ng the laws of the state. Moral
suasion had failed; but the strong arm of the law prevailed, and they
soon acknowledged that the new instruction was the best they had ever
had in the district.

Much time had hitherto been worse than wasted by cramming the minds
with the jaw-breaking names of unimportant rivers, mountains,
descriptions of all the frog ponds in Ethiopia, and other useless
trash in the so-called geographies; in memorizing the obsolete
rules of duodecimals, compound proportion, etc., in the arithmetic;
long-winded, unpractical rules for grammar, etc.

I issued a circular eliminating this trash from the course of study,
substituting the practical short cuts of modern business principles,
and in this, also, I met with opposition from the "moss-backs," who
insisted that what they had learned in the year one was good enough
for their children; they wanted no "new-fangled" notions.

They reminded me of the way-back-hard-shell preacher whose hymn book
had been stuffed with profane poems by some lewd fellows of the baser
sort. He always opened at random and, trusting to divine guidance,
read the first hymn that presented itself; he commenced: "We will sing
together the one thousand three hundred and forty 'leventh hime."

"'All around the cobbler's bench the monkey chased the
weasel--'"

He was amazed; the congregation was dumbfounded. Taking off his
spectacles, wiping them carefully, he put them on his nose again,
gazed at the book in consternation: "Well," said he, "I never seed
that hime in this yer hime-book before; but the Lord put it in, and
we'll sing it whir or no," and proceeded:

"'The preacher kissed the cobbler's wife, pop goes the weasel.'"

As I have said before, it requires a surgical operation to get
progressive ideas through our thick heads; but the knife was used
freely by me, and I had the satisfaction as well as the odium of
infusing much young blood into the worn out educational body during my
two years' service as school superintendent in this town.

A few of us wasted our money in building a new church, dedicated to
the teaching of the advanced thoughts of the liberal faith; but the
people were joined to their idols, and it is now deserted, though the
"little leaven has largely leavened the whole lump" of the ancient
hell fire theology.

It is very, very hard to endure the slings and arrows of the jealous
and envious for whose good you are toiling; to be slandered and
revil