divined that that mother's child was the most important among a
thousand children--indeed, the sole child of any real importance--had
arranged that her progress should be arrested at just that stage, and
had stationed a calm and diplomatic woman to convince her that her child
was indeed the main preoccupation of the Horace Mann School. A pretty
sight--the interview! It charmed me as the sight of an ingenious engine
in motion will charm an engineer.

The individual class-rooms, in some of which I lingered at leisure, were
tonic, bracing, inspiring, and made me ashamed because I was not young.
I saw geography being taught with the aid of a stereoscopic
magic-lantern. After a view of the high street of a village in North
Russia had been exposed and explained by a pupil, the teacher said: "If
anybody has any questions to ask, let him stand up." And the whole class
leaped furiously to its feet, blotting out the entire picture with black
shadows of craniums and starched pinafores. The whole class might have
been famishing. In another room I saw the teaching of English
composition. Although when I went to school English composition was
never taught, I have gradually acquired a certain interest in the
subject, and I feel justified in asserting that the lesson was admirably
given. It was, in fact, the best example of actual pedagogy that I met
with in the United States. "Now can any one tell me--" began the
mistress. A dozen arms of boys and girls shot up with excessive
violence, and, having shot up, they wiggled and waggled with ferocious
impatience in the air; it was a miracle that they remained attached to
their respective trunks; it was assuredly an act of daring on the part
of the intrepid mistress to choose between them.

"How children have changed since my time!" I said to the principal
afterward. "We never used to fling up our hands like that. We just put
them up.... But perhaps it's because they're Americans--"

"It's probably because of the ventilation," said the principal, calmly
corrective. "We never have the windows open winter or summer, but the
ventilation is perfect."

I perceived that it indeed must be because of the ventilation.

More and more startled, as I went along, by the princely lavishness of
every arrangement, I ventured to surmise that it must all cost a great
deal.

"The fees are two hundred and eighty-five dollars in the Upper School."

"Yes, I expected they would be high," I said.

"Not at