ersuade the boy that,
with any skill he might attain, he could never fabricate anything so
wonderful. This knowledge must, in the nature of things, beget a feeling
of respect, and thereafter, whenever the boy sees a bird, he will
experience a resurgence of this feeling.

Some one has said, "Everything is infinitely high that we can't see over,"
and because the boy comes to know that he cannot duplicate the bird's wing
it becomes infinitely high or great to him and so wins his respect. To the
boy who has been taught to think seriously, the mode of locomotion of a
worm or a snake is likewise a marvel, and he observes it with awe. The boy
who treads a worm underfoot gives indisputable evidence that he has never
given serious thought to its mode of travel. Had he done so, he would
never commit so ruthless an act. The worm would have won his respect by
its ability to do a thing at which he himself would certainly fail. He
sees the worm scaling the trunk of a tree with the greatest ease, but when
he essays the same task he finds it a very difficult matter. So he tips
his cap figuratively to the worm and, in boyish fashion, admits that it is
the better man of the two. And never again, unless inadvertently, will he
crush a worm. Even a snake he will kill only in what he conceives to be
self-defense.

An American was making his first trip to Europe. On the way between the
Azores and Gibraltar the ship encountered a storm of great violence. For
an hour or more the traveler stood on the forward deck, watching the
titanic struggle, feeling the ship tremble at each impact of the waves,
and hearing the roar that only a storm at sea can produce. Upon returning
to his friends he said, "Never again can I speak flippantly of the ocean;
never again can I use the expression, 'crossing the pond.' The sea is too
vast and too sublime for that." He had achieved reverence. Many a child in
school can spell the name of the ocean and give a book definition rather
glibly, who, nevertheless, has not the faintest conception of what an
ocean really is. The tragedy of the matter is that the teacher gives him a
perfect mark for his parrot-like definition and spelling and leaves him in
crass ignorance of the reality. The boy deals only with the husk and
misses the kernel. When he can spell and define, the work has only just
begun, and not until the teacher has contrived to have him emotionalize
the ocean will he enter into the heart of its greatness, and