and now that I think of it, I must be whistling because my potatoes are going to make that baby laugh.
Well, if they do, then I shall elevate the hoeing of potatoes to the rank of a privilege. Oh, I've read my "Tom Sawyer," and know about his enterprise in getting the fence whitewashed by making the task seem a privilege. But Tom was indulging in fiction, and hoeing potatoes is no fiction. Still those whitewash artists had something of the feeling that I experience right now, only there was no baby in their picture as there is in mine, and so I have the baby as an additional privilege. I wish I knew how to make all the school tasks rank as privileges to my boys and girls. If I could only do that, they would have gone far toward a liberal education. 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 subject, somehow, so as to get to the baby to change its crying into laughter. 'Tis worth trying.
I wonder, after all, whether education is not the process of shifting the emphasis from rights to privileges. I have a right, when I go into the town, to keep my seat in the car and let the old lady use the strap. If I insist upon that right I feel myself a boor, lacking the sense and sensibilities of a gentleman. But when I relinquish my seat I feel that I have exercised my privilege to be considerate and courteous. I have a right to permit weeds and briers to overrun my fences, and the fences themselves to go to rack, and so offend the sight of my neighbors; but I esteem it a privilege to make the premises clean and beautiful, so as to add so much to the sum total of pleasure. I have a right to stay on my own side of the road and keep to myself; but it is a great privilege to go up for a half-hour's exchange of talk with my neighbor John. He always clears the cobwebs from my eyes and from my soul, and I return to my work refreshed.
I have a right, too, to pore over the colored supplement for an hour or so, but when I am able to rise to my privileges and take the Book of Job instead, I feel that I have made a gain in self-respect, and can stand more nearly erect. I have a right, when I go to church, to sit silent and look bored; but, when I avail myself of the privilege of joining in the responses and the singing, I feel that I am fertilizing my spirit for the truth that is proclaimed. As a citizen I have certain rights, but when I come to think of my privileges my rights seem puny in comparison. Then, too, my rights are such cold things, but my privileges are full of sunshine and of joy. My rights seem mathematical, while my privileges seem curves of beauty.
In his scientific laboratory at Princeton, on one occasion, the celebrated Doctor Hodge, in preparing for an experiment said to some students who were gathered about him: "Gentlemen, please remove your hats; I am about to ask God a question." So it is with every one who esteems his privileges. He is asking God questions about the glory of the sunrise, the fragrance of the flowers, the colors of the rainbow, the music of the brook, and the meaning of the stars. But I hear a baby crying and must get back to my potatoes.
I have been reading, in this book, of a man who couldn't change his mind because his intellectual wardrobe was not sufficient to warrant a change. 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 reason. That reflection changed the situation greatly, and I began to feel some resentment against the blunt statement in the book as being rather too personal. Just as I begin to think that we have standardized a lot of things, along comes some one in a book, or elsewhere, and completely upsets my fine and comforting theories and projects me into chaos again. No sooner do I get a lot of facts all nicely settled, and begin to enjoy complacency, than some disturber of the peace knocks all my facts topsy-turvy, and says they are not facts at all, but the merest fiction. Then I cry aloud with my old friend Cicero,Ubinam gentium sumus, which, being translated in the language of the boys, means, "Where in the world (or nation) are we at?" They are actually trying to reform my spelling. I do wish these reformers had come around sooner, when I was learning to spellphthisic,syzygy,daguerreotype, andcaoutchouc. They might have saved me a deal of trouble and helped me over some of the high places at the old-fashioned spelling-bees.
I have a friend who is quite versed in science, and he tells me that any book on science that is more than ten years old is obsolete. Now, that puzzles me no little. If that is true, why don't they wait till matters scientific are settled, and then write their books? 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 facts? These science chaps must spend a great deal of their time changing their intellectual clothing. It would be great fun to come back a hundred years from now and read the books on science, psychology, and pedagogy. I suppose the books we have now will seem like joke books to our great-grandchildren, if people are compelled to change their mental garments every day from now on. I wonder how long it will take us human coral insects, to get our building up to the top of the water.
Whoever it was that said that consistency is a jewel would need to take treatment for his eyes in these days. If I must change my mental garb each day I don't see how I can be consistent. If I said yesterday that some theory of science is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and then find a revision of the statement necessary to-day, I certainly am inconsistent. This jewel of consistency certainly loses its lustre, if not its identity, in such a process of shifting. I do hope these chameleon artists will leave us the multiplication table, the yardstick, and the ablative absolute. I'm not so particular about the wine-gallon, for prohibition will probably do away with that anyhow. When I was in school I could tell to a foot the equatorial and the polar diameter of the earth, and what makes the difference. Why, I knew all about that flattening at the poles, and how it came about. Then Mr. Peary went up there and tramped all over the north pole, and never said a word about the flattening when he came back. I was very much disappointed in Mr. Peary.
I know, quite as well as I know my own name, that the length of the year is three hundred and sixty-five days, five hours, forty-eight minutes, and forty-eight seconds, and if I find any one trying to lop off even one second of my hard-learned year, I shall look upon him as a meddler. That is one of my settled facts, and I don't care to have it disturbed. If any one comes along trying to change the length of my year, I shall begin to tremble for the safety of the Ten Commandments. If I believe that a grasshopper is a quadruped, what satisfaction could I possibly take in discovering that he has six legs? It would merely disturb one of my settled facts, and I am more interested in my facts than I am in the grasshopper. The trouble is, though, that my neighbor John keeps referring to the grasshopper's six legs; so I suppose I shall, in the end, get me a grasshopper suit of clothes so as to be in the fashion.
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 selves. He may refer to the new suit of mental clothing that I am supposed to get each day, to the change of mind that I am supposed to undergo as regularly as a daily bath. Possibly Mr. Holmes meant something like that when he wrote his "Chambered Nautilus." At each advance from one of these compartments to another, I suppose I acquire a new suit of clothes, or, in other words, change my mind. Let's see, wasn't it Theseus whose eternal punishment in Hades was just to sit there forever? That seems somewhat heavenly to me. But here on earth I suppose I must try to keep up with the styles, and change my mental gear day by day.
I think I might come to enjoy a change of suits every day if only some one would provide them for me; but, if I must earn them myself, the case is different. I'd like to have some one bestow upon me a beautiful Greek suit for Monday, with its elegance, grace, and dignity, a Roman suit for Tuesday, a science suit for Wednesday, a suit of poetry for Thursday, and so on, day after day. But when I must read all of Homer before I can have the Greek suit, the price seems a bit stiff, and I'm not so avid about changing my mind. We had a township picnic back home, once, and it seemed to me that I was attending a congress of nations, for there were people there who had driven five or six miles from the utmost bounds of the township. That was a real mental adventure, and it took some time for me to adjust myself to my new suit. Then I went to the county fair, where were gathered people from all the townships, and my poor mind had a mighty struggle trying to grasp the immensity of the thing. I felt much the same as when I was trying to understand the mathematical sign of infinity. And when I came upon the statement, in my geography, that there are eighty-eight counties in our State, the mind balked absolutely and refused to go on. I felt as did the old gentleman who saw an aeroplane for the first time. After watching its gyrations for some time he finally exclaimed: "They ain't no sich thing."
My college roommate, Mack, went over to London, once, on some errand, and of course went to the British Museum. Near the entrance he came upon the Rosetta Stone, and stood inthralled. He reflected that he was standing in the presence of a monument that marks the beginning of recorded history, that back of that all was dark, and that all the books in all the libraries emanate from that beginning. The thought was so big, so overmastering, that there was no room in his mind for anything else, so he turned about and left without seeing anything else in the Museum. Since then we have had many a big laugh together as he recounts to me his wonderful visit to the Rosetta Stone. I see clearly that in the presence of that modest stone he got all the mental clothing he could possibly wear at the time. Changing the mind sometimes seems to amount almost to surgery.
Sometime, 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 Equals." I know that the Declaration tells us that all men are born free and equal, and I shall explain in my essay that it means us to understand that while they are born equal, they begin to become unequal the day after they are born, and become more so as one changes his mind and the other one does not. I try, all the while, to make myself believe that I am the equal of my neighbor, the judge, and then I feel foolish to think that I ever tried it. The neighbors all know it isn't true, and so do I when I quit arguing with myself. He has such a long start of me now that I wonder if I can ever overtake him. One thing, though, I'm resolved upon, and that is to change my mind as often as possible.
Just why a boy is averse to washing his neck and ears is one of the deep problems of social psychology, and yet the psychologists have veered away from the subject. There must be a reason, and these mind experts ought to be able and willing to find it, so as to relieve the anxiety of the rest of us. It is easy for me to say, with a full-arm gesture, that a boy is of the earth earthy, but that only begs the question, as full-arm gestures are wont to do. Many a boy has shed copious tears as he sat on a bench outside the kitchen door removing, under compulsion, the day's accumulations from his feet as a prerequisite for retiring. He would much prefer to sleep on the floor to escape the foot-washing ordeal. Why, pray, should he wash his feet when he knows full well that tomorrow night will find them in the same condition? Why all the bother and trouble about a little thing like that? Why can't folks let a fellow alone, anyhow? And, besides, he went in swimming this afternoon, and that surely ought to meet all the exactions of capricious parents. He exhibits his feet as an evidence of the virtue of going swimming, for he is arranging the preliminaries for another swimming expedition to-morrow.
I recall very distinctly how strange it seemed that my father could sit there and calmly talk about being a Democrat, or a Republican, or a Baptist, or a Methodist, or about some one's discovering the north pole, or about the President's message when the dog had a rat cornered under the corn-crib and was barking like mad. But, then, parents can't see things in their right relations and proportions. And there sat mother, too, darning stockings, and the dog just stark crazy about that rat. 'Tis enough to make a boy lose faith in parents forevermore. A dog, a rat, and a boy—there's a combination that recks not of the fall of empires or the tottering of thrones. Even chicken-noodles must take second place in such a scheme of world activities. And yet a mother would hold a boy back from the forefront of such an enterprise to wash his neck. Oh, these mothers!
I have read "Adam's Diary," by Mark Twain, in which he tells what events were forward in Eden on Monday, what on Tuesday, and so on throughout the week till he came to Sunday, and his only comment on that day was "Pulled through." In the New England Primer we gather the solemn information that "In Adam's fall, we sinned all." I admit the fact freely, but beg to be permitted to plead extenuating circumstances. Adam could go to church just as he was, but I had to be renovated and, at times, almost parboiled and, in addition to these indignities, had to wear shoes and stockings; and the stockings scratched my legs, and the shoes were too tight. If Adam could barely manage to pull through, just think of me. Besides, Adam didn't have to wear a paper collar that disintegrated and smeared his neck. The more I think of Adam's situation, the more sorry I feel for myself. Why, he could just reach out and pluck some fruit to help him through the services, but I had to walk a mile after church, in those tight shoes, and then wait an hour for dinner. And I was supposed to feel and act religious while I was waiting, but I didn't.
If I could only have gone to church barefoot, with my shirt open at the throat, and with a pocket full of cookies to munchad libthroughout the services, I am sure that the spiritual uplift would have been greater. The soul of a boy doesn't expand violently when encased in a starched shirt and a paper collar, and these surmounted by a thick coat, with the mercury at ninety-seven in the shade. I think I can trace my religious retardation back to those hungry Sundays, those tight shoes, that warm coat, and those frequent jabs in my ribs when I fain would have slept.
In my childhood there was such a host of people who were pushing and pulling me about in an effort to make me good that, even yet, I shy away from their style of goodness. The wonder is that I have any standing at all in polite and upright society. So many folks said I was bad and naughty, and applied so many other no less approbrious epithets to me that, in time, I came to believe them, and tried somewhat diligently to live up to the reputation they gave me. I recall that one of my aunts came in one day and, seeing me out in the yard most ingloriously tousled, asked my good mother: "Is that your child?" Poor mother! I have often wondered how much travail of spirit it must have cost her to acknowledge me as her very own. One thumb, one great toe, and an ankle were decorated with greasy rags, and I was far from being ornamental. I had been hulling walnuts, too, and my stained hands served to accentuate the human scenery.
This same aunt had three boys of her own, later on, and a more disreputable-looking crew it would be hard to find. I confess that I took a deal of grim satisfaction in their dilapidated ensemble, just for my aunt's benefit, of course. They were fine, wholesome, natural boys in spite of their parentage, and I liked them even while I gloried in their cuts, bruises, and dirt. At that time I was wearing a necktie and had my shoes polished but, even so, I yearned to join with them in their debauch of sand, mud, and general indifference to convention. They are fine, upstanding young chaps now, and of course their mother thinks that her scolding, nagging, and baiting made them so. They know better, but are too kind and considerate to reveal the truth to their mother.
Even yet I have something like admiration for the ingenuity of my elders in conjuring up spooks, hob-goblins, and bugaboos with which to scare me into submission. I conformed, of course, but I never gave them a high grade in veracity. I yielded simply to gain time, for I knew where there was a chipmunk in a hole, and was eager to get to digging him out just as soon as my apparent submission for a brief time had proved my complete regeneration. They used to tell me that children should be seen but not heard, and I knew they wanted to do the talking. I often wonder whether their notion of a good child would have been satisfactorily met if I had suddenly become paralyzed, or ossified, or petrified. In either of these cases I could have been seen but not heard. One day, not long ago, when I felt at peace with all the world and was comfortably free from care, a small, thumb-sucking seven-year-old asked: "How long since the world was born?" After I told him that it was about four thousand years he worked vigorously at his thumb for a time, and then said: "That isn't very long." Then I wished I had said four millions, so as to reduce him to silence, for one doesn't enjoy being routed and put to confusion by a seven-year-old.
After quite a silence he asked again: "What was there before the world was born?" That was an easy one; so I said in a tone of finality: "There wasn't anything." Then I went on with my meditations, thinking I had used the soft pedal effectively. Silence reigned supreme for some minutes, and then was rudely shattered. His thumb flew from his mouth, and he laughed so lustily that he could be heard throughout the house. When his laughter had spent itself somewhat, I asked meekly: "What are you laughing at?" His answer came on the instant, but still punctuated with laughter: "I was laughing to see how funny it was when there wasn't anything." No wonder that folks want children to be seen but not heard. And some folks are scandalized because a chap like that doesn't like to wash his neck and ears.