No. 4.] COUNTRY LIFE. 125 



Keep them just as long as you can. The boys from those 

 schools will come in and rule Westfield, in spite of the 

 graduates from the high schools. They learn something 

 besides their books, — something wider and far deeper. 



In the country we used to have and have now in some 

 places the old-fashioned country lyceum. You may talk 

 about the modern school of oratory, you will never get a 

 more perfect training school in public speech than the 

 meeting in the little red school-house to debate living 

 questions. That is the real school of oratory. If you do 

 away with the country lyceum, you will have few orators 

 left. You cannot make them in the city schools of hot- 

 house elocution. 



Then there is the town meeting. In all forms of govern- 

 ment there is none so well adapted to the greatest liberty 

 to the greatest number as the old-fashioned town meeting. 

 It gives each individual a direct vote upon every question 

 that interests him, and is the most democratic form of gov- 

 ernment. As soon as you adopt the city government, you 

 elect representatives. If you had a city government in 

 "Westfield, and elected six men to the city council, six hun- 

 dred thousand dollars might buy them all. But you cannot 

 buy all the citizens of Westfield for that sum. It will be a 

 dangerous condition when the old-fashioned town meeting 

 ceases to be. The world is indebted to the town meeting 

 for the best form of freedom which it now enjoys. 



I look back through the years, and remember going to 

 the old attic window at night and looking out into the front 

 yard I saw a lantern flashing around there, and I saw a col- 

 ored man. I had never seen but one before. My brother 

 came and stuck his head up to the window beside me as we 

 looked out. I could see my father hurrying about with a 

 lantern. I saw another colored man whose name I after- 

 ward learned was Fred Douglass. He seemed to be very 

 lively and very jolly. They put their horses in the barn. 

 We understood what that meant. We got back into bed. 

 We knew father would not be there the next day, and we 

 would have to do the chores ourselves. Father would take 

 the man as far as Conway, and some one there would take 

 him and go to Canada. The first time I ever saw Fred 



