The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1900-08-14

Pardon me, though, for giving you CO.
| numdrums when i have just been COM
planning Of them. You probably know
! that in and about 1882 Abraham Lin
coin was frequently in the vicinity Of
this stream and crossed it several times.
You also are probably aware that JEFF
ferson Davis once camped upon its
banks, but was wise enough not to at
| tempt to battle in it, General Zachary
| Taylor made valiant effort to reach
its waters at one time, but smallpox
held back his troops. Here Sir, Black
Hawk laughed above the dirty flow
while Stillman fled from him and his
| thirty warriors. Yet not one of the
community that has been born by this
| stream, lived, loved and died in sight of
| 1T, knows aught of these facts. Facts
sir, not miserable conundrums like, for
instance:
Why does sailor know there is a
| man in the moon?'
He shook his head and went on, while
I busted myself in taking the dust from
the enamel of my wheel.
People In the country wish their chill
dren educated, but do not know what
the word education means. In this
they resemble the ambitious people of
the citys slums. They start the child
on its educational way in this fashion:
The year contains twelve months.
OF these you will have four in the fields,
three at the woodpile and in the barn
and five in school For vacations you
may go to the circus if it comes and the
price of butter keeps up
THAT the child shall learn anything
but the mere rudiments at school enters
into the head of no one but the teacher
If the teacher is ambitious. I have
been ambitious. I am so no longer. /
would rather be sewing machine
agent than teach in the average coun-
try district There may be enjoyable
districts in the moon or Kamschatka,
but not here Think of being chased
through an entire term by the questions:
"'When Is man thinner than
lath?'
II automatically avoided getting an
answer to that question until yester-
day. Then I asked the oldest girl I'M
der my care. She pulled at her calico
gown, showed her not too attractive
teeth and answered:
Think Of such rot permeating the
minds Of children. Not a word about
algebra, higher arithmetic, the. sciences
only questions, questions, from morn
ing until night. I wonder / did not
throw myself into this stream"
I would have sympathized with him,
but he waved me to one side
II can see poetry in the dark waters
beneath me, joyous life is all about me,
but what is an ambitious soul to do be-
fore the question from a tow-headed
urchin, son of a thrifty farmer, who
pipes up:
When is fellows eye like a bar
rel?
you think of bungs, hoops, slaves !
and the like but you never get the an
swer until you have appealed to the
small boy that gave the question. I am |
going to the city,
Over the hill and far away in the for |
est could be heard the voices OF chill
dren They We're running and coming |
toward Sugar River bridge. The |
looked despairingly at me,
and / withdrew to where Ilwould not |
be observed. At the brow of the hill the |
children saw the form of their percep- J
tor and shouted again. They swarmed |
down upon him and pressed red al |
bum into his hands. When he had |
clasped the hands of all the troop and !
they were about to leave him I heard |
one midget mischievously ask--the
final shot--the end of school--the thing
always to be remembered