l commend himself to
her favor, if not admiration. They both know full well that if the pupil
emerges from the school period lacking this quality he will be a helpless
weight upon society and a burden to himself and his family, no matter what
his mental attainments. He will be but a child in his ability to cope with
situations that confront him and cannot perform the functions of manhood.
Though a man in physical stature he will shrink from the ordinary duties
that fall to the lot of a man and, like a child, will cling to the hand of
his mother for guidance. In all situations he will show himself a
spiritual coward.

The problem is easy of statement but by no means so easy of solution. At
the age of six the boy takes his place at a desk in the school. Twenty
years hence, let us say, he will be a railway engineer. As such he must
drive his engine at forty miles an hour through blinding storm, or in inky
darkness, or through menacing and stifling tunnels, or over dizzy bridges,
or around the curve on the edge of the precipice--and do this with no
shadow of fear or hint of trepidation, but always with a keen eye, a cool
head, and a steady hand. In his keeping are the lives of many persons, and
any wavering or unsteadiness, on his part, may lead to speedy disaster.
Somewhere along the way between the ages of six and twenty-six he must
gain the ability to assume a heavy responsibility, and it would seem a
travesty upon rational education to force him to acquire this ability
wholly during the eight years succeeding his school experience. If, at the
age of eighteen, he does not exhibit some ability in this respect, the
school may justly be charged with dereliction.

Or, twenty years hence, this boy may be a physician. If so, he will find a
weeping mother clinging to him and imploring him to save her baby. He will
see a strong man broken with sobs and offering him a fortune to save his
wife from being engulfed in the dark shadows. His ears will be assailed
with delirious ravings that call to him for relief and life. He will be
importuned by the grief-crushed child not to let her mother go. He will be
called upon to grapple with plague, with pestilence, with death itself.
Unless he can give succor, hope departs and darkness enshrouds and
blights. He alone can hold disease and death at bay and bid darkness give
place to light and cause sorrow to vanish before the smile of joy. He
stands alone at the portal to do battle against th