. In the grocery he has comfort because
he can have a share in the small talk and gossip that obtain there. His
companions speak his language and he feels himself to be one of them.
Were they, by any chance, to begin a discussion of history he would feel
himself ostracized and would leave them to their own devices. If they
would retain him as a companion they must keep within his range of
interests and thinking. To go outside his small circle is to offer an
affront. He cannot speak the language of history, or science, or art,
and so experiences a feeling of discomfort in any presence where this
language is spoken.

=History.=--In this concrete illustration we find ample justification
for the teaching of history in the schools. History is one of the large
strands in the web of life, and to neglect this study is to deny to the
pupil one of the elements of freedom. It is not easy to conceive a
situation that lacks the element of history in one or another of its
phases or manifestations. Whether the pupil travels, or embarks upon a
professional life, or associates, in any relation, with cultivated
people, he will find a knowledge of history not only a convenience but a
real necessity, if he is to escape the feeling of thralldom. The
utilitarian value of school studies has been much exploited, and that
phase is not to be neglected; but we need to go further in estimating
the influence of any study. We need to inquire not only how a knowledge
of the study will aid the pupil in his work, but also how it will
contribute to his life.

=Restricted concepts.=--We lustily proclaim our country to be the land
of the free, but our notion of freedom is much restricted. In the
popular conception freedom has reference to the body. A man can walk the
streets without molestation and can vote his sentiments at the polls,
but he may not be able to take a day's ride about Concord and Lexington
with any appreciable sense of freedom. He may walk about the
Congressional Library and feel himself in prison. He may desert a
lecture for the saloon in the interests of his own comfort. He may find
the livery stable more congenial than the drawing-room. His body may
experience a sort of freedom while his mind and spirit are held fast in
the shackles of ignorance. A Burroughs, an Edison, a Thoreau, might have
his feet in the stocks and still have more freedom than such a man as
this. He walks about amid historic scenes with his spiritual eyes
blindfol