ne out of business, will set him adrift without any means of
support. The coachman hates the automobile, the hand-worker hates the
machine, the orthodox preacher hates the heretic, the politician hates
the reformer, the doctor hates the bacteriologist and the chemist, the
old woman hates the new--all these in varying proportions according to
the degree in which the iconoclast attacks laziness or livelihood.
Finally we all hate any and all new ideas because they seem to imply
that we, who have held the old ideas, have been ignorant and stupid in
so doing. A new idea is an attack upon the vanity of everyone who has
been a partisan of the old ideas and their established order.

Jennings, thoroughly human in thus closing his mind to all ideas about
his profession, was equally human in that he had his mind and his
senses opened full width to ideas on how to make more money. If there
had been money in new ideas about teaching singing Jennings would not
have closed to them. But the money was all in studying and learning
how better to handle the women--they were all women who came to him for
instruction. His common sense warned him at the outset that the
obviously easygoing teacher would not long retain his pupils. On the
other hand, he saw that the really severe teacher would not retain his
pupils, either.

Who were these pupils? In the first place, they were all ignorant, for
people who already know do not go to school to learn. They had the
universal delusion that a teacher can teach. The fact is that a
teacher is a well. Some wells are full, others almost dry. Some are
so arranged that water cannot be got from them, others have attachments
of various kinds, making the drawing of water more or less easy. But
not from the best well with the latest pump attachment can one get a
drink unless one does the drinking oneself. A teacher is rarely a
well. The pupil must not only draw the water, but also drink it, must
not only teach himself, but also learn what he teaches. Now we are all
of us born thirsty for knowledge, and nearly all of us are born both
capable of teaching ourselves and capable of learning what we teach,
that is, of retaining and assimilating it. There is such a thing as
artificially feeding the mind, just as there is such a thing as
artificially feeding the body; but while everyone knows that artificial
feeding of the body is a success only to a limited extent and for a
brief period, everyone beli