ich the younger children escape.

At any rate, "Dodd" was a wayward boy from the first, a typical
preacher's son. He was rebellious, belligerent, and naturally
deceitful. This last trait, matched with a vivid imagination, made him
a great liar as soon as he grew old enough to use the two faculties at
the same time. In this regard, however, he was not so wonderfully
unlike a great many other people. He had bursts of great generosity;
was brave and daring even to foolhardiness; had friends, and would
stand by them till death, if need be, when the good impulse was on; or
perhaps betray them in their greatest extremity if the opposite passion
got control at a critical moment.

Intellectually he was bright, even to keenness; physically he was lazy
and a shirk; morally his status is best represented by the algebraic
sign 0-0; spiritually he was at times profoundly reverent and aspiring,
or again, outrageously blasphemous, and reckless almost to desperation.

This is a partial catalogue of the characteristics with which "Dodd"
was originally endowed. The character that was evolved from these, by
means of the education that fell to the lot of this individual, is the
business of these pages. To take such timber as is furnished in this
specimen, and fashion from it a temple of the Lord, is a task that
might puzzle angels. To make a decent child, a boy, or man out of
"Dodd" Weaver, was the thing that worried everybody that had anything
to do with him, and may, some day, perhaps, prove too hard a task for
that individual himself. Yet his case is no uncommon one in many of
its phases, for every day sees thousands quite like it in the school
houses of America, as elsewhere.

And the question is, what are we to do about it?

Not to detail carefully all the events pertaining to the home life of
"Dodd" up to the time he was six years old, it is enough to say that
after the time he was able to creep, he lived much in the street. He
was usually in mischief when not asleep, and his overworn mother and
somewhat shiftless and careless father were so taken up with the other
children and with family and pastoral cares, that "Dodd" grew up by
himself, as so many children do; more is the pity.

A man seldom gets so many calves, or colts, or pigs that he cannot take
good care of them, every one; but for his own children--well, it need
not be said what, the cases are so frequent that everybody knows all
about them.

"Dodd" was a y