nly supply things for them to aim at, they will go high and far.
Every time I see that hen I am the subject of diverse emotions. I
feel half angry at myself for being so dull that a mere hen can teach
me, and then I feel glad that she taught me such a useful lesson.
Before learning this lesson I seemed to expect my pupils to take all
their school work on faith, to do it because I told them it would be
good for them. But I now see there is a better way. In my boyhood
days we always went to the county fair, and that was one of the real
events of the year. On the morning of that day there was no occasion
for any one to call me a second time. I was out of bed in a trice,
at the first call, and soon had my chores done ready for the start.
I had money in my pocket, too, for visions of pink lemonade, peanuts,
ice-cream, candy, and colored balloons had lured me on from
achievement to achievement through the preceding weeks, and thrift
had claimed me for its own. So I had money because, all the while, I
had been aiming at the county fair.

We used to lay out corn ground with a single-shovel plough, and took
great pride in marking out a straight furrow across the field. There
was one man in the neighborhood who was the champion in this art, and
I wondered how he could do it. So I set about watching him to try to
learn his art. At either end of the field he had a stake several
feet high, bedecked at the top with a white rag. This he planted at
the proper distance from the preceding furrow and, in going across
the field, kept his gaze fixed upon the white rag that topped the
stake. With a firm grip upon the plough, and his eyes riveted upon
the white signal, he moved across the field in a perfectly straight
line. I had thought it the right way to keep my eyes fixed upon the
plough until his practice showed me that I had pursued the wrong
course. My furrows were crooked and zigzag, while his were straight.
I now see that his skill came from his having something to aim at.

I am trying to profit by the example of that farmer in my teaching.
I'm all the while in quest of stakes and white rags to place at the
other side of the field to direct the progress of the lads and lasses
in a straight course, and raise their eyes away from the plough that
they happen to be using. I want to keep them thinking of things that
are bigger and further along than grades. The grades will come as a
matter of course, if they can keep their