Francis B. Pearson

“ The sun is so hot and hoeing potatoes is such a tiring task that I prefer to lounge in the shade with my back against the Constitution.
In thinking of the pursuit of happiness I am inclined to personify happiness and then watch the chase, wondering whether the pursuer will ever overtake her, and what he'll do when he does. I note that the Constitution does not guarantee that the pursuer will ever catch her—but just gives him an open field and no favors. He may run just as fast as he likes, and as long as his endurance holds out. ”

“ I have a right, too, to pore over the colored supplement for an hour or so, but when I am able to rise to my privileges and take the Book of Job instead, I feel that I have made a gain in self-respect, and can stand more nearly erect. I have a right, when I go to church, to sit silent and look bored; but, when I avail myself of the privilege of joining in the responses and the singing, I feel that I am fertilizing my spirit for the truth that is proclaimed. As a citizen I have certain rights, but when I come to think of my privileges my rights seem puny in comparison. ”

“ All my life have I been hearing folks speak of the association of ideas as if one idea could conjure up innumerable others. The lantern that I carried to the barn never could have been associated with Diogenes if I had not read of the philosopher, nor with the picture at Oxford if I had never seen or heard of it. In order that we have association of ideas, we must first have the ideas, according to my way of thinking. ”

“ If my school were only out in the heart of that big forest, I feel that my work would be more effective and that I would not have to potter about among little things to obey the whims of convention and the dictates of technicalities, but that the soul would be free to revel in the truth that sky and space proclaim. I do hope I may never know so much about technical pedagogy that I shall not know anything else. ”

“ Parenthetically, I have often wondered how much money it cost that man to make the discovery that he was not a connoisseur of art, and also what process of education might have fitted him for a wise expenditure of all that money.
So I go on wondering what education is, and nobody seems quite willing to tell me. I bought some wall-paper once, and when it had been hung there was so much laughter at my taste, or lack of it, that, in my chagrin, I selected another pattern to cover up the evidence of my ignorance. But that is expensive, and a schoolmaster can ill afford such luxurious ignorance. ”

“ At a picnic there is no such expression as "from soup to nuts," for there is no soup, and perhaps no nuts, but there is everything else in tantalizing abundance. If I find a plate of deviled eggs near me, I begin with deviled eggs; or, if the cold tongue is nearer, I begin with that. In this way I reveal, for the pleasure of the hostesses, my unrestricted and democratic appetite. Or, in order to obviate any possible embarrassment during the progress of the chicken toward me, I may take a piece of pie or a slice of cake, thinking that they may not return once they have been put in circulation. ”

“ Our talk just oozes out and flows whither it wills, or little wisps of talk drift into the silences, and now and then a dash of homely philosophy splashes into the talking. Brown is a real comfort. He is never cryptic, nor enigmatic, at least consciously so, nor does he ever try to be impressive. If he were a teacher he would attract his pupils by his good sense, his sincerity, his simplicity, and his freedom from pose. ”

“ CHAPTER XXVI RABBIT PEDAGOGY As I think back over my past life as a schoolmaster I keep wondering how many inebriates I have produced in my career. I'd be glad to think that I have not a single one to my discredit, but that seems beyond the wildest hope, considering the character of my teaching. I am a firm believer in temperance in all things; but, in the matter of pedagogy, my practice cannot be made to square with my theory. In fact, I find, upon reflection, that I have been teaching intemperance all the while. ”

“ There is a friendly maple-tree near the scene of the grubbing activities, and an hour at noon beneath that tree with free access to the basket and the jug seems to meet the utmost demands of life. The grass is luxuriant, the shade is all-embracing, and the willows can wait. So, what additions can possibly be needed? I lie there in the shade, my hunger and thirst abundantly satisfied, and contemplate the results of my forenoon's toil with the very acme of satisfaction. There is now a large, clear space where this morning there was a jungle of willows. ”

“ I used to feel a sort of pity for my pupils to think how they would have had no education at all if they had not had me as their teacher; now I am beginning to wonder how much further along they might have been if they had had some other teacher. But probably most of the misfits in life are in the imagination, after all. We all think the huckleberries are more abundant on the other bush.
Hoeing potatoes is a calm, serene, dignified, and philosophical enterprise. But at bottom it is much the same in principle as teaching school. ”

“ The pity of it is that we take no account of such matters as phases or factors of education. We keep saying that experience is the best teacher, and then ignore this eloquent forefinger. I call that criminal neglect arising from crass ignorance. Why, these scars that adorn many parts of my body are the foot-prints of evolution, if, indeed, evolution makes tracks. The scars on the faces of those students at Heidelberg are accounted badges of honor, but they cannot compare with the big scar on my left knee that came to me as the free gift of a corn-knife. ”

“ If I were giving a course in ethics, I'd probably select another book, but, in pedagogy, I'd certainly include that one. I'd lose some students, to be sure, for some of them would be shocked; but a person who is not big enough to profit by reading that book never ought to teach school—I mean for the school's sake. If we could only lose the consciousness of the fact that we are schoolmasters for a few hours each day, it would be a great help to us and to our boys and girls. ”

“ If I ever expected to have any freedom I must first learn the truth, and a certain modicum of freedom necessarily precedes the joy of alfalfa.
Thus it came to pass that I set about learning the truth. I had to learn about the nature of the soil, about drainage, about the right kinds of fertilizer, and all that, before I could even hitch the team to a plough. Some of this truth I gleaned from books and magazines, but more of it I obtained from my neighbor John, who lives about two hundred yards up the pike from my little place. ”

“ A new horizon opened up before us that stretched on and on and made us know that life is a big thing. The sky became our companion with all its myriad stars; the sea became our neighbor with all the life it holds, and the landscape became our dooryard, with all its varied beauty and grandeur. ”

“ In my reverie I see my boys and girls, companions in the mountain-climbing, going upon their appointed ways. I see them healing and comforting the sick, relieving distress, ministering to the needy, and supplanting darkness with light. I see them in their efforts to make the world better and more beautiful, and life more blessed. I see them bringing hope and courage and cheer into many lives. They are bringing the spirit of the mountain down into the valley, and men rejoice. ”

“ Brown cannot walk on stilts, nor has the air-ship the least fascination for him.
One of my teachers for a time was Doctor T. C. Mendenhall, and he was a great teacher. He could sound the very depths of his subject and simply talk it. He led us to think, and thinking is not a noisy process. Truth to tell, his talks often caused my poor head to ache from overwork. But I have been in classes where the oases of thought were far apart and one could doze and dream on the journey from one to the other. Doctor Mendenhall's teaching was all white meat, sweet to the taste, and altogether nourishing. ”

“ I suppose there is no more heart-breaking sound in nature than the crying of a hungry child. I have been whistling all the afternoon along with my hoeing, and now that I think of it, I must be whistling because my potatoes are going to make that baby laugh.
Well, if they do, then I shall elevate the hoeing of potatoes to the rank of a privilege. Oh, I've read my "Tom Sawyer," and know about his enterprise in getting the fence whitewashed by making the task seem a privilege. But Tom was indulging in fiction, and hoeing potatoes is no fiction. ”

“ Among the male contingent I shall want Job, Erasmus, Petrarch, Dante, Goethe, Shakespeare, Milton, and Burns. I want men and women in whose presence I must stand uncovered to preserve my self-respect. I want big people, wise people, and dynamic people in my world, people who will teach me how to work and how to live.
If I can get my world made and peopled to my liking, I shall refute Mr. Wordsworth's statement that the world is too much with us. ”

“ I suppose that the size of my world is the measure of myself, and that in my schoolmastering I am simply trying to enlarge the world of my pupils. I saw a gang-plough the other day that is drawn by a motor, and that set me to thinking of ploughs in general and their evolution; and, by tracing the plough backward, I saw that the original one must have been the forefinger of some cave-dweller. ”

“ That's exactly what I'm trying to have my pupils do all the while. I'm trying to have them wear their company manners continually, so that, in good time, they will become their regular working garb. I'm glad to have them assume the attitudes of diligence and politeness, thinking that their attitudes may generate the corresponding emotions. It is a severe strain on a boy at times to seem polite when he feels like hurling missiles. We both know that his politeness is mere make-believe, but we pretend not to know, and so move along our ways of hypocrisy hoping that good may come. ”

“ But there I sat in ignorance and thraldom—not knowing the truth about the tools or the processes.
In the presence of that episode I felt like one in a foreign country who is ignorant of the language, while Brown was the concierge who understands many languages. He knew the truth and so had freedom. I have often wondered whether men do not sometimes get drunk to win a respite from the thraldom and boredom of their ignorance of the truth. It must be a very trying experience not to understand the language that is spoken all about one. ”

“ Here is one that I caught in the school reader in my boyhood: "The man who carries a lantern on a dark night can have friends all about him, walking safely by the help of its rays and he be not defrauded." Education is just such a lantern and this schoolmaster, Will, knows how to carry it that it may afford light to the friends about him. ”

“ I'd much rather have my going hungry accounted a virtue, and receive praise and bouquets. When I am in a lounging mood it isn't any fun to have some Henderson come along and tell me that I am in need of a revival. A copy of "Baedeker" in hand, I have gone through a gallery of statues but did not find a sinner in the entire company. The originals may have been sinners, but not these marble statues. That is some comfort. To be a sinner one must be animate at the very least. I'd rather be a sinner, even, than a mummy or a statue. ”

“ The big out-of-doors must seem inexpressibly good to him. My neighbor John taught me how to spray my trees, and now, when I walk through my orchard and see the smooth trunks and pick the beautiful, smooth, perfect apples, I feel that sense of freedom that can come only through a knowledge of the truth. ”

“ I certainly cannot lay claim to any great degree of docility, for, in spite of all the experiences of my boyhood, I fell into the evil ways of my teachers when I began my schoolmastering, and suggested to my pupils numberless short cuts to wrong-doing. I railed against intoxicants, and thus made them curious. That's why I am led to wonder if I have incited any of my boys to strong drink as my teachers incited me to desk-carving, match heads, and red pepper.
I have come to think that a rabbit excels me in the matter of pedagogy. ”

“ Today is better or worse than yesterday or some other day in the past, just as this cherry pie is better or worse than some past cherry pie. But even this pie may seem a bit less glorious than the pies of the past, because of my jaded appetite—a fact that is easily lost sight of. Folks who extol the glories of the good old times may be forgetting that they are not able to relive the emotions that put the zest into those past events. We used to go to "big meeting" in a two-horse sled, with the wagon-body half filled with hay and heaped high with blankets and robes. ”

“ I have a friend who is quite versed in science, and he tells me that any book on science that is more than ten years old is obsolete. Now, that puzzles me no little. If that is true, why don't they wait till matters scientific are settled, and then write their books? Why write a book at all when you know that day after tomorrow some one will come along and refute all the theories and mangle the facts? ”

“ We loved him for that, because it proved that he was a big-souled human being; and pupils like to discover human qualities in their teachers. The little professor may have heard the bluebird's singing, too; but if he did, he probably thought it was serenading him. If colleges of education and normal schools would select teachers who can delight in the song of a bluebird their academic attainments would be ennobled and glorified, and their students might come to love instead of fearing them. Only a man or a woman with a big soul can socialize and vitalize the work of the schools. ”

“ Charles Lamb may write of his roast pig, and the epicures among the ancients may expatiate upon the glories of a dish of peacock's tongues and their other rare and costly edibles, but they probably never knew to what heights one may ascend in the scale of gastronomic joys in the immediate presence of a baked Carmen. When it is broken open the steam ascends like incense from an altar, while at the magic touch the snowy, flaky substance billows forth upon the plate in a drift that would inspire the pen of a poet. ”