286 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan., 



was a forlorn looking street. There was not a beautiful thing 

 there to look at that I could see. There wasn't even an 

 English sparrow in sight to look at. Hardly a blade of grass. 

 And I thought in the midst of such a world perhaps I had 

 gone blind too. And she said to me: " It was early this 

 morning. I couldn't find one thing more." And I thought 

 if she had found something to make her eyes shine as thev did 

 while she was talking to me she was a little heroine indeed. I 

 didn't say a word. She didn't give me a chance. And she 

 said: " I looked all around, and I couldn't find a thing, and I 

 grew to feel so lonesome." And then she said, " what do 

 you think?" And the little eyes grew radiant, and she said, 

 " what do you think? I looked all around, and I couldn't 

 find anything, and then I saw baby's hair." I wish I had the 

 power to portray to you what was in the little Jewish face 

 when she said that to me. And she went lovingly to the 

 sleeping baby on the sidewalk, and she said, " you look at it 

 yourself. It's the prettiest thing I found yet, and, you know 

 I never saw it before." I looked at that little girl as she 

 picked up her baby and gave it a hug, and I looked at the 

 little head of that sleeping child, and I saw that its red- 

 brown hair was like threads of spun gold. The little sister 

 had discovered its beauty. And she said to me, " I never felt 

 lonesome since." Oh, the philosophy of it! It seems to me 

 it is worth while to take your time to tell you this little 

 incident, and to ask you why it is that we grown-up people 

 go through the world deaf, dumb, and blind to our beautiful 

 w^orld when on such a corner a little girl leading such a 

 lonely, shriveled life was able to see quickly and easily, and to 

 read the philosophy of a happy, buoyant life into all her 

 thoughts, and the light that came into her eyes as they rested 

 upon that baby's hair on a morning like that was something 

 more than glad indeed, and if that light can only be kept burn- 

 ing it will make sunshine wherever those eyes go, you may 

 be sure. 



It is not, however, that our education should cause us 

 to think only of a happy life, but, as I have intimated, and 

 as every watchful school teacher knows, it is to develop the 

 power to see straight, to see clearly, and to think straight. 

 That power brings into training all the things you and I are 

 talking about in our teachers' or farmers' conventions. It is 



