The Press., 1890-04-10

not blame him. He had force enough inside of him to run steam engine It would have vent in some direction. But it would not expend itself in s'learning lessons" He would work his books into a mass of dogs ears. His writing book was ever in mourning with ink stains. His face was generally inky. His ink stand was generally upset. He would hold pen as he would a pitchfork. He seemed also to give out his vitality when he came to school and infect all the oth- CTS with it. He was not a regular scholar. He was sent only when it was an "off day. on his father's ''ranch. In the scholastic sense he learned nothing.
 But that boy at the age of 15 would drive his fathers two horse wagon, loaded with fruit and vegetables, 15O miles from California to Nevada over the rough mountain roads of the Sierras, sell the produce to the silver miners of Aurora and adjacent camps, and return safely home. He was obliged ill places to camp out at night, cook for himself, look out for his stock, repair harness or wagon and keep an eye out for skulking Indians. who, if not .'hostile," were not saints. When it came to using the hand and the head together he had in him 'go," 'sgumption" and executive ability, and none of my teaching put it where it was in him either He may have grown up unpublished" but he is one of the kind who are at this moment hiring polished and scholarly men to do work for them on very small wages.
 I do not despise ''polish" and "cult- ure," but is there not an education now necessary which, shall give the child some clearer idea of the manner in which it must cope with the world in few years? The land today is full of ''culture" at ten dollars week. Culture gives polish to the blade. But it is not the process whicl, makes the hard, well tenn pered steel.
 The s'smartest" boy in my school gave me even more trouble than the son of the rancher He could commit to memory as much in ten minutes as the others could in an hour, and the balance of the time he was working off the Satanism with which he was filled, His memory was an omnivo-ous nav. It would take in anything and everything with the smallest amount of application. It would have required two-thirds of my time to feed this voracious and mischievous lit tie monster with books for his memory to devour.
 But he was not the boy to drive a team through wild country and dispose of the load in Nevada, though he could on such trip have committed to memory several hundred words per day on any subject, whether he understood it or not.
 My young lady pupils also gave me a great deal of trouble. They were very independent, and for this reason: Girls, even of l5, were very scarce then in the mines; so-wcre women of any marriage able age. There were ten men to one woman. The result was that any thing humanly feminine was very valuable, much sought after and made much of by men of all ages. My girls of 15, as to life and association, were grown up wo- | men. Young miners and middle aged, semi bald headed miners, who did not realize how many of their years had slipped away since they came out from the States" took these girls to balls and whirled them by night over the dusty roads of Tuolumne county in dusty bug gies.
 It was difficult for one lone man, and he only schoolmaster, to enforce dis cipline with these prenaturely matured children, who had an average of two chances a month to marry, and who felt like any other woman their power and influence with the other sex. Half of them did have prospective husband in some brawny pick slinger, who never went abroad without battery of port able small artillery slung at his waist, and who was half jealous, half envious of the schoolmaster for what he consid- cred the privilege of being in the same room with his future wife six hours a day.
 One needs to live in country where there is a dearth of women to realize these situations. When my school was dismissed at 4 o'clock p. m., all the un- employed chivalry of "Jimtown" massed on the street corner at the Bella Union saloon to see this coveted bevy of Cali fornia rosebuds pass on their way home. The Bella Union, by the way, was only a