So it is always: to be really free and to grow you must be tied; and I
hope that none of you children will ever be fretful when your parents
and teachers make rules that you do not see the meaning of, but which
are for your good.




CUTTING CORNERS


Have you boys and girls ever noticed how all the curbings at the corners
of the streets in the city are worn smooth by drivers of carts and
wagons trying to cut the corners as closely as possible?

But the principal thing to notice about those curbs is that you will
often find on them the paint, sometimes red and sometimes black or
yellow, scratched off the wheels of these carriages that are so anxious
to cut corners. And the wheels that cut corners soon get to looking
shabby from lack of paint.

That is the way it nearly always happens with people who try to cut
corners. I know boys and girls who try it in school.

They try to skim through by doing just as little work as possible. They
cut the corners as closely as possible with their lessons, so that they
can have time for play. They do that with the work in subtraction, and
then, when they get into multiplication or division, they have all
sorts of trouble. And soon their arithmetic looks very shabby indeed.