and the superintendent may well promulgate it in his directions to his teachers.  All teaching has to do with Truth and, in the presence of Truth, whether in mathematics, or science, or history, or language, the teacher should feel that he stands in the presence of the Burning Bush and hears the command, “Put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground.”  It seems a thousand pities that even college students rush into the presence of the Burning Bush in hobnailed shoes, shouting forth the college yell as they go.

The man who is reverent disclaims everything that is cheap, or vulgar, or coarse, or unseemly.  He is so essentially fine that the gaudy, the bizarre, and the intemperate, in whatever form, grate upon his sensibilities.  He respects himself too much to be lacking in respect to others.  He instinctively shrinks away from ugly vulgarization as from a pestilence.  He is kindly, charitable, sympathetic, and sincere.  Exaggeration, insinuation, and caricature are altogether foreign to his spirit.  In his society we feel inspired and ennobled.  His very presence is a tonic, and his tongue distills only purity.  His example is the lodestar of our aspirations, and we fain would be his disciples.  We feel him to be something worshipful in that his life constantly beckons to our better selves.  To be reverent is to be liberally educated, while to be irreverent is to dwell in darkness and ignorance.  To be reverent is to live on the heights, where the air is pure and tonic and where the sunlight is free from taint.  To be reverent is to acknowledge our indebtedness to all those who, in art, in science, in literature, in music, or in philanthropy, have caused the waters of life to gush forth in clear abundance.  To be reverent is to stand uncovered in the presence of Life and to experience the thrill of the spiritual impulses that only an appreciation of life can generate.  If this is reverence, then the school honors itself by giving this quality a place of honor.

CHAPTER TEN

SENSE OF RESPONSIBILITY

Every one who has had to do with Harvey’s Grammar will readily recall the sentence, “Milo began to lift the ox when he was a calf.”  Aside from the interest which this sentence aroused as to the antecedent of the pronoun, it also enunciated a bit of philosophy which caused the pupils to wonder about the possibility of such a feat.  They were led to consider such examples of physical strength as Samson, Hercules, and the more modern Sandow and to wonder, perhaps, just what course of training brought these men to their attainment of physical power.  It is comparatively easy for adults to realize that such feats as these men accomplished could only come through a long process of training.  If a man can lift a given weight on one day, he may be able to lift a slightly heavier weight the next day, and so on until he has achieved distinction by reason of his