the new teacher and became bolder in his
misconduct. On a day, when he was unruly beyond all pardon, Russell
took down the birch and invited him up before the school to receive
the usual punishment. The great occasion had come. The children waited
with bated breath. The boy refused openly, sneeringly. The next
moment, he thought lightning had struck him. He was grabbed by the
neck, held with a grip of iron despite all his struggles, whipped
before the gaping school, taken to the door and kicked out in the
snow. Then the school lessons proceeded. It made a sensation, of
course. Some of the parents wanted to request the new teacher to
resign. But others rallied to his support and protested to the school
board that the right man had been found at last. And so Russell held
the post until the school term was over. Thirty-five years after,
Russell Conwell, pastor of the Baptist Temple, was asked to head a
petition to get this same evil doer out of Sing Sing prison.

But despite his hard work and hard study at Wilbraham, the spirit of
fun cropped out as persistently as in his younger days at the country
school. A chance to play a good joke was not to be missed. At one of
the school entertainments, a student whom few liked was to take part.
Relatives of his had given a large sum of money to the Academy, and
on this account he somewhat lorded it over the other boys. He was, in
addition, foppish in his dress, and on account of his money, position,
and tailor, felt the country boys of the class a decided drawback to
his social status. So the country boys decided to "get even," and they
needed no other leader while Russell Conwell was about. Finally it
came the dandy's turn to go on the platform to deliver a recitation.
Just as he stepped out of the little anteroom before the audience,
Russell, with deft fingers, fastened a paper jumping-jack to the tail
of his coat, where it dangled back of his legs in plain view of the
audience but unobserved by himself. With every gesture the figure
jumped, climbed, contorted, and went through all manner of gymnastics.
The more enthusiastic became the young orator, the more active the
tiny figure in his rear. The audience went into convulsions. Utterly
unable to tell what was the matter, he finally retired, red and
confused, and the audience wiped away the tears of laughter.

It was at one of these entertainments that Russell himself met with a
bitter defeat. A public debate was announced in w