e demons of devastation
and desolation. And, if he fails, the plaints of grief will penetrate the
innermost chambers of his soul. He must not fail. So he toils on through
the long night watches, disdaining food and rest, that the breaking day
may bring in gladness and crown the arts of healing. And the school that
does not share in the glory of such achievement misses a noble
opportunity.

Again, twenty years hence, the little girl who now sits at her desk,
crowned with golden ringlets, will be a wife and mother, and the mistress
of a well-conditioned home. She is a composite of Mary and Martha and in
her kingdom reigns supreme and benign. In her home there is no hint of
"raw haste, half-sister to delay," for long since she acquired the habit
of serene mastery. She meets her manifold responsibilities with a smile
and sings her way through them all. If clouds arise, she banishes them
with the magic of her poise and amiability. She can say with Napoleon, "I
do not permit myself to become a victim of circumstances; I make
circumstances." Back in the school she learned order, system, method, and
acquired the sense of responsibility. At first the teacher's desk was her
special care, and by easy gradations the scope of her activities was
widened until she came to feel responsible for the appearance of the
entire schoolroom. Now in her womanhood she is a delight to her husband,
her children, her guests, and her neighbors. Emergencies neither daunt her
nor render her timorous, but, serene and masterful, she meets the new
situation as a welcome novelty, and, with supreme amiability, accepts it
as a friendly challenge to her resourcefulness. She needs not to apologize
or explain, for difficulties disappear at her approach because, in the
school, responsibility was one of the major goals of her training.

Or, again, two decades hence this child may have attained to a position in
the world of affairs where good taste, judgment, perseverance,
self-control, graciousness, and tact are accounted assets of value. But
these qualities, gained through experience, are as much a part of herself
as her hands. A thousand times in the past has the responsibility been
laid upon her of making selections touching shapes, colors, materials, or
types, till now her judgment is regarded as final. Her self-control has
become proverbial, but it is not the miracle that it seems, for it has
become grooved into a habit by much experience. She met all these