Much time had hitherto been worse than wasted by cramming the minds with the jaw-breaking names of unimportant rivers, mountains, descriptions of all the frog ponds in Ethiopia, and other useless trash in the so-called geographies; in memorizing the obsolete rules of duodecimals, compound proportion, etc., in the arithmetic; long-winded, unpractical rules for grammar, etc.

I issued a circular eliminating this trash from the course of study, substituting the practical short cuts of modern business principles, and in this, also, I met with opposition from the “moss-backs,” who insisted that what they had learned in the year one was good enough for their children; they wanted no “new-fangled” notions.

They reminded me of the way-back-hard-shell preacher whose hymn book had been stuffed with profane poems by some lewd fellows of the baser sort.  He always opened at random and, trusting to divine guidance, read the first hymn that presented itself; he commenced:  “We will sing together the one thousand three hundred and forty ’leventh hime.”

  “’All around the cobbler’s bench the monkey chased the
  weasel—­’”

He was amazed; the congregation was dumbfounded.  Taking off his spectacles, wiping them carefully, he put them on his nose again, gazed at the book in consternation:  “Well,” said he, “I never seed that hime in this yer hime-book before; but the Lord put it in, and we’ll sing it whir or no,” and proceeded: 

  “‘The preacher kissed the cobbler’s wife, pop goes the weasel.’”

As I have said before, it requires a surgical operation to get progressive ideas through our thick heads; but the knife was used freely by me, and I had the satisfaction as well as the odium of infusing much young blood into the worn out educational body during my two years’ service as school superintendent in this town.

A few of us wasted our money in building a new church, dedicated to the teaching of the advanced thoughts of the liberal faith; but the people were joined to their idols, and it is now deserted, though the “little leaven has largely leavened the whole lump” of the ancient hell fire theology.

It is very, very hard to endure the slings and arrows of the jealous and envious for whose good you are toiling; to be slandered and reviled by your neighbors whose feeble intellects fail to appreciate your strenuous efforts to push forward the car of progress in their midst; but the consolations expressed in this poem bring balm to every wounded spirit.

  “I know as my life grows older,
    And mine eyes have clearer sight,
  That under each rank wrong, somewhere,
    There lies the root of right. 
  That each sorrow has its purpose
    By the suffering oft unguessed;
  But as sure as the sun brings morning,
    Whatever is, is best.

  “I know that each sinful action,
    As sure as the night brings shade,
  Is some time, somewhere punished,
    Though the hour be long delayed. 
  I know that the soul is aided
    Sometimes, by the heart’s unrest,
  And to grow, means often to suffer;
    But whatever is, is best.