94 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



who had been the playmate of his childhood, in tilling the earth of his 

 garden and in teaching the country children. One of the great novels 

 of the greatest living master of letters tells how the heroine failed to 

 find her hero in the warlord, but found him in the schoolmaster, when 

 together among the hills they taught their boys the ways of truth 

 and honor. 



Is there indeed in all the wide world a better place than a home in 

 the country where parents and children are doing what they can for 

 themselves and for the neighborhood? The clergyman and the phy- 

 sician are, by the character of their professions, half missionary and 

 half charlatan ; in the lawyer and the journalist the missionary element 

 is decidedly less. But there might be in this broad land of ours five 

 hundred thousand men, as many women, twice as many children, all 

 leading lives wholly useful and noble, as teachers in their communities. 

 The money is there ; the men and women are not lacking ; the children 

 need not be; it is only the spirit and the will that fail. 



Can one not fancy a school in the countiy, the house a model of 

 simple beauty, built and adorned from year to year by those whose use 

 it serves? It would be adjacent to or perhaps a part of the home of 

 the teachers, surrounded by gardens, orchards and barns. The house 

 would be fitted out as a club, with books, pictures and music continu- 

 ally renewed. Its furniture, its lighting, its ventilation, its heating, 

 its water-supply and baths, its workshop, its kitchen and laboratory, 

 all would offer a standard for the neighborhood. In this house the 

 children would gather, and so far as might be the older folks, for some 

 two hours a day. The master and the mistress and their older chil- 

 dren, with the help of others who were able, would teach the tricks of 

 reading, writing and reckoning to those who lacked them, and all 

 would be encouraged to go as far as they cared along the paths of let- 

 ters and science. Two further hours might be spent in working about 

 the place, in the shop, in the garden or with the animals, sewing, cook- 

 ing or cleaning, learning to do efficiently and economically the things 

 that must be done. The children and older folks would gladly return 

 to the school for sports and games, indoors and out, for books and 

 music, for theatricals, lectures and meetings, to eat and to gossip. 



A school of this kind would be supported mainly by the work of 

 those whom it served; perhaps no taxation would be required; in any 

 case the money needed for the master, the mistress and their children 

 to live in quiet elegance would not be much. The garden or inten- 

 sively cultivated farm with the equipment of the school would need to 

 be supplemented by a minimum of ready money. To each school 

 might be added some productive concern — the raising of strawberries, 

 mushrooms, or squabs, a creamery, smithy or printing shop. The 

 teachers, and to a certain extent the people of the neighborhood, would 



