tudying. The difference between
playing it well and playing it ill is the difference between light and
darkness, between joy and desolation, between life and death."

Even at that early and immature time of his life, Willard Glazier had
thought much upon this subject--examples of the disjointed successes of
all unplanned and unmethodical careers having been brought too
frequently into close proximity to his own door, not to have made an
impression upon his inquiring mind.

Hence, at the very threshold of his life as a teacher, he resolved to
have plan and purpose clearly defined in everything he did.

CHAPTER X.

THE SOLDIER SCHOOL-MASTER.

From boy to man.--The Lyceum debate.--Willard speaks for the
slave.--Entrance to the State Normal School.--Reverses.--Fighting
the world again.--Assistance from fair hands.--Willard meets
Allen Barringer.--John Brown, and what Willard thought of
him.--Principles above bribe.--Examination.--A sleepless
night.--Haunted by the "ghost of possible defeat."--"Here is your
certificate."--The school at Schodack Centre.--At the "Normal"
again.--The Edwards School.--Thirty pupils at two dollars
each.--The "soldier school-master."--Teaches at East
Schodack.--The runaway ride.--Good-by mittens, robes and
whip!--Close of school at East Schodack.

Although a very boy in years, young Glazier felt himself already
stepping upon the boundary line of manhood and, luckily for his future
welfare, comprehended the manifold dangers and mentally realized the
responsibilities which attend that phase of human existence.

Upon the fifth of February, 1857, the dull routine of a teacher's duty
was varied by a visit made to Edwards by Willard's uncle Joseph, and his
sisters; and, after closing his school, the former went home with his
visitors, and thence to a Lyceum which had been established in the
Herrick School District, where a debate was in progress as to the
relative importance, in a humanitarian point of view, of the bondage of
the African race in the Southern States, or the decadence of the
Indian tribes under the encroachments of the Whites. The "question"
assumed that the Aborigines were most worthy of sympathy; and young
Glazier, being invited to participate in the discussion, accepted, and
spoke upon the negative side of the question.

[Illustration: Gouverneur Wesleyan Seminary.]

He little dreamed upon that winter's night, when, in the