nowadays. Well, I tell you they couldn't teach the man that got up
that arithmetic a thing about the operation of the child's mind.
He knew what was what. He didn't put down the answers. He knew
that if he did, weak, erring human nature, tortured by suspense,
determined to have the agony over, would multiply by four and
divide by thirteen, and subtract 127 - didn't, either. I didn't
say "substract." I guess I know they'd get the answer somehow,
it didn't matter much how.

In the country they ciphered through this part, and handed in
their sums to Teacher, who said she'd take 'em home and look 'em
over; she didn't have time just then. As if that fooled anybody!
She had a key! And when you had done the very last one on the
very last page, and there wasn't anything more except the blank
pages, where you had written, "Joe Geiger loves Molly Meyers,
"and," If my name you wish to see, look on page 103," and all such
stuff, then you turned over to the beginning, where it says,
"Arithmetic is the science of numbers, and the art of computing by
them," and once more considered, "Ann had four apples and her
brother gave her two more. How many did she then have?" There
were the four apples in a row, and the two apples, and you that
had worried over meadows so long and so wide, and men mowing them
in so many days and a half, had to think how many apples Ann
really did have. Some of the fellows with forked hairs on their
chins and uncertain voices - the big fellows in the back seats,
where the apple-cores and the spit-balls come from knew every
example in the book by heart.

And there is yet another reason why the country school has brought
forth men of whom we do well to be proud. At the county-seat,