ned over those fellows
and watched them, day by day, hoping that they might grow up to be an
honor to their school. He had never had the experience of watching
from the schoolhouse window, fervently wishing that no harm might
come to them, and that no shadows might come over their lives. He
had never known the joy of sitting up far into the night to prepare
for the coming of those boys the next day. He had never seen their
eyes sparkle in the classroom when, for them, truth became illumined.
Of course, he stood aloof, for he couldn't know. Only the
schoolmaster can ever know how those four boys became the focus of
all that wondrous beauty on that splendid morning. If I had had my
grade-book along I would have recorded their grades in behavior, for
as I looked upon those glorious chaps and heard them recount their
experiences I had a feeling of exaltation, knowing that the
activities of our school had functioned in right behavior.

CHAPTER XXI

FOREFINGERS

This left forefinger of mine is certainly a curiosity. It looks like
a miniature totem-pole, and I wish I had before me its life history.
I'd like to know just how all these seventeen scars were acquired.
It seems to have come in contact with about all sorts and sizes of
cutlery. If only teachers or parents had been wise enough to make a
record of all my bloodletting mishaps, with occasions, causes, and
effects, that record would afford a fruitful study for students of
education. The pity of it is that we take no account of such matters
as phases or factors of education. We keep saying that experience is
the best teacher, and then ignore this eloquent forefinger. I call
that criminal neglect arising from crass ignorance. Why, these scars
that adorn many parts of my body are the foot-prints of evolution,
if, indeed, evolution makes tracks. The scars on the faces of those
students at Heidelberg are accounted badges of honor, but they cannot
compare with the big scar on my left knee that came to me as the free
gift of a corn-knife. Those students wanted their scars to take home
to show their mothers. I didn't want mine, and made every effort to
conceal it, as well as the hole in my trousers. I got my scar as a
warning. I profited by it, too, for never were there two cuts in
exactly the same place. In fact, they were widely, if not wisely,
distributed. They are the indices of the soaring sense of my
youthful audacity. And yet neither parents n