here, and it is wonderful that it has prospered as
well as it has. But I shall make everything right, for I have learned
a great deal. I want to go to some place where I can put into practice
all I now know, and so I must look for a high position when I get
through here.
No one here considers Jon Hatlen as clever as he is thought to be
at home with us; but as he has a gard of his own, this does not concern
any one but himself.
Many who go from here get very high salaries, but they are paid so
well because ours is the best agricultural school in the country. Some
say the one in the next district is better, but this is by no means
true. There are two words here: one is called Theory, the other
Practice. It is well to have them both, for one is nothing without the
other; but still the latter is the better. Now the former means, to
understand the cause and principle of a work; the latter, to be able to
perform it: as, for instance, in regard to a quagmire; for there are
many who know what should be done with a quagmire and yet do it wrong,
because they are not able to put their knowledge into practice. Many,
on the other hand, are skillful in doing, but do not know what ought to
be done; and thus they too may make bad work of it, for there are many
kinds of quagmires. But we at the agricultural school learn both
words. The superintendent is so skillful that he has no equal. At the
last agricultural meeting for the whole country, he led in two
discussions, and the other superintendents had only one each, and upon
careful consideration his statements were always sustained. At the
meeting before the last, where he was not present, there was nothing
but idle talk. The lieutenant who teaches surveying was chosen by the
superintendent only on account of his ability, for the other schools
have no lieutenant. He is so clever that he was the best scholar at
the military academy.
The school-master asks if I go to church. Yes, of course I go to
church, for now the priest has an assistant, and his sermons fill all
the congregation with terror, and it is a pleasure to listen to him.
He belongs to the new religion they have in Christiania, and people
think him too strict, but it is good for them that he is so.
Just now we are studying much history, which we have not done
before, and it is curious to observe all that has happened in the
world, but especially in our country, for we have always won, except