The Green Forest tribune., 1911-09-08

| Monday morning, We do claim it to be origi- | nal)
 Started to school again, have you, kid? Well, well that's fine. What You don't think so? We'll, little fellow you will think so-in the good days tc come, when the top of your head looks like a snow-capped peak, or is all shiny like billiard ball-you will think start ing to school is fine then Leastwise lot of people who have little furrows in their faces where old Father Time has worn his foot-paths from travelling over the same road so long, think ii must be fine to start to school. They will tell you so, little boy, if you asl them. They started to school years and years ago, and they remember il yet, and they say that it was the best time they ever had in their lives-jus as you will some day raise corner O. the curtain of your memory and lool back at this starting to school and thinl it the prettiest picture you ever looked at. Only thing you will remember about it is that you had fun; you vii forget all about what you are now say ing about there being more fun in va cation than in school days.
 So you have started to school again. Well, well. Let's see. When was ii the last session ended? Yesterday! Yes, it was yesterday only a day age it seems, so short has been the vaca- ton, so rapidly do the sun-ups and sun fdowns come and go. And tomorrow school will be out for another vacation, only it doesn't seem so to you now, as giving, and then another lifetime till Christmas, and a hundred years until the Easter holidays next spring, clear on over the end of time, it seems, till next June. But all of that is only a day; it will come around so soon to most of us.
 So you have started to school again, have you, kid? Listen: You have done nothing of the kind. You started to school the first day they raised the curtains little and let the first faint ray of light to beat upon your baby eyes in which the tears had not begun to groW-for there are no tears in baby eyes, you know, or you will know some day. You started to school as you lay, curious-like, all cuddled up in your little crib, and it will be school with you, of some kind, until they gather about you and press down the stony eyes and lay you in the coffin and lift it to the hearse
 It is alway school-with a teacher standing near you correcting you, guiding you, complaining at you, re- proving you, punishing you. You dc not have to learn lessons out of books, of course, but tis school just the same, and there are lessons and lessons to be learned. And, oh, some of them are the hardest lessons you ever dreamed of-with no place you can turn to for the answers.
 See that fellow, over there, digging the trench in the street? He is going to school. The world is his teacher; he is trying to learn to escape punishment, just as you are. The fellow in the bank, who looks serious and has the big auto mobile-he is going to school, too. He may think he knows a great deal, but he doesn't know it all-not by any means In fact, he knows very little, it may be, and is only in the Kindergarten class of life. Perhaps he doesn't know the first principle of living; the fact that he owns an automobile and is rich, doesn t signify that he is success. He may be an abject failure, standing at the foot of the class, with his heart eaten away, and his disposition soured, and his mind so skeptical that he can 1 see beauties of the world for looking at men whom he is afraid will rob him. And he may not know anything at all about raising boys and that is the most important lesson which any one has to learn-if he has boys.
 So, kid, you are not the only one who is starting to school. You are not the only one whose vacation has ended. You are not the only one who finds the the lessons hard, the hours long. the recesses short, and the teachers merci- less. There are others in whose ears the unwelcome bell summoning us to books and tasks rings several times a day. For life itself is school and all of us are pupils.