CHAPTER XXIII 



" HUSH ALL THE CLASSES AND . . . HUG HIM " 



He has a secret ; wonderful methods in hiin ; he is, every 

 child, a new style of man ; give him time and opportunity. 

 Talk of Columbus and Newton ! I tell you the child just 

 born in yonder hovel is the beginning of a revolution as 

 great as theirs. But you must have the believing and pro- 

 phetic eye. ... If a child happens to show that he 

 knows any fact about astronomy, or plants, or birds, or 

 rocks, or history, that interests him and you, hush all the 

 classes and encourage him to tell it so that all may hear. 

 Then you have made your school-room like the world. Of 

 course you will insist on modesty in the children, and respect 

 to their teachers, but if the boy stops you in your speech, 

 cries out that you are wrong and sets you right, hug him ! 



And you, dear Ralph Waldo Emerson, how all 

 child lovers should love you for that wise state- 

 ment ! You have practised what you preach ; 

 you have lived true to that other loving state- 

 ment in your essay on " Education," " rather let 

 us have men whose manhood is only the continu- 

 ation of their boyhood, natural characters still." 

 You had the boy nature in your heart, and sym- 

 pathy for the spontaneity of the boy. 



" Hush all the classes," and let the individual 

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