al.

Again, if children must have teeth filled and pulled, eyes tested and
fitted for glasses, adenoids and enlarged tonsils removed, surely the
school environment offers the least affrighting spot for the tragedy.
Thence goblins long ago fled. There courage, real or feigned, is
brought to the surface by the anxious, critical, competitive interest
of one's peers.

[Illustration: A SOUTH IRELAND ARGUMENT FOR "DOING THINGS"]

The economic defense of these remedies is many-sided. An English
drummer once instructed me during a railroad journey from southern to
northern Ireland. As we entered the fertile fields of Lord Dunraven's
estate near Athlone, I expressed sympathy for other countries
impoverished of soil, of wealth, and of thrift. My instructor replied:
"It would pay the government to bring them all to this land free once a
year, just to show them what they are missing." That his idea of an
investment is sound has been proved by railroads and land companies and
even by states, who give away excursions to entice settlers and buyers.
Ambition at almost any cost is cheaper than indifference to
opportunity. It would be cheaper for our American taxpayer to send
school children to city and country than to pay the penalty for having
a large number of citizens with narrow interests, unconscious of the
struggles and joys of their co-citizens. Free meals, free books, free
rides, free eyeglasses, are cheaper than free instruction for the
second, third, and sixth terms in studies not passed because of
physical defects,--infinitely cheaper than jails and almshouses, truant
officers and courthouses.

The demoralizing results of giving "something for nothing" did not
follow free schooling or free text-books. Perhaps they would not follow
the free remedies that we are asked to copy from Europe. In fact, the
word "free" is the wrong word. These remedies rather require
cooeperation of parent with parent. It has demoralized nobody because
the streets are cleaned by all of us, country roads made by the
township, police paid for by taxes and not by volunteer subscription.

The man whose children do not need glasses or nourishment or operation
for adenoids would find it cheaper to pay for European remedies than
for the useless schooling of boys unable to get along in school because
of removable defects. An unruly, uninterested boy sitting beside your
boy in public school, a pampered, overfed, undisciplined child sitting
beside yo