Reveries of a Schoolmaster | Page 4

much we missed by not
knowing about all this! What miracles might have been wrought had
we and our teachers only known! Poor, ignorant teachers! Little did
they dream that such wondrous things could ever be. Life might have
been made a glad, sweet song for us had it been supplied with these
modern attachments. I spent many weary hours over partial payments
in Ray's Third Part, when I might have been brushing my teeth or
combing my hair instead. Then, instead of threading the mazes of
Greene's Analysis and parsing "Thanatopsis," I might just as well have
been asleep in the haymow, where ventilation was super-abundant.
How proudly could I have produced the home certificate as to my
haymow experience and received an exhilarating grade in grammar!
Just here I interrupt myself to let the imagination follow me homeward
on the days when grades were issued. The triumphal processions of the
Romans would have been mild by comparison. The arch look upon my
face, the martial mien, and the flashing eye all betoken the real hero.
Then the pride of that home, the sumptuous feast of chicken and
angel-food cake, and the parental acclaim--all befitting the stanch
upholder of the family honor. Of course, nothing like this ever really
happened, which goes to prove that I was born years too early in the
world's history. The more I think of this the more acute is my sympathy
with Maud Muller. That girl and I could sigh a duet thinking what
might have been. Why, I might have had my college degree while still
wearing short trousers. I was something of an adept at milking cows
and could soon have eliminated the entire algebra by the method of
substitution. Milking the cows was one of my regular tasks, anyhow,
and I could thus have combined business with pleasure. And if by
riding a horse to water I could have gained immunity from the
Commentaries by one Julius Caesar, full lustily would I have shouted,
a la Richard III: "A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!"

One man advocates the plan of promoting pupils in the schools on the
basis of character, and this plan strongly appeals to me as right,
plausible, and altogether feasible. Had this been proposed when I was a
schoolboy I probably should have made a few conditions, or at least
have asked a few questions. I should certainly have wanted to know
who was to be the judge in the matter, and what was his definition of
character. Much would have depended upon that. If he had decreed that
cruelty to animals indicates a lack of character and then proceeded to
denominate as cruelty to animals such innocent diversions as shooting
woodpeckers in a cherry-tree with a Flobert rifle, or smoking
chipmunks out from a hollow log, or tying a strip of red flannel to a
hen's tail to take her mind off the task of trying to hatch a door-knob, or
tying a tin can to a dog's tail to encourage him in his laudable enterprise
of demonstrating the principle of uniformly accelerated motion--if he
had included these and other such like harmless antidotes for ennui in
his category, I should certainly have asked to be excused from his
character curriculum and should have pursued the even tenor of my
ways, splitting kindling, currying the horse, washing the buggy,
carrying water from the pump to the kitchen and saying, "Thank you,"
to my elders as the more agreeable avenue of promotion.
If we had had character credits in the good old days I might have won
distinction in school and been saved much embarrassment in later years.
Instead of learning the latitude and longitude of Madagascar,
Chattahoochee, and Kamchatka, I might have received high grades in
geography by abstaining from the chewing of gum, by not wearing my
hands in my trousers-pockets, by walking instead of ambling or
slouching, by wiping the mud from my shoes before entering the house,
by a personally conducted tour through the realms of manicuring, and
by learning the position and use of the hat-rack. Getting no school
credits for such incidental minors in the great scheme of life, I grew
careless and indifferent and acquired a reputation that I do not care to
dwell upon. If those who had me in charge, or thought they had, had
only been wise and given me school credits for all these things, what a
model boy I might have been!
Why, I would have swallowed my pride, donned a kitchen apron, and

washed the supper dishes, and no normal boy enjoys that ceremony. By
making passes over the dishes I should have been exorcising the spooks
of cube root, and that would have been worth some personal sacrifice.
What a boon it