The change from W--to N----, was like that from breezy, sunny green
fields, where wild birds sang their free, joyous songs, and where wild
flowers bloomed free as air exhaling their sweet perfumes, to the
suffocating air of a hothouse where the birds drooped in cages and
where the few flowers were forced into existence by steam heat and
unsavory fertilizers. In the former the people were social, natural
and free from the trammels of tyrannical fashions; in the latter they
were cold, distant, and valued you according to the size of your bank
account and the number of your horses and servants. In the one the
teachers were educators, free to develop superior methods along their
own original lines; in the other they were mere machines to carry out
the ironclad rules of the opinionated precedent-hunting school board.

In the former all seemed like one great family sympathizing and
loving; in the latter the newly-rich set the pace of ignoble luxury
and display; while the others aped their ways which led many to
bankruptcy, poverty, and misery. In the one you were free from all
social ostracism if you worshipped according to the dictates of your
own conscience; in the other you were ignored and disliked unless you
attended and contributed liberally for the support of the palatial
orthodox church.

I was early told that I would fail if I persisted in attending the
little Unitarian church; but I preferred failure to hypocrisy, and
would not sell my birthright of conscience for a mess of pottage.
Two of my ancient, sour-faced assistants were bigoted members of the
fashionable church, and at once set me down as a corruptor of youth
because I was an advocate of the liberal faith. The venomous spite of
one of these forcibly suggested the spirit of the inquisition, and one
day she found her blackboard decorated with the following truthful