ttage is a group of boys or a group of girls
living under family conditions. They are not all of the same age; some
are big and some are little, and the big ones look after the little
ones. Each cottage has its own kitchen and orders its own supplies from
the general store. The girls' cottages have each a matron (sometimes a
widow who with her little ones has been admitted to Mooseheart), and she
advises the girls how to do the buying and the cooking.

In the boys' cottages there is a proctor to advise them and usually a
woman cook. The boys who care to can learn cookery and household buying
under her supervision. All the boys do their own dishwashing, sweeping
and bed-making. Once three boys about fourteen years old went on strike
because the proctor asked them to scrub the dining-room floor on their
knees. They thought this work would degrade them, and they started
toward the superintendent's office. On the way they met me and told me
their troubles.

"I think it is all right for a young man to scrub a floor on his
knees," I said. "I've done it for my mother many a time. I have been
a bootblack. But it didn't hurt my character. You are going to the
superintendent for his opinion. He is a Harvard man, but he worked his
way through school and one of his jobs was bellboy in a hotel. Had
he been too proud to work as a servant he would never have gotten the
education that makes him head of this great school. Didn't you ever
scrub a floor on your knees? You can see the dirt come out with the
suds and you can watch the grain of the wood appear, where before it
was hidden by dust and grease. If you never saw that, you have missed
something that I have seen many a time. To know how to scrub a floor is
as much a part of your education as to know how to sandpaper a floor and
varnish it. We could hire this work done better than you can do it,
but that wouldn't be giving you a chance to learn the work. Now I'm not
telling you boys to go back and do the work if you don't want to. Use
your own judgment. But fellows that balk on a job never go far. A balky
man is like a balky horse, everybody gets rid of him as quickly as they
can. A quitter is never given a good job. They always keep him in a
place where it doesn't make any difference whether he quits or not."

The leader of the boys said: "Aw, piffle, cut it out. We might as well
be scrubbing the floor as listening to this talk. Come on, fellows." He
led them back, one of them pr