s Edison,
Burbank, Goethals, Clara Barton, and Frances Willard. My neighbor
John says the most humiliating experience that a man can have is to
wear a pair of his son's trousers that have been cut down to fit him.
I might have some such feelings as that in the presence of pupils who
had made such notable achievements. But, should they tell me that
these achievements were due, in some good measure, to the work of the
school, well, that would be glory enough for me. One of my boys was
telling me only yesterday of a bit of work he did the day before in
the way of revealing a process in chemistry to a firm of jewellers
and hearing the superintendent say that that bit of information is
worth a thousand dollars to the establishment. If he keeps on doing
things like that I shall grade his behavior one of these days.

I suppose Mr. Goethals must have learned the multiplication table,
once upon a time, and used it, too, in constructing the Panama Canal.
He certainly made it effective, and the activities of that class in
arithmetic certainly did function. I tell my boys that this
multiplication table is the same one that Mr. Goethals has been using
all the while, and then ask them what use they expect to make of it.
One man made use of this table in tunnelling the Alps, and another in
building the Brooklyn Bridge, and it seems to be good for many more
bridges and tunnels if I can only organize the activities aright.

I was standing in front of St. Marks, there in Venice, one morning,
regaling myself with the beauty of the festive scene, and talking to
a friend, when four of my boys came strolling up, and they seemed
more my boys than ever before. What a reunion we had! The folks all
about us didn't understand it in the least, but we did, and that was
enough. I forgot my coarse clothes, my well-nigh empty pockets, my
inability to buy the many beautiful things that kept tantalizing me,
and the meagreness of my salary. These were all swallowed up in the
joy of seeing the boys, and I wanted to proclaim to all and sundry;
"These are my jewels." Those boys are noble, clean, upstanding
fellows, and no schoolmaster could help being proud of them. Such as
they nestle down in the heart of the schoolmaster and cause him to
know that life is good.

I was sorry not to be able to share my joy with my friend who stood
near, but that could not be. I might have used words to him, but he
would not have understood. He had never year