into the glass case of chemicals, left me all my presence of mind,
all my readiness of resource. What are the others doing, those who got
splashed through standing too near the chemical bomb? I return to the
lecture hall. It is not a cheerful spectacle. The master has come off
badly: his shirtfront, waistcoat and trousers are covered with smears,
which are all smoldering and burning into holes. He hurriedly divests
himself of a portion of his dangerous raiment. Those of us who possess
the smartest clothes lend him something to put on so that he can go home
decently.

One of the tall, funnel-shaped glasses which I was admiring just now is
standing, full of ammonia, on the table. All, coughing and sniveling,
dip their handkerchiefs into it and rub the moist rag over their hats
and coats. In this way, the red stains left by the horrible compound
are made to disappear. A drop of ink will presently restore the color
completely.

And the oxygen? There was no more question, I need hardly say, of that.
The feast of learning was over. Never mind: the disastrous lesson was a
mighty event for me. I had been inside the chemist's laboratory; I
had had a glimpse of those wonderful jars and tubes. In teaching, what
matters most is not the thing taught, whether well or badly grasped:
it is the stimulus given to the pupil's latent aptitudes; it is the
fulminate awakening the slumbering explosives. One day, I shall obtain
on my own account that oxygen which ill luck has denied me; one day,
without a master, I shall yet learn chemistry.

Yes, I shall learn this chemistry, which started so disastrously. And
how? By teaching it. I do not recommend that method to anybody. Happy
the man who is guided by a master's word and example! He has a smooth
and easy road before him, lying straight ahead. The other follows a
rugged path, in which his feet often stumble; he goes groping into the
unknown and loses his way. To recover the right road, if want of success
have not discouraged him, he can rely only on perseverance, the sole
compass of the poor. Such was my fate. I taught myself by teaching
others, by passing on to them the modicum of seed that had ripened on
the barren moor cleared, from day to day, by my patient plowshare.

A few months after the incident of the vitriol bomb, I was sent to
Carpentras to take charge of junior classes at the college there. The
first year was a difficult one, swamped as I was by the excessive number
of pupil