Back Home | Page 7

and new,
and built of yellow brick, right next to the Second Presbyterian, and
hence close to the "branch," so that the spring freshets flooded the
playground, and the water lapped the base of the big rock on which we
played "King on the Castle," - the big rock so pitifully dwindled of late
years. No matter what he facts are. Sing 'of "The Little Old Red
Schoolhouse On the Hill" and in everybody's heart a chord trembles in
unison. As we hear its witching strains, we are all lodge brethren, from
Maine to California and far across the Western Sea; we are all lodge
brethren, and the air is "Auld Lang Syne," and we are clasping hands
across, knitted together into one living solidarity; and this, if we but
sensed it, is the real Union, of which the federal compact is but the
outward seeming. It is a Union in which they have neither art nor part
whose parents sent them to private schools, so as not to have them
associate with "that class of people." It is the true democracy which
batters down the walls that separate us from each other - the walls of
caste distinction, and color prejudice, and national hatred, and religious
contempt, all the petty, anti-social meannesses that quarrel with
"The Union of hearts, the Union of hands, And the flag of our Union
forever."
Old Glory has floated victoriously on many a gallant fight by sea and
land, but never do its silver stars glitter more bravely or its blood-red
stripes curve more proudly on the fawning breeze than when it floats
above the school-house, over the daily battle against ignorance and
prejudice (which is ignorance of our fellows), for freedom and for
equal rights. It is no mere pretty sentimentality that puts the flag there,
but the serious recognition of the bed-rock principle of our Union: That
we are all of one blood, one bounden duty; that all these anti-social
prejudices are just as shameful as illiteracy, and that they must
disappear as soon as ever we shall come to know each other well.
Knowledge is power. That is true. And it is also true: A house divided
against itself cannot stand.

"The Flag of our Union forever!" is our prayer, our heart's desire for us
and for our children after us. Heroes have died to give us that, heroes
that with glazing eyes beheld the tattered ensign and spent their latest
breath to cheer it as it passed on to triumph. "We who are about to die
salute thee!" The heart swells to think of it. But it swells, too, to think
that, day by day, thousands upon thousands of little children stretch out
their hands toward that Flag and pledge allegiance to it. "We who are
about to LIVE salute thee!"
It is no mere chance affair that all our federal buildings should be so
ugly and so begrudged, and that our school-houses should be so
beautiful architecturally - the one nearest my house is built from plans
that took the first prize at the Paris Exposition, in competition with the
whole world - so well-appointed, and so far from being grudged that
the complaint is, that there are not enough of them.
That So-and-so should be the President, and such-and-such a party have
control is but a game we play at, amateurs and professionals; the
serious business is, that in this country no child, how poor soever it
may be, shall have the slightest let or hindrance in the equal chance
with every other child to learn to read, and write, and cipher, and do
raffia-work.
It is a new thing with us to have splendid school-houses. After all, the
norm, as you might say, is still "The Old Red School-house." You must
recollect how hard the struggle is for the poor farmer, with wheat only
a dollar a bushel, and eggs only six for a quarter; with every year or so
taxes of three and sometimes four dollars on an eighty-acre farm
grinding him to earth. It were folly to expect more in rural districts than
a tight box, with benches and a stove in it. Never-the-less, it is the thing
signified more than its outward seeming that catches and holds the eye
upon the country school-house as you drive past it. You count yourself
fortunate if, mingled with the creaking of the buggy-springs, you hear
the hum of recitation; yet more fortunate if it is recess time, and you
can see the children out at play, the little girls holding to one another's
dress-tails as they solemnly circle to the chant:
"H-yar way gow rand tha malbarry bosh, Tha malbarry bosh, tha

malbarry bosh, H-yar way gow rand tha malbarry bosh On a cay-um
and frasty marneng."
The boys