I wish I might go home from school one evening by way of the top of Mt.  Vesuvius, another by way of Mt.  Rigi, and, another, by way of Lauterbrunnen.  Then the next evening I should like to spend an hour or two along the borders of Yellowstone Canyon, and the next, watch an eruption or two of Old Faithful geyser.  Then, on still another evening, I’d like to ride for two hours on top of a bus in London.  I’d like to have these experiences as an antidote for emptiness.  It would prepare me far better for to-morrow work than pondering Johnny’s defections, or his grades, whether high or low, or marking silly papers with marks that are still sillier.  I like Walt Whitman because he was such a sublime loafer.  His loafing gave him time to grow big inside, and so, he had big elemental thoughts that were good for him and good for me when I think them over after him.

If I should ever get a position in a normal school I’d want to give a course in William J. Locke’s “The Beloved Vagabond,” so as to give the young folks a conception of big elemental teaching.  If I were giving a course in ethics, I’d probably select another book, but, in pedagogy, I’d certainly include that one.  I’d lose some students, to be sure, for some of them would be shocked; but a person who is not big enough to profit by reading that book never ought to teach school—­I mean for the school’s sake.  If we could only lose the consciousness of the fact that we are schoolmasters for a few hours each day, it would be a great help to us and to our boys and girls.

I am quite partial to the “Madonna of the Chair,” and wish I might visit the Pitti Gallery frequently just to gaze at her.  She is so wholesome and gives one the feeling that a big soul looks out through her eyes.  She would be a superb teacher.  She would fill the school with her presence and still do it all unconsciously.  The centre of the room would be where she happened to be.  She would never be mistaken for one of the pupils.  Her pupils would learn arithmetic but the arithmetic would be laden with her big spirit, and that would be better for them than the arithmetic could possibly be.  If I had to be a woman I’d want to be such as this Madonna—­serene, majestic, and big-souled.

I have often wondered whether bigness of soul can be cultivated, and my optimism inclines to a vote in the affirmative.  I spent a part of one summer in the pine woods far away from the haunts of men.  When I had to leave this sylvan retreat it required eleven hours by stage to reach the railway-station.  There for some weeks I lived in a log cabin, accompanied by a cook and a professional woodsman.  I was not there to camp, to fish, or to loaf, and yet I did all these.  There were some duties and work connected with the enterprise and these gave zest to the fishing and the loafing.  Giant trees, space, and sky were my most intimate associates, and they told me only of big things.  They had never