one time to punish a boy with a fair degree of severity (may the Lord forgive me), and now. I know that in so doing I was guilty of a grave error. What I interpreted as misconduct was but a straining at his leash in an effort to extricate himself from the incubus of the negative self-feeling. He was, and probably is, a dull fellow and realized that he could not cope with the other boys in the school studies, and so was but trying to win some notice in other fields of activity. To him notoriety was preferable to obscurity. If I had only been wise I would have turned his inclination to good account 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 very fortunate introduction; but for all that we were inclined to walk softly into the presence of greatness, and had a somewhat acute attack of negative self-feeling. However, after due exchange of civilities, we succeeded somehow in preferring the request that had brought us into his presence, and Mr. Harrison's reply served to reassure us. Said he: "Oh, no, boys, I couldn't do that; last year I promised Bok to write some articles for his journal, and I didn't have any fun all summer." His two words, "boys" and "fun," were the magic ones that caused the tension to relax and generated the emotion of elation. We then sat back in our chairs and, possibly, crossed our legs—I can't be certain as to that. At any rate, in a single sentence this man had made us his co-ordinates and caused the negative self-feeling to vanish. Then for a good half-hour he talked in a familiar way about great affairs, and in a style that charmed. He told us of a call he had the day before from David Starr. Jordan, who came to report his experience as a member of the commission that had been appointed to adjudicate the controversy between the United States and England touching seal-fishing in the Behring Sea. It may be recalled that this commission consisted of two Americans, two Englishmen, and King Oscar of Sweden. Mr. Harrison told us quite frankly that he felt a mistake had been made in making up the commission, for, with two Americans and two Englishmen on the commission, the sole arbiter in reality was King Oscar, since the other four were reduced to the plane of mere advocates; but, had there been three Americans and two Englishmen, or two Americans and three Englishmen, the function of all would have been clearly judicial. Suffice it to say that this great man made us forget our emotion of subjection, and so made us feel that he would have been a great teacher, just as he was a great statesman. I shall always be grateful for the lesson he taught me and, besides, I am glad that the college chap came in and gave me that psychological massage.

CHAPTER V

BALKING

When I write my book on farm pedagogy I shall certainly make large use of the horse in illustrating the fundamental principles, for he is a noble animal and altogether worthy of the fullest recognition. We often use the expression "horse-sense" somewhat flippantly, but I have often seen a driver who would have been a more useful member of society if he had had as much sense as the horses he was driving. If I were making a catalogue of the "lower animals" I'd certainly include the man who abuses a horse. Why, the celebrated German trick-horse, Hans, had even the psychologists baffled for a long time, but finally he taught them a big chapter in psychology. They finally discovered that his marvellous tricks were accomplished through the power of close observation. Facial expression, twitching of a muscle, movements of the head, these were the things he watched for as his cue in answering questions by indicating the right card. There was a teacher in our school once who wore old-fashioned spectacles. When he wanted us to answer a question in a certain way he unconsciously looked over his spectacles; but when he wanted a different answer he raised his spectacles to his forehead. So we ranked high in our daily grades, but met our Waterloo when the examination came around. That teacher, of course, had never heard of the horse Hans, and so was not aware that in the process of watching his movements we were merely proving that we had horse-sense. He probably attributed our ready answers to the superiority of his teaching, not realizing that our minds were concentrated upon the subject of spectacles.

Of course, a horse balks now and then, and so does a boy. I did a bit of balking myself as a boy, and I am not quite certain that I have even yet become immune. Doctor James Wallace (whose edition of "Anabasis" some of us have read, halting and stumbling along through the parasangs) with three companions went out to Marathon one day from Athens. The distance, as I recall it, is about twenty-two miles, and they left early in the morning, so as to return the same day. Their conveyance was an open wagon with two horses attached. When they had gone a mile or two out of town one of the horses balked and refused to proceed. Then and there each member of the party drew upon his past experiences, seeking a panacea for the equine delinquency. One suggested the plan of building a fire under the recalcitrant horse, while another suggested pouring sand into his ears. Doctor Wallace discouraged these remedies as being cruel and finally told the others to take their places in the wagon and he would try the merits of a plan he had in mind. Accordingly, when they were seated, he clambered over the dash, walked along the wagon-pole, and suddenly plumped himself down upon the horse's back. Then away they went, John Gilpin like, Doctor Wallace's