She

man's power to awaken the spirit of life in her pupils and direct it in healthful channels, I must not leave the impression that she shared the extraordinary opinion of some skeptics of our time that it is possible to cultivate in any community the spirit of religion without its institutions. A well expect to cultivate the spirit of music in a community without concerts, of art in a community without picture galleries, of education in a community without schools. conducted the daily chapel exercises herself, and they were never perfunctory. The Scripture readings and the hymns were selected with care, and the services, varying with the varying need of the College or the varying mood of the President, were always characterized by a sincere and simple spiritual beauty. She herself selected with care the preachers for the Sunday services; and what she expected from them and how much she herself put into them by the phrasing of her invitations the following much-prized letter may here indicate:

My dear Dr. Abbott:

Wellesley College, January 18, 1886.

Is it not time that we should hear your voice in the chapel again? It seems so to us, and that the time of times is approaching when you can help and strengthen us here. The last Thursday of this month, the 28th, is the Day of Prayer for Colleges. It has always been a great day in Wellesley, a day full of seedsowing, and often of decisions at which we have long rejoiced. All college exercises are suspended for the day. We have a sermon in the morning, and such other services for prayer and conference as seem to be useful at the time; but the day and evening are given up to thought and prayer for all colleges and schools, especially for our own, and for all here who are not Christians. We want you and Mrs. Abbott with us on this day very much. The work you did with the students last year makes it possible for you to do more for them now than anyone else, and I long to have this serious and prayerful spirit which now prevails in the College, guided and deepened until we shall be one in Him. If you can come on for Thursday and follow the work of that day, by speaking to the students Friday following at their Bible hour in the afternoon, it would just meet our desire. You see, dear Dr. Abbott, what we need. We have had very good daily meetings during the week of prayer, growing in interest, so that we have continued to have meetings in the chapel Tuesday as well as Thursday evenings, and each one is more hopeful than the last. Yet there are nearly a hundred here whose names are not on the Christian Association roll and whose lives are not devoted to our Master; and so many more who need clearer ideas of duty and larger faith in Him. I know you need no assurance of our desire and no urging to come to our help. If you can find it possible and wise for yourself, you will make us a visit now and stay as long as you can and bring "the family." The Cottage is not yet finished, but we can make

you comfortable in the midst of things, and you shall have so many chances to do good! There is nothing I can offer beyond that, is there? And there is much to tell and hear and many bits of advice you two people can give us.

I should have written this to Mrs. Abbott, but I have no doubt she is reading it to spare you the trouble, like the wife she is. Otherwise I would assure you that she needs a vacation and that we will be better to her this time if she will come and bring you. As it is I leave it all to you both with Wellesley's love al

ways.

Yours faithfully,

ALICE E. FREEMAN.

Once and only once did I see Miss Freeman angry, and then it was her religion which made her so. An unselfish anger is not a brief madness, and her anger did not disturb her quiet and wise judgment or lead her even for a moment to lose her perfect self-control.

The Committee of the American Board (Congregational) for Foreign Missions, acting under the leadership of one of its secretaries, who subsequently resigned his office, adopted the policy of refusing volunteers for foreign missionary service unless they could subscribe to the secretary's affirmation that all the heathen who had never heard of Christ were foredoomed and irreparably lost. Her indignation, in which I fully shared, was as much because of the wrong it did the Christian Church as because of the wrong it did two of her pupils, devoted followers of Christ, fully equipped for a Christian service to which they had dedicated themselves and for which they had for some years been preparing. During the controversy in the Congregational churches which that refusal created, and which lasted for two or three years, I was in frequent consultation with Miss Freeman and admired alike her indignation and her strong will which controlled and her wise judgment which directed it to beneficent ends. Emotion, like fire, is a good servant. Alice Freeman Palmer was a woman of strong emotions, but they were always under the control of a stronger will.

Another incident in her life indicated this self-control. For nothing perhaps better illustrates this habitual control over the emotions than the power to lay aside a fascinating work on occasions and give the overstrained nerves a rest. The ability to do this is the best preventive of nervous exhaustion. Miss Freeman, who followed her Master in daring to undertake great things and in giving herself without reserve to their accomplishment, followed him also in dropping her work from time to time for periods of absolute repose. Occasionally, leaving word with one companion whither she was going, she would disappear, no one else knew where or why. In fact, she engaged a room in a hotel in Boston, stayed in retirement for one, two, or three days. and then came back to take up her work

again with restel nerves and recuperated strength.

When in December, 1887, she married Professor George H. Palmer, of Harvard College, she resigned the Presidency of Wellesley College, and with it the professional vocation of teacher. She continued to teach by pen or by voice and to take an active part by her counsels in the educational work of her State by her service on the Massachusetts Board of Education. But her personal relation as teacher to pupil came to an end. And therefore with that change in her life activity this sketch comes to an end, for this is not a life but a portrait, and a portrait only of the teacher.

Not all her friends congratulated her on her marriage. Some thought she might have married and still retained her office; some thought she was giving up a position of great influence and power for a minor position. I shared neither opinion. A happy marriage, I believe, is always a promotion, always adds not only to the happiness but to the largeness and richness of life. warm personal friend of both, I congratulated both without any reserve. And I had no wish to see Alice Freeman become a divided president and a divided wife; and I had no apprehension that she would do so. I felt what in the following verse she has expressed with a beauty of diction which I could never emulate:

Great love has triumphed. At a crisis
hour

Of strength and struggle in the
heights of life

He came, and, bidding me abandon
power,

Called me to take the quiet name
of wife.

A

If any of my readers desire a better acquaintance with Alice Freeman Palmer, the material is available in her biography written by her husband with a simplicity that is more than eloquence and with a frankness that is the best possible reserve. From a little book of her verse, not written for the public but published by her husband after her death, I select here one verse, because it is a revelation of the deeper experience of her hidden life:

ACQUAINTANCE WITH GRIEF

I said to Pain, "I will not have thee here!

The nights are weary and the days are drear

In thy hard company." He clasped me close and held me still so long

I learned how deep his voice, how sweet his song,

How far his eyes can see.

It was customary in the eighties for Wellesley College girls to elect honorary members to their classes. That honor was conferred upon me. Thus enrolled among the pupils of Alice Freeman Palmer, I venture to represent them as well as myself by writing beneath this simple pen picture of our honored teacher:

Thy gentleness hath made me great.

I

AM frequently asked by Americans what part of an Oxford career I consider to be most valuable, and I am tempted to quote in reply the words of Lord Robert Cecil when he was speaking to a packed audience of undergraduates at the Oxford Union Society on October 23, 1919. He said: "On the whole, Mr. President, I think I can say that the hours I spent in this Society were the least wasted of any in my university career." Whether that was a compliment to the Union or a rebuff to Oxford in general may be left to the reader's discretion, but Lord Robert was President himself in 1885, SO presumably he meant it kindly enough. In any case, he was but one of the many distinguished men who have passed some of their happiest and their most instructive hours in the Union.

The Oxford Union Society may legitimately trace its origin to the short-lived United Debating Society, which came into existence in the year 1823. The beginning of the nineteenth century witnessed a reawakening of the consciousness of university as apart from purely college ties; and the renewed interest in public questions which marked the period could not fail to provide a Society possessing a body of public opinion wider and more diverse than was The possible in any single college. United Debating Society existed for less than three years; in the end of 1825 its leader found that their discussions were marred by the "boyish folly" of some of its number, and, for the purpose of excluding these "turbulent members," the Society on December 3, 1825, dissolved itself. It was immediately reconstituted as the Oxford Union Society, and its first public meeting was held in "one of the low-browed rooms of Christ Church," on the summons of Donald Maclean, of Balliol, late M.P. for the City of Oxford, who had been the first President of what may be called the parent society. From the date of this meeting (December 5, 1825), the Union Society has had a continuous existence.

I have called this article the Training Ground of British Statesmen, and, though it is an ambitious title, I think it is justified. No less than three great Prime Ministers have been President of the

Union since the Society was founded-Mr. Gladstone, Lord Salisbury, and Mr. Asquith. Gladstone was President in 1831, and the minutes of the Society, which, when he was secretary, he kept with scrupulous neatness, and of which a photograph is shown on the following page, contain an amusing record of his connection with it. On November 11, 1830, the secretary (Gladstone) moved: "That the administration of the Duke of Wellington is undeserving of the confidence of the coun

try." If you look at the bottom of the minutes, you will see in Gladstone's own writing: "The House then divided, when the President announced that the motion was carried by a majority of one. (Tremendous cheering)." Immediately after this entry something was obviously scratched out, and an examination of the original shows that the words were "Tremendous cheering from the majority-ONE." Whether Gladstone himself crossed them out or whether they were erased by an indignart and bewhiskered supporter of the Iron Duke, is a matter which history does not relate. In any case, next term, Gladstone, when President, took the opportunity of sternly and eloquently condemning "the practice which some honorable gentleman had lately adopted, of defacing the records of the Society."

When Gladstone was President, the Union was naturally a very small thing compared to the present institution. As the photograph of the debating hall will show, it is now amply furnished for the display of forensic ability. Debates are held every Thursday night, and last from eight o'clock to about half-past eleven, when we trudge home, elated or depressed, according to the result, through the dark old streets to our respective colleges. They are exciting affairs, these debates. Imagine the

In

benches crowded with hundreds of not altogether silent undergraduates. the gallery a couple of hundred visitors, many of them ladies, among whom many newly fledged girl undergraduates may be distinguished by means of their very becoming black caps and gowns. At the despatch boxes a speaker is gesticulating, thumping, playing with the water-bottle, etc. we know all the tricks, even though we may be, some of us, very young men.

The results of some of these debates may not be without interest for those who believe that in the opinions of the young Englishmen of to-day will be found the actions of our Empire of tomorrow. It is true that the audience of this Society, more than any other society in the world, is moved by eloquence. But, though it will applaud the epigrammatist and respect a finished peroration, it will not be misled by the art of a speaker to neglect the true facts of the case.

The present tendency of our debates seems to be towards the left, but not the extreme left. [That is, the liberal but not radical.] Since the armistice we have voted, among other questions: 1. That the Peace Treaty is an economic disaster to Europe.

2. That the present foreign policy of the Government should be immediately

3. That we approve of the abolition of compulsory Greek in the University.

4. That we disapprove of the recent triumphs of the feminist movement.

5. That we support the Indian policy of Mr. Montagu.

whether or not you agree with the results, I do not think it can be denied that, at any rate, the undergraduate of to-day shows no lack of interest in the problems by which his country is confronted.

Perhaps, apart from the actual

7. That we would welcome the immediate grant of Dominion Home Rule to Ireland.

These results I have chosen at random, but they may be taken, on the whole, as typical of the way the under

will most amuse the visitor is what is known as "Private Business." This is a period of about half an hour before the debate begins, and is opened by the President asking if there are any "questions to officers relative to the discharge of their official duties." There follows

a regular bombardment of questions, in which any member of the Society can get up and ask what he likes. Unless the officers are very alert indeed they will find themselves looking extremely foolish. However, practice makes perfect, and some of the answers lately delivered have been brilliantly witty. For example:

A loquacious young man gets up at the back of the hall and says: "Sir, will you please inform hon. members why there is no water in the stamplickers in the writing-rooms?"

The President bows. "It is the first time," he replies calmly, "that I have known the hon. member unwilling to use his tongue." Loud applause!

Or again:

"Sir, is it true that during the vacation you set the Thames on fire?"

"No, sir," replies the President; "but I sometimes find it necessary to burn "The Isis.'" ("The Isis" is the University weekly paper.)

And so the questions go on. Thrust and parry, give and take-there is no bitterness, but a great deal of wit and a great deal of laughter. Many is the member of Parliament who first learned the art of dealing with hecklers by the questions which were asked him in this happy assembly of young men.

Gladstone, Salisbury, Asquith, statesmen like Lord Robert Cecil, lawyers like the Lord Chancellor and Sir John Simon, men of letters like Hilaire Belloc, prelates such as William Temple and the Archbishop of York-all these swell the proud list of those who in their happiest days were Presidents of the Oxford Union Society.

The nursery of so much enthusiasm, the origin of so many ideals, for the last hundred years the Union has been the training ground of our statesmen. And a worthy training ground it has proved itself to be.

OW and then a boy is sent away from school for disciplinary reasons. It does not appear that he has been so very wicked. Yet the parents know that they must run the gauntlet of neighborhood comment and that theirs will be the ordeal of making explanations to friends and relatives. Sorrow and disgrace seem to have come upon the family. Nor can they understand the head master's attitude, since he seems to say in one and the same breath: "We really think you should not be discouraged about John, for he has good stuff in him; but, we cannot on any consideration permit him to remain longer in the school."

The conversation has developed along lines like these:

Father. Now, Mr. Blank, you know just as well as I do that there is nothing morally wrong in what my son did.

BY WINFIELD BROWN

Head Master. I have never stated that I considered that John had committed any moral wrong, Mr. Smith. In fact, I think that after this experience as a lesson he will make a useful citizen at some other school.

Father. Then why not here? Head Master. That would, I regret to say, be impossible.

The poor father mops his brow. The thing seems to him absurd and unjust. He continues: "But suppose he had done something actually bad-for example, had stolen money from another boy. Don't you see that even then you couldn't punish him any more than you are doing now? You are sending him away with the same brand you would put on a thief or worse. I call that unfair."

Here are two conflicting points of

view. The parent argues that it is incumbent on the school, somehow or other, to make a go of it with the boy as long as he breaks no moral law; while the school's attitude may be summed up tersely in a saying frequently used by a certain head master of a well-known institution: "Hamilton' does not intend to fool with any boy who intends to fool with Hamilton." He meant, I take it, that everybody concerned must play according to the letter and spirit of the rules or else get out of the game, instead of spoiling it for the other players. Which is right, the parent or the school?

We are, as already stated, barring out from consideration all cases where some startling offense against morals is involved, for here there could be no argu

1This name is of course not the name of the institution.

ment, no difference of opinion. In so doing we are not narrowing the field of discussion as much as might be imagined, but are treating of the rule rather than the exception; for sensational outbreaks are rare at school, and expulsions are more often than not traceable to smaller issues.

John has therefore committed no heinous offense, yet the school throws up its hands. Mr. Smith cannot assent to the justice of this. Which is right? I shall not attempt to give a direct answer to that question. There are, however, certain conditions under which schools have to be governed. Some account of these and a certain amount of theorizing on my part as to the psychology of cases like John's may serve to throw a little light on this subject.

I

There is one paramount claim which the school makes on every pupil and on every master, and that is loyalty to the organization: cheerful acceptance by each of the purposes for which all are gathered together and willing effort to bring those purposes to fruition. A head master can afford, up to a certain point, to be patient with one who will not give that loyalty; but beyond a certain point he cannot, dare not go. For disloyalty and disaffection are as catching as measles.

No school ever intends to let go of any one of its young charges until it has tried to save him by every device it knows; the only reason why it does not keep on trying indefinitely is that matters eventually reach a stage where the authority of the school and the morale of the other students, and not the reclamation of one disaffected individual, becomes the issue. If at this stage the boy is wrong-headed or weak enough to force the school's hand, let the point of discipline involved be as trivial as you like, he automatically "fires" himself. A school can by the strength of its sound members carry a certain amount of dead weight and even counteract some tugging in the wrong direction, but it is in duty bound to know where it must draw the line.

A

Because, from the very nature of the problem, there is always a place at which the line must be drawn. Any person acquainted with the ground I am discussing knows this to be so. boarding-school for boys is a very interesting segment of society. To speak quite accurately, it is a society in itself, a little organism as complete and independent as a distant frontier post, like Quebec or Plymouth in the seventeenth century, or, if one prefers, like a band of shipwrecked people who, finding themselves on some lonely shore, have had to organize and legislate for their own betterment and self-preservation. Their laws would not be the laws of London or Paris, being necessarily at once more trivial and more rigid. Individualists and Anarchists would be particularly dangerous and would be dealt with in a way that might seem hard to people

A

who live under other conditions. good deal of sympathy, for example, has been expressed for Roger Williams and for Mrs. Hutchinson, much of it misplaced. To-day they would be ornaments to society and pleasant people to meet and to know (in spite of a pinkish variety of Sovietism which I fear they would affect), but along the shores of Massachusetts Bay in the sixteen hundreds they were trouble-makers and the community saw no other course than to get rid of them.

Like the tiny civic groups of colonial days, where people were thrown in intimate contact with each other and where prosperity could come only from harmony and team-play, a school for its success must be able to count on the loyalty of its members. Not merely the loyalty that cheers for the teams and proudly believes one's own school to be the best, though that is all very good as far as it goes. The kind of loyalty which the school cannot get along without is work and obedience ungrudgingly given by boys who know that if their school does not command these it is not worth cheering for. This aspect of school spirit did not interest John, and that fact was the chief cause of his undoing.

II

Let us not, however, be too hard on John, for no schoolboy is perfect. Who ever heard of a place where all the rules were obeyed all the time? Consider what that would mean: scores, possibly hundreds, of boys picking their way through mazes of laws without even a single trip-up! School life is complex, and local rules reflect this complexity. Imagine the average institution--boys, masters and their families, school cooks, maids, and janitors-numbering at least two or three hundred people, and maybe more. There are acres of land and a considerable group of buildings-the permanent plant. The ideal code to promulgate for the guidance of any such student body would be to say, "There is only one rule you need remember, just one: 'Be a gentleman.'" Such advantages as this single statute would confer by virtue of its simplicity would be lost on account of its vagueness. What is a gentleman, anyway? Does a gentleman go to bed and get up when he pleases? Does he smoke? Does he go on the pond in early winter before Mr. G (the heavy-weight of the faculty) has, by intrusting his bulk to the icy surface without disaster, certified to the world that it is a safe thing to do? Does a gentleman go hatless when the thermometer sags below zero? May a gentleman, without declassing himself, keep a dog, white mice, a motor cycle, or an automobile? Would a gentleman give a midnight banquet to several other gentlemen on the fire-escape? Or keep pet turtles in the bathtub?

Look at the matter as one will, rules have to be specific and (hélas!) numerous. Doubtless the very profusion with which they sprout and grow on school

soil is one reason for indifferent feet treading on them. Nearly all boys break rules. In this they resemble us grownups. Nobody, for instance, who owns and drives a motor car (and who is there to-day who does not?) is over-nice about preferring his own convenience to certain municipal regulations. Does anybody consistently obey the speed laws? Who hasn't at one time or another taken chances with city parking regulations? Yet do we any the less consider ourselves good and law-abiding citizens? We feel (do we not?) that in the big things we are sound; that, while we may not kow-tow to every little last verboten on the statute-books, we do make honest income-tax returns and maintain a high respect for the Decalogue and the Golden Rule. I do not say that we are right in all this; I am simply saying that this is what we do. Boys at school draw similar distinctions without departing, in their own estimation, from a high-grade loyalty. Not a day goes by but some youth takes a short cut and ignores some local law. Yet schoolmasters do not lose heart. Nor should they, for most of these violations are inherent in human nature. Boys will be boys just as surely as men will be men. Correcting these petty in. fractions is all in the day's work, a work which aims to wear off the rough corners of personal selfishness and to teach the inspiration that comes from learning the lesson of working with others for the good of the group. This lesson will be learned by a boy, in spite of occasional slips, provided his spirit is good.

John, however, couldn't seem to bring himself even to want to learn the lesson. He lived "to get away with something." He was "agin the government," and whatever brains or influence he possessed was used to turn his comrades against the government. To be sure, he never did anything which, judged by the codes of jurisprudence, would have led to a fine or a jail, but he got down in his lessons and dragged others with him. It seemed with him a parti pris to be a nuisance. Nobody could tell him much, for he felt little respect for his masters. He could see by their standards of living that they were not earning many dollars per year. That showed them up, didn't it? Red-blooded men with broad minds were out in business pulling down real money. John's name got to be a by-word at faculty meetings. Argument, persuasion, and appeals addressed to him brought no response. What screws of discipline were available were put on. The moment finally came when he had to change heart or change schools. For there really are no means of coercion within the academic walls even were it desirable to use them. Flogging has been abandoned. Modern schools do not intend to be jails. There is no armory of punishments on which to draw.

III

The lesson of full, unstinted loyalty, of acceptation of high standards that exact work and obedience, is not an easy

one for any boy. Aside from the fact that all young people (and a fair number of older ones) share a common aversion to tasks and discipline, there are many elements in school life which tend to confuse the individual so that it is some time before he finds himself. For one thing, I may mention the peculiar effect which a crowd of boys produce upon each other. The gregariousness of it all is simply too delightful to be resisted. Never did Willie Jones imagine that the world contained so many wonderful fellows. To his youthful mind the whole thing takes on the aspect of a huge, protracted house party. It depends to a great extent on his mental background—that is, his previous home training-whether or not he can manage to keep his head in this new, dazzling environment. Without habits of obedience already acquired he will be heavily handicapped at school. Too many children to-day have their own way at home, either openly and flagrantly or (which is more common) in such a tactful and circuitous fashion as to save the face of authority. The word "No" seems void of finality. "No" may possibly mean. "No" at six o'clock; but with finesse and diplomacy, it may easily mean "Yes" at seven. This is a poor preparation for a place where obedience (in order that things may run smoothly) must be quickly and cheerfully given. Quickly, because if every requirement made of a boy is to be discussed and argued everything else comes to a standstill and little is accomplished; cheerfully, because nothing is gained if the boy obeys, but obeys sullenly.

Another most discouraging type to assimilate is the boy who accepts the school "with reservations," who arrives, so to speak, with his fingers crossed. Most students are of course more or less "master shy," at least at the beginning; but some there are who persistently refuse to give either their friendship or their confidence. Until the masters can guess just what is the particular brand of salt to put on their tails these shy birds might just as well have stayed in the home nest for any good the school may be doing them. Some are colorless and do no active harm; but elements of danger are there, and many of this sort become militantly disaffected, and get into trouble as a consequence. What goes on within their minds must be a matter for conjecture, since the only revelation of an inner state which they consent to make to the magisterial tribe is "Yes, sir," "No, sir," "I don't know, sir." As natural camoufleurs they surpass the chameleon. Let me be rash and essay to reproduce in my own terminology what I guess to be their attitude, consciously or unconsciously held: "I will keep myself to myself, for (1) all grown-ups are interfering kill-joys, and (2) any teacher is a professional 'trouble-fête.'" Discount all this talk, my son. Masters always pour forth worthy utterances, it being the nature of the beast so to behave. Quicquid id est, etc.

The trouble here is a form of ignorance. The victim of this delusion suffers from lack of brains or imagination to see what school is, what life is, and what he, in particular, is in the world for. His reactions toward the people paid to guide and help him are those of the wild bird toward the well-intentioned human who might offer food or shelter. He doesn't know enough to see that it is not a snare, a threat to his liberty. This state of mind is cured by maturity and experience, but so long as it persists it is dangerous, since it removes its victim beyond the reach of helpful influence. It is the underlying cause of many cases like John's.

Would it be proper to make this suggestion? You are a parent and enjoy the confidence of your son. What you

say he may be willing to believe. Why not tell him something like this? "My son, you are going soon to boardingschool. Now here is the proposition which, I am sure, you are already man enough to understand. I am spending a number of thousands of dollars to put you in the hands of specialists-the masters at the school. These men have my full confidence, else I would not send you to them. A person doesn't pay a doctor to prescribe for him and then, when the doctor isn't looking, pour the medicine down a crack. Anybody who did that would be an idiot. You won't be that kind of idiot with your masters, will you? Don't try to fool them. You only fool yourself. Do as they say, for they know."

Does this sound smug and self-complacent, coming from one who is himself a schoolmaster? I hope not. Nothing was farther from my thoughts than to pat myself on the head or offer bouquets to my confrères. Yet, if it isn't true that the men who run schools know their job- ubinam gentium sumus? And if it is true, the first persons to hear of it should be the schoolboys.

IV

I have tried to show what are some of the reasons for boys like John being expelled from school. And now a word of consolation for John's father and mother.

First, let us not stress too much the "disgrace" he has brought on himself and on the family. He has been wrongheaded, it is true, but we should all help him by believing in the fundamental goodness of his heart. He is now in a chastened frame of mind. There is every reason to believe that in his next school he will succeed. A man is not disgraced in the business world if he falls down on his first job, unless, of course, he has been involved in something shady. And I believe it to be harder at school than elsewhere to come through with flying colors.

Let us have all sympathy for the young, untaught, inexperienced, half-baked phenomenon we call a boy. He is called, on going away from home, suddenly to play a man's game. It is the greatest change, the most abrupt break that comes in

his whole life. And at the same time his very body is changing and growing so fast that he may well exclaim with Antonio: "And I have much ado to know myself." The transition that comes later, between school and college, is in general not to be compared in its upsetting effects to this change from home to school life.

If

Apart from the matter of rules and lessons, moreover, school is not always a bed of roses. I am speaking now of the social, of the human side. Who can tell of all the annoyances, big and little, that for the time being upset, disgruntle, or sour the best-intentioned? A work day begins for Willie Jones. He is roused from slumber by a wet towel hurled with deadly accuracy against his unprotected face. This is effective; but I know of pleasanter awakenings, and so does Willie. He gets up to find that his tooth-brush has disappeared from his cubby-hole in the bath-room. Oh, the mystery of it-these pieces of property which at school take wings unto themselves and disappear! Yesterday it was his tennis racket. To-day it is a toothbrush. Who would covet a tooth-brush? Never mind, he can get another. Then the cold shower. He is not very keen on cold showers, but the rules say he must take one. Breakfast follows. he were at home, he could have coffee, or, in fact, anything else he wanted. There may be some cocoa left, if the big boys at the end of the table will condescend to pour him some. He prefers cream, of course, on his cereal. He helps himself to thin milk. Ah, what is this object in his dish? He pokes it aside and nudges his neighbor, who exclaims gleefully to the rest of the table, "Hi, look! Jonah's got a prize!" Some boys keep collections of these "prizes." I know of one exhibit that bordered on the marvelous; it consisted of a button, an insect, a safety-pin, a hairpin, a specimen of quartz-que sais-je encore!— Clang! Clang! Breakfast is over, and Willie jumps for chapel. He will spend the balance of the day in jumping-from class to class, thence to dinner, to play, to study, to supper, to study again, and, lastly, jumping to bed, which the maid may have forgotten to make or which possibly some loving classmate has "pied" for him. Truly, it may be said that home was never like this. Pinpricks of course. Yes, but there are other trials. Perhaps Mr. Q, the Latin master, was on the rampage that day, and, considering that Willie's the ories concerning sequence of tenses savored of superficiality, roundly accused him with unnecessary sarcasm of being a lazy loafer. And that happened to be the very day that he had studied his lesson! These things hurt sometimes.

Then who can ever guess at the real heart-burnings within a boy's breast? "I can never be a good athlete! I can never make the school letter-never. never!" Or again, "Why couldn't Brown and Smith have let me kick football with them this afternoon? They're