nt and might have
helped him to self-mastery, if not to the mastery of algebra. He
yearned for the emotion of elation, and I was trying to perpetuate
his emotion of subjection. If Methuselah had been a schoolmaster he
might have attained proficiency by the time he reached the age of
nine hundred and sixty-eight years if he had been a close observer, a
close student of methods, and had been willing and able to profit by
his own mistakes.

Friend Virgil says something like this: "They can because they think
they can," and I heartily concur. Some one tells us that Kent in
"King Lear" got his name from the Anglo-Saxon word can and he was
aptly named, in view of Virgil's statement. But can I cause my boys
and girls to think they can? Why, most assuredly, if I am any sort
of teacher. Otherwise I ought to be dealing with inanimate things
and leave the school work to those who can. I certainly can help
young folks to shift from the emotion of subjection to the emotion of
elation. I had a puppy that we called Nick and thought I'd like to
teach him to go up-stairs. When he came to the first stair he cried
and cowered and said, in his language, that it was too high, and that
he could never do it. So, in a soothing way, I quoted Virgil at him
and placed his front paws upon the step. Then he laughed a bit and
said the step wasn't as high as the moon, after all. So I patted him
and called him a brave little chap, and he gained the higher level.
Then we rested for a bit and spent the time in being glad, for Nick
and I had read our "Pollyanna" and had learned the trick of gladness.
Well, before the day was over that puppy could go up the stairs
without the aid of a teacher, and a gladder dog never was. If I had
taken as much pains with that boy as I did with Nick I'd feel far
more comfortable right now, and the boy would have felt more
comfortable both then and after. O schoolmastering! How many sins
are committed in thy name! I succeeded with the puppy, but failed
with the boy. A boy does not go to school to study algebra, but
studies algebra to learn mastery. I know this now, but did not know
it then, more's the pity!

I had another valuable lesson in this phase of pedagogy the day my
friend Vance and I sojourned to Indianapolis to call upon Mr.
Benjamin Harrison, who had somewhat recently completed his term as
President of the United States. We were fortified with ample and
satisfactory credentials and had a ve