month of travel
which I have described was a young man, who had attended some high
school, sitting down in a one-room cabin, with grease on his clothing,
filth all around him, and weeds in the yard and garden, engaged in
studying a French grammar.

The students who came first seemed to be fond of memorizing long and
complicated "rules" in grammar and mathematics, but had little thought
or knowledge of applying these rules to their everyday affairs of their
life. One subject which they liked to talk about, and tell me that they
had mastered, in arithmetic, was "banking and discount," but I soon
found out that neither they nor almost any one in the neighbourhood in
which they had lived had ever had a bank account. In registering the
names of the students, I found that almost every one of them had one or
more middle initials. When I asked what the "J" stood for, in the name
of John J. Jones, it was explained to me that this was a part of his
"entitles." Most of the students wanted to get an education because they
thought it would enable them to earn more money as school-teachers.

Notwithstanding what I have said about them in these respects, I have
never seen a more earnest and willing company of young men and women
than these students were. They were all willing to learn the right thing
as soon as it was shown them what was right. I was determined to start
them off on a solid and thorough foundation, so far as their books were
concerned. I soon learned that most of them had the merest smattering of
the high-sounding things that they had studied. While they could locate
the Desert of Sahara or the capital of China on an artificial globe,
I found out that the girls could not locate the proper places for the
knives and forks on an actual dinner-table, or the places on which the
bread and meat should be set.

I had to summon a good deal of courage to take a student who had been
studying cube root and "banking and discount," and explain to him
that the wisest thing for him to do first was thoroughly master the
multiplication table.

The number of pupils increased each week, until by the end of the first
month there were nearly fifty. Many of them, however, said that, as they
could remain only for two or three months, they wanted to enter a high
class and get a diploma the first year if possible.

At the end of the first six weeks a new and rare face entered the school
as a co-teacher. This was Miss Olivia A. Davidson, wh