We used to lay out corn ground with a single-shovel plough, and took
great pride in marking out a straight furrow across the field. There
was one man in the neighborhood who was the champion in this art, and
I wondered how he could do it. So I set about watching him to try to
learn his art. At either end of the field he had a stake several
feet high, bedecked at the top with a white rag. This he planted at
the proper distance from the preceding furrow and, in going across
the field, kept his gaze fixed upon the white rag that topped the
stake. With a firm grip upon the plough, and his eyes riveted upon
the white signal, he moved across the field in a perfectly straight
line. I had thought it the right way to keep my eyes fixed upon the
plough until his practice showed me that I had pursued the wrong
course. My furrows were crooked and zigzag, while his were straight.
I now see that his skill came from his having something to aim at.

I am trying to profit by the example of that farmer in my teaching.
I'm all the while in quest of stakes and white rags to place at the
other side of the field to direct the progress of the lads and lasses
in a straight course, and raise their eyes away from the plough that
they happen to be using. I want to keep them thinking of things that
are bigger and further along than grades. The grades will come as a
matter of course, if they can keep their eyes on the object across
the field. I want them to be too big to work for mere grades. We
never give prizes in our school, especially money prizes. It would
seem rather a cheap enterprise to my fine boys and girls to get a
piece of money for committing to memory the "Gettysburg Speech." We
respect ourselves and Lincoln too much for that. It would grieve me
to know that one of my girls could be hired to read a book for an
hour in the evening to a sick neighbor. I want her to have her pay