Why, it isn't allowed in public schools. The days have gone by
when anybody is supposed to be smart enough to teach children to drawl
through the alphabet. We have the best of trained teachers even for that
work, why should the Sunday-school not need them even more, infinitely
more?

"Now that reminds me of a difficulty which is present even when the
teachers are all there. They are not the right sort of teachers, many of
them; they do just such work as would not be tolerated on week-days by
any board of trustees; they whisper to each other; sometimes about the
music which they are practicing, sometimes about the party that is to
come off to-morrow. These are the exceptions, I know; but there are such
exceptions in our school, and human nature is much the same the world
over. I presume they are everywhere; at any rate, we have to deal just
now with _our_ school, and I know they are there.

"Dr. Dennis, there are at least seven of those twenty teachers in my
room who ought to be in good, solid, earnest working Bible classes,
getting faith for help every Sunday; getting ideas that shall make them
of use in the world, instead of frittering their time away on what at
best, seems to them but a very mechanical work, teaching some little
children to repeat the Twenty-third Psalm, or to say the Lord's Prayer.
The very fact that they do not recognize the dignity of such work unfits
them for it; and the fact that they have no lesson to teach, I mean no
lesson which they have to prepare carefully, excuses them from any
attempt at Bible study."

"I believe you would make an excellent lecturer, if you were to take the
field on a subject that interested you." This was Dr. Dennis' most
irrelevant answer to Marion's eager words. She was not to be thrown off
her theme.

"Then I shall try it, perhaps, on this very subject, for it certainly
interests me wonderfully. Indeed, I am practicing now, with you for my
audience."

"Don't think I am not interested, for I am," he said, returning to
gravity and anxiety on the instant. "I see the subject to be full of
perplexities; the class has seemed a bewildering one; the idea of
putting the babies away alone in their own room fitted up for the
purpose, and feeding them with milk until they are old enough to bear
strong meat, has been something of a hobby with me. I like it
theoretically, but I confess to you that I have never been able to enjoy
its practical workings in our school."

"I do