Let us look for a moment into the influence of such a motto as the
following, written over a school-house door--always before the
eyes of the pupils, and always alluded to by school committees and
visitors who are invited to "make a few remarks":

_"Nothing is impossible to him who wills."_

This abominable lie is placed before a room full of children and
youth, of widely varying capacities, and great diversity of
circumstances. They are called upon to look at it, and believe in
it. Suppose a girl of humble mental abilities and humble
circumstances looks at this motto, and says: "I 'will' be a lady.
I 'will' be independent. I 'will' be subject to no man's or
woman's bidding." Under these circumstances, the girl's father,
who is poor, removes her from school, and tells her that she must
earn her living. Now I ask what kind of a spirit she can carry
into her service, except that of surly and impudent discontent?
She has been associating in school, perhaps, with girls whom she
is to serve in the family she enters. Has she not been made unfit
for her place by the influences of the public school? Have not her
comfort and her happiness been spoiled by those influences? Is her
reluctant service of any value to those who pay her the wages of
her labor?

It is safe, at least, to make the proposition that public schools
are a curse to all the youth whom they unfit for their proper
places in the world. It is the favorite theory of teachers that
every man can make of himself any thing that he really chooses to
make. They resort to this theory to rouse the ambition of their