willing to chance it. That's the United States of America, clear
to the bone and back again to the skin.

You ask any really great man: "Have you ever taught a winter term
in a country school?" If he says he hasn't, then depend upon it he
isn't a really great man. People only think he is. The winter term
breeds Boanerges - sons of thunder. Yes, and of lightning, too.
Something struck the big boys in the back seats, as sure as you're a
foot high; and if it wasn't lightning, what was it? Brute strength
for brute strength, they were more than a match for Teacher. It was
up to him. It was either prove himself the superior power, or slink
off home and crawl under the porch.

The curriculum of the Old Red School-house, which was, until lately,
the universal curriculum, consisted in reading, writing, and
arithmetic or ciphering. I like the word "ciphering," because it
makes me think of slates - slates that were always falling on the
floor with a rousing clatter, so that almost always at least one
corner was cracked. Some mitigation of the noise was gained by
binding the frame with strips of red flannel, thus adding warmth
and brightness to the color scheme. Just as some fertile brain
conceived the notion of applying a knob of rubber to each corner,
slates went out, and I suppose only doctors buy them nowadays to
hang on the doors of their offices. Maybe the teacher's nerves were
too highly strung to endure the squeaking of gritty pencils, but I
think the real reason for their banishment is, that slates invited
too strongly the game of noughts and crosses, or tit-tat-toe, three
in a row, the champion of indoor sports, and one entirely inimical
to the study of the joggerfy lesson. But if slates favored
tit-tat-toe, they also favored ciphering, and nothing but good can