btained a unique place in my
thought--in my regard. Well, good-night."

She looked up at him, without, however, quite meeting his eyes.

"Oh! Do you think you must go?"

"Well--yes. I have said everything that I came to say. Did you want me
to stay particularly?"

"Not if you feel that you shouldn't. You've been very good to give me a
whole evening, as it is."

"I'll tell you one more thing before I go."

He took another turn up and down the room, and halted frowning in front
of her.

"I am thinking of making an experiment in practical social work next
year. What would be your opinion of a free night-school for working
boys?"

Sharlee, greatly surprised by the question, said that the field was a
splendid one.

He went on at once: "Technical training, of course, would be the nominal
basis of it. I could throw in, also, boxing and physical culture. Buck
Klinker would be delighted to help there. By the way, you must know
Klinker: he has some first-rate ideas about what to do for the working
population. Needless to say, both the technical and physical training
would be only baits to draw attendance, though both could be made very
valuable. My main plan is along a new line. I want to teach what no
other school attempts--only one thing, but that to be hammered in so
that it can never be forgotten."

"What is that?"

"You might sum it all up as the doctrine of individual responsibility."

She echoed his term inquiringly, and he made a very large gesture.

"I want to see if I can teach boys that they are not individuals--not
unrelated atoms in a random universe. Teach them that they live in a
world of law--of evolution by law--that they are links, every one of
them, in a splendid chain that has been running since life began, and
will run on to the end of time. Knock into their heads that no chain is
stronger than its weakest link, and that _this means them_. Don't you
see what a powerful socializing force there is in the sense of personal
responsibility, if cultivated in the right direction? A boy may be
willing to take his chances on going to the bad--economically and
socially, as well as morally--if he thinks that it is only his own
personal concern. But he will hesitate when you once impress upon him
that, in doing so, he is blocking the whole magnificent procession. My
plan would be to develop these boys' social efficiency by stamping upon
them the knowledge that the very humblest of them holds a trusteeshi