he has not written thoroughness into his course of study he might be hard
put to it to justify the omission. He hopes, of course, that the quality
of thoroughness will issue somehow from the study of arithmetic and
science, but he lacks the courage, apparently, to proclaim this hope in
print. He says that education is a spiritual process, while his course of
study proves that he is striving to produce mental acrobats, relegating
the spiritual qualities to the rank of by-products. His course of study
shows conclusively that he thinks that knowledge is power. Once
disillusion him on this point and his course of study will cease to be to
him the sacrosanct affair it has always appeared and he will no longer
look upon it as a sort of sacrilege to inject into this course of study
some elements that seem to violate the sanctities of tradition.

Advancing another brief step, we may try to imagine the superintendent's
suggesting to the teachers at the opening of the school year that they
devote the year to inculcating in their pupils the qualities of
thoroughness, self-control, courage, and reverence. The faces of the
teachers, at such a proposal, would undoubtedly afford opportunity for an
interesting study and the linguistic reactions of some of them would be
forcible to the point of picturesqueness. The traditional teachers would
demand to know by what right he presumed to impose upon them such an
unheard-of program. Others might welcome the suggestion as a means of
relief from irritating and devastating drudgery. In their quaint innocence
and guilelessness their souls would revel in rainbow dreams of
preachments, homilies, and wise counsel that would cause the qualities of
self-control and reverence to spring into being full-grown even as Minerva
from the head of Jove.

But their beatific visions would dissolve upon hearing the superintendent
name certain teachers to act as a committee to determine and report upon