I don't feel so downcast when I examine the specimens of writingdone by the tiny children of District No. 34. I can just see the youthfulones working at home on these things, with their tongues stuck outof one corner of their mouths.

"Rome was not built in a day Rome was not built in a day Rome was not built in a day"

and so on, bearing down hard on the downstroke of the curve in thecapital "R," and clubbing the end of the little "t." And in thehigher grades, they toil over "An 0riginal Social Letter,"describing to an imaginary correspondent a visit to Crystal Lake,or the Magnetic Springs. I can hear them mourn: "What shall I saynext?" and "Ma, make Effie play some place else, won't you? Shejist joggles the table like everything. Now, look at what you done!Now I got to write it all over again. No, I cain't 'scratch it out.How'd it look to the County Fair all scratched out? Plague takeit all!"

The same arms have done maps of North and South America, andblack-and-white ink pictures of the circulation of the blood. Itdoes beat all how smart the young ones are nowadays. I could nomore draw off a picture of the circulation of the blood - get itright, I mean - why, I wouldn't attempt it.