After a lapse of two
or three minutes the child gave vent to uncontrollable laughter which
resounded throughout the house. When, at length, the father asked him
what he was laughing at, he could scarcely control his laughter to
answer. But at last he managed to reply, "I was laughing to see how
funny it was when there wasn't anything."

=The child's imagination.=--The philosopher could well afford to give
the half of his kingdom to be able to see what that child saw. Out of
the gossamer threads of fancy his imagination had wrought a pattern that
transcends philosophy. The picture that his imagination painted was so
extraordinary that it produced a paroxysm of laughter. That picture is
far beyond the ken of the philosopher and he will look for it in vain
because he has grown away from the child in power of imagination and has
lost the child's sense of humor. What that child saw will never be
known, for the pictures of fancy are ephemeral, but certain it is that
the power of imagination and a keen sense of humor are two of the
attributes of childhood whose loss should give both his father and his
teacher poignant regrets.

=The little girl and her elders.=--The little girl upon the beach
invests the tiny wavelets not only with life and intelligence, but,
also, with a sense of humor as she eludes their sly advances to engulf
her feet. She laughs in glee at their watery pranks as they twinkle and
sparkle, now advancing, now receding, trying to take her by surprise.
She chides them for their duplicity, then extols them for their prankish
playfulness. She makes them her companions, and they laugh in chorus. If
she knows of sprites, and gnomes, and nymphs, and fairies, she finds
them all dancing in glee at her feet in the form of rippling wavelets.
And while she is thus refreshing her spirit from the brimming cup of
life, her matter-of-fact elders are reproaching her for getting her
dress soiled. To the parent or the teacher who lacks a sense of humor
and cannot enter into the little girl's conception of life, a dress is
of more importance than the spirit of the child. But the teacher or the
parent who has the "aptitude for vicariousness" that enables her to
enter into the child's life in her fun and frolic with the playful
water, and can feel the presence of the nymphs among the wavelets,--such
a teacher or parent will adorn the school or the home and endear herself
to the child.

=Lincoln's humor.=--The life of Abraham L