EDITORIAL 



125 



come a teacher of the young law stu- 

 dents at Yale University. This for 

 him was a step upward. There is no 

 higher calling- than that of a school- 

 teacher, whether the things taught are 

 the principles of Blackstone or of the 

 multiplication table. 



Every teacher thrills with pride when 

 he remembers that a great school- 

 teacher is now president of the United 

 States. President Wilson is not onlv 

 an inspiration in enthusiasm and in 

 patriotism but in school-teaching. He 

 perhaps is the best example that this 

 country has ever had of a school-teach- 

 er president. 



Teachers have become governors of 

 states, but doubtless the greatest ex- 

 ample of this kind of great school- 

 teacher is the highly honored ex-gov- 

 ernor of the big state of Michigan, 

 Woodbridge N. Ferris. No governor 

 was ever more beloved. No governor 

 of any state more keenly realized the 

 duties of his high office or set a higher 

 example in moral methods than the 

 chief executive of that state. After 

 four vears he is back in the educational 

 harness. He will devote the remainder 

 of hi? life to the Ferris Institute, Big 

 Rapids. Michigan. It is the impulses 

 of his big heart that make the big 

 school known as the Ferris Institute a 

 unique institution- No other school 

 can be compared with it. The Insti- 

 tute is not a college but a great sec- 

 ondary school for the training of men 

 pud women in constructive thinking 

 There one may find young people and 

 gray haired adults in the same class. 

 In one room are two hundred steno- 

 graphers taking dictation ; in the ad- 

 joining room about an equal number 

 are learning how to conduct a drug 

 store. In one room the visitor will find 

 an elderly foreigner reading a primer 

 and across the hall he will find a class 

 in the higher mathematics. 



Tt is the strangest school on earth. 

 It is the direct antipode to all the ideas 

 of an ordinary school. Tt is a school of 

 life itself. It has none of that old-fash- 

 ioned notion that one should go to 

 srhool for only a few years of his life. 

 Teacher Ferris has exploded that with 

 the bombshells of his own inspiration. 



Personallv Governor Ferris, Teacher 

 Ferris or plain Mr. Ferris, is a regular 



Abraham Lincoln in his pleasant, rug- 

 ged countenance, big-heartedness and 

 sterling ability. He sees further than 

 most men, and in the lofty region in 

 which he abides he sees more clearly 

 than most men. 



Throughout the West he is in de- 

 mand at Teachers' Institutes- He has 

 the most astonishing methods of any 

 teachers' instructor on the platform. 

 He strikes at his hearers with a stag- 

 gering mental blow that inspires love 

 and enthusiasm. No other speaker on 

 any platform says things so strangely, 

 so vigorously and in so antagonistic 

 a way nor so thoroughly endears him- 

 self to every one that hears him- 



The editor has for a long time felt 

 that Mr. Ferris deserves every good 

 thing that can possibly be said of him. 

 An unspeakable sorrow has recentlv 

 entered into his life. His wife has 

 passed before him into the "great si- 

 lence," but he continues the school 

 work in which she was for many years 

 hi? chief companion and helper. With 

 hoAV much pain and effort he alone 

 knows. But toil is a boon to sorrow. 



He is the type of the old school of 

 the old fashion, and yet the principal of 

 one of the most modern schools in the 

 United States. He stands alone as the 

 Abraham Lincoln of the school-teach- 

 ing profession. 



Personal Appreciation by Aloha Camps. 



The editor of this magazine, accom- 

 panied by his daughter. Miss Pearl 

 Agnes Bigelow, spent two weeks as 

 nature instructor at the Aloha Camps. 

 at Pike. New Hampshire, and Fairlee 

 and Ely, Vermont. 



"Scamp Spirit," the official publica- 

 tion of the camps, published the fol- 

 lowing words of welcome and appre- 

 ciation : 



DR. BIGELOW'S VISIT. 



Seldom has Aloha Club's ever-open 

 heart been as quickly and completely 

 won as it was by Dr. Bigelow, natural- 

 i c t and astronomer. President of The 

 Agassiz Association, formerly Nature 

 and Science Editor of the St- Nicholas 

 Magazine. ?n<\ "Daddy" Bigelow. to 

 the girls and boys. The Camp capitu- 

 lated at once to his large and magnetic 

 pe.rson?lity and he was our Pole star 



