upon. They live in society as in a solitude; and, however their brain works, their pulse beats neither faster nor slower for the common accidents of life. There is, therefore, something cold and repulsive in the air that is about them-like that of marble. THE SCHOOL THAT BUILT A TOWN WALTER HINES PAGE The school, you understand, is not a mere workshop, nor is it a place to learn a trade. It does not make carpenters of boys nor cooks of girls. Nor does it make Greek scholars or poets or musicians of them. But it comes as near to making them the one thing as the other. It comes as near to making cooks and chemists and farmers as it comes to making scholars. For those high schools and colleges that teach only books and train only the mind and not the hands-they do not really make scholars as we used to suppose that they did. The utmost that they do is to teach the boy the rudiments of scholarship and the method of work by which, if he persist, he may some day become a scholar. This school does the same thing in scholarship, but it does also a corresponding thing in hand-work. The old kind of teachers simply fooled themselves and misled their pupils and the community when they assumed that their courses in literature and the like made scholars. And what a wasteful self-deception it was! In Northwood one boy may, if he persist, become a scholar; another a wheelwright; another a farmer; and so on. And it is found that by doing hand-work also the pupils do better head-work as well. It simply opens to all the intellectual life and the way to useful occupations at the same time. There are two things that they are all taught in that school. They are taught to write a plain hand-writing, and they look upon a bad hand-writing as they look upon neglect of dress-it is the mark of a sloven. And they are all taught to write the English language in short clear sentences, so that anybody can understand what they write. Now let us see how the people of Northwood themselves look at education. The simplicity of the work of the school is what first strikes you. And you find this same simplicity in the people's conception of education. They do not call it education. They call it training. They speak of a boy as trained in Greek or in metalwork; and of a girl as trained to sing or to draw or to cook. This frank and simple way of looking at schoolwork has changed their whole conception of education. It has brushed away a vast amount of nonsense, and cleaned the mind of a great accumulation of cobwebs. For one thing nobody in that town makes addresses on the need of education. A man would as soon think of making an address on the necessity of the atmosphere, or of fuel, or of bread. And you never hear anything about elaborate systems of education, or the co-ordination of studies, or any such things. They look at the trades and the professions in the same simple way. They say that one man has been trained as a physician, that another has been trained as a farmer, that another has been trained as a preacher, that another has been trained as a builder, another as a machinist; and they lay less stress on what a man chooses to do than upon the way in which he does it. It is respectable to have any calling you like, provided you are trained to it; but it isn't respectable to have any calling unless you are trained. The town for this reason sort of sets and classes is not divided into the same that you find in most towns. There is not one class that puts on airs and regards itself as the Educated Class, to which all other classes are supposed to pay deference. Of course some men read more books than others; some are more cultivated than others, and there are social divisions of the people there as there are the world over. But when everybody knows how to do something well, a man who does one thing well enjoys no particular distinction. A jackleg lawyer cannot compel any great respect from a really scientific horse-shoer. The mastery of anything is a wonderful elevator of character and judgment. Next to their simple and straightforward way of looking at education, what strikes you most about the people of Northwood is their universal interest in the school. Apparently everybody has now been trained there. But when one man thinks of the school he thinks of the library; another of the laboratory; another of the workshop; another of music; another of chemistry. Books are only one kind of tools, and the other kinds are coordinate with them. And everybody goes to the great school-house more or less often. The singers give their concerts there. I was there once when a young man gave a performance of a musical composition of his own, and at another time when a man showed the first bicycle that had been made in the town. In three months he had a bicycle factory. Everybody is linked to the school by his work, and there is, therefore, no school party and no anti-school party in local politics. There is no social set that looks down on the school. The school built the town, and it is the town. It has grown beyond all social distinctions and religious differences and differences of personal fort une. It has united the people, and they look upon it as the training place in which everybody is interested alike, just as they look upon the court-house as the place where every man is on the same footing. The fathers of our liberties made the court-house every man's house. The equally important truth is that we must, in the same way, make the public school-house everybody's house before we can establish the right notion of education. THE CLOUD PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers, I bear light shades for the leaves when laid From my wings are shaken the dews that waken When rocked to rest on their mother's breast, I wield the flail of the lashing hail, And whiten the green plains under, |