My own
father was a teacher; perhaps that is one reason why I revere the
calling so that I would keep its skirts clear of politics at any
hazard. Another is that I most heartily subscribe to the statement
that the public school is the corner-stone of our liberties, and
to the sentiment that would keep the flag flying over it always.
Only I want as much respect for the flag: a clean school under an
unsoiled flag! So we shall pull through; not otherwise. The thing
requires no argument.
[Illustration: The Boys' "Playground" in an Old-time School.]
My own effort in that fight was mainly for decent schoolhouses,
for playgrounds, and for a truant school to keep the boys out of
jail. If I was not competent to argue over the curriculum with a
professor of pedagogy, I could tell, at least, if a schoolroom was
so jammed that to let me pass into the next room the children in
the front seat had to rise and stand; or if there was light enough
for them to see their slates or the blackboard. Nor did it take
the wisdom of a Solomon to decide that a dark basement room, thirty
by fifty feet, full of rats, was not a proper place for a thousand
children to call their only "playground.
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