passage through the Mediterranean they became curious, wondering how it
came about that the star failed to change its relative position in their
journey of three thousand miles. When they realized that their star is the
apex of a triangle whose base is three thousand miles but whose other legs
are so long that the base is infinitesimally short by comparison, their
amazement knew no bounds and for the first time in their lives they gained
a profound respect for space.

This new concept of space was worth the trip across the ocean to those
boys, and the wonder is that space had never before meant anything more or
other than a word to be spelled. The school and the home had had boundless
opportunities to inculcate in them a sense of space, yet this delightful
task was left to a passenger on board the ship. But for his kindly offices
those boys might have gone on for years conceiving of space as merely a
word of five letters. It would have been easy for parent or teacher to
engender in them some appreciation of space by explaining to them that if
they were to travel thirty miles a day it would require twenty-two years
to reach the moon,--which is, in reality, our next-door neighbor,--and
that to reach the sun, at the same rate of travel, would require more than
eight thousand years, or the added lifetimes of almost three hundred
generations. But they were sent abroad to see the wonders of the Old World
with no real conception of space and, therefore, no feeling of respect for
it. Before their trip abroad they never could have read the last two
verses of the eighth chapter of Romans with any real appreciation.

Still our schools go on their complacent way, teaching words, words, words
that are utterly devoid of meaning to the pupils, and, sad to relate, seem
to think their mission accomplished. The pupils are required to spell
words, define words, write words, and parse words day after day as if
these words were lifeless and meaningless blocks of wood to be merely