Reveries of a Schoolmaster

. Instead of learning the latitude and longitude of Madagascar, Chattahoochee, and Kamchatka, I might have received high grades in geography by abstaining from the chewing of gum, by not wearing my hands in my trousers-pockets, by walking instead of ambling or slouching, by wiping the mud from my shoes before entering the house, by a personally conducted tour through the realms of manicuring, and by learning the position and use of the hat-rack. Getting no school credits for such incidental minors in the great scheme of life, I grew careless and indifferent and acquired a reputation that I do not care to dwell upon. If those who had me in charge, or thought they had, had only been wise and given me school credits for all these things, what a model boy I might have been!

Why, I would have swallowed my pride, donned a kitchen apron, and washed the supper dishes, and no normal boy enjoys that ceremony. By making passes over the dishes I should have been exorcising the spooks of cube root, and that would h