The Life of the Fly 



no such thing as the scholastic piston working 

 with the regularity of a machine. It was left 

 for me to act as I thought fit. Well, what 

 should I do to make the school earn its title 

 of 'upper primary'? 



Why, of course! Among other things, I 

 shall do some chemistry! My reading has 

 taught me that it does no harm to know a 

 little chemistry, if you would make your fur- 

 rows yield a good return. Many of my pupils 

 come from the country; they will go back to it 

 to improve their land. Let us show them 

 what the soil is made of and what the plant 

 feeds on. Others will follow industrial ca- 

 reers; they will become tanners, metal- 

 founders, distillers; they will sell cakes of 

 soap and kegs of anchovies. Let us show 

 them pickling, soap-making, stills, tannin and 

 metals. Of course, I know nothing about 

 these things, but I shall learn, all the more so 

 as I shall have to teach them to the boys; and 

 your schoolboy is a little demon for jeering at 

 the master's hesitation. 



As it happens, the college boasts a small 

 laboratory, containing just what is strictly in- 

 dispensable : a receiver, a dozen glass balloons, 

 a few tubes and a niggardly assortment of 

 chemicals. That will do, if I can have the 

 440 



