The Norfolk weekly news-journal., 1906-04-06


that you will enjoy your visit this year
more thoroughly than you have ever
before. We hope that when you re-
turn to your homes at the end of the
week, you VIII be equipped to more
firmly incucate into the minds of
Young America those things that
ought to be inculcated, and that you
will be able to more scientifically lay
on the lash when the lash becomes
essential to law and order.
You teachers generally pick out the
rainest cloudiest, muddiest season Of
all the year to visit Norfolk, and you
always remember It, after you have
gone home, as a town in which you
lose your rubbers in the middle of the
street, wear maclSntoshes and carry
umbrellas. But in spite of your, poor
Judgment in having Easter come just
at the season of the twelvemonth when
new spring hats are hardly safe to be
trusted out alone, and in spite of the
wrinkles that April showers draw over
the forehead of the sun whenever you
come to town, we are really and truly
glad to see you and would like to
have you take off your wraps and stay
longer If you could do it and at the
same time hold your places with the
village board at home.
And this dark.sked April week when
the teachers come to Norfolk is, in
spite Of its outward appearances, one
of the brightest cycles of days that
Norfolk knows in a years time.
We people of Norfolk have come to
look upon you as old friends-though
the word "old" is merely a figurative
expression. We all clean house when
the railroad companies announce ex-
cursion rates into Norfolk because of
the annual teachers meeting, and we
would be disappointed if you disap-
pointed us by not coming.
We look at you school. teachers,
speaking of the entire profession, as
old friends in more ways than one.
You taught us our A, b. C's when we
were little, spanked us when we were
bad, divided up your lunches with us
when we stayed at school during
noon hours, allowed us to pass the
pencils when we were good, took away
our marbles when we played for keeps,
kept us after school when we whis-
pered, pointed your fingers at us when
we talked, and cut down our "deport-
ment" when we scraped our feet on
the floor. You made us speak pieces
in front of the rest of the school, COM
PEELED us to study, more or less, and
finally sent us out into the world, by
way of the graduation gate, all dressed
up in our best clothes and wondering
how the world ever managed to get
three meals a day without our assist
ance before.
In turn we used to try to make life
as wretched and miserable for you as
we possibly could We spent our
spare time trying to concoct questions
that would puzzle you, laughed in our
sleeves (filling them with mirth) when
you told us to 'looll it up" for our own
good, planned traps to make you be
unfair to us so that you would take
1t back" and ached for chances to take
our grievances home to our fathers
and mothers SO that their mighty in
tiuence might fall on your necks and
drop your heads in the basket of had
beens. We invented nicknames for
you among ourselves, and sincerely
hoped that someday you might over
hear the nicknames in everyday use.
And when you did punish us we swore
vengeance If it took all the rest of our
lives for execution.
But after all, we wake up-we of
the world that no longer answers to
your daily roll call--and find that we
do like you, teachers. always did like
you, and, we hope, always will.
Foi, SOiilS W lHlhh IL oNeI, you re
pretty good natured lot of people in
spite of what" we used to think, you
were really pretty fair in ways you
treated us, and we have no doubt that
you are just as fair today.
You meet with a good many trials
and tribulations, dear teachers, in the
course of your careers, of which the
world knows nothing. To look al your
hours, from 8 in the morning until
in the afternoon. we might naturally
suppose that you led lives of royalty,
almost as easy as the lives of bankers.
But when we get little better ac-
quainted with you, we learn that your
work never ends and that, though the
gong dismisses your pupils at in the