three--I would take the window to see them going by. They were of many
ages and sizes; from the kindergarten babies to the boys and girls of
the ninth grade. None of them could possibly have been described as
"creeping like snail unwillingly to school." As a usual thing, they came
racing pell-mell down the three streets that converged at my corner;
after school they as tumultuously went racing up, homeward. I never
needed to consult the clock in order not to miss seeing the children.
When I heard from outside distant sounds of laughing and shouting, I
knew that a school session had just ended--or was about to begin. Which,
I could only tell by noting the time. The same joyous turmoil heralded
the one as celebrated the other. Clearly, these children, at least, did
not "hate to go to school"!

One of them, a little boy of nine, a friend and near neighbor of mine,
liked it so well that enforced absence from it constituted a punishment
for a major transgression. "Isn't your boy well?" I inquired of his
mother when she came to call one evening. "A playmate of his who was
here this afternoon told me that he had not been in school to-day."

"Oh, yes, he is perfectly well!" my friend exclaimed. "But he is being
disciplined--"

"Disciplined?" I said. "Has he been so insubordinate as that in school?"

"Not in school," the boy's mother said; "at home." Then, seeing my
bewilderment, she elucidated. "When he is _very_ naughty at home, I keep
him out of school. It punishes him more than anything else, because he
loves to go to school."

Another aspect of the subject presented itself to my mind. "I should