=Real freedom.=—­We shall not attain our high privileges as a free people until freedom comes to mean more than the absence of physical restraint.  Our conception of freedom must reach out into the world of mind and spirit, and our educational processes must esteem it their chief function to set mental and spiritual prisoners free.  We have only to read history, science, and literature to realize what sublime heights mind can attain in its explorations of the realms of truth, and, since the boys and girls of our schools are to pass this way but once, every effort possible should be made to accord to them full freedom to emulate the mental achievements of those who have gone before.  They have a right to become the equals of their predecessors, and only freedom of mind and spirit can make them such.  Every man should be larger than his task, and only freedom of mind and spirit can make him so.  The man who works in the ditch can revel among the sublime manifestations of truth if only his mind is rightly furnished.

=Spelling.=—­The man who is deficient in spelling inevitably confines his vocabulary to narrow limits and so lacks facility of expression and nicety of diction.  Accordingly, he suffers by comparison with others whose vocabulary is more extensive and whose diction is, therefore, more elegant.  The consciousness of his shortcomings restricts the exuberance of his life, and he fails of that sense of large freedom that a knowledge of spelling would certainly give.  So that even in such an elementary study as spelling the school has an opportunity to generate in the pupils a feeling of freedom, and this feeling is quite as important in the scheme of life as the ability to spell correctly.  In this statement, there is no straining for effects.  On the contrary, many illustrations might be adduced to prove that it is but a plain statement of fact.  A cultured lady confesses that she is thrown into a panic whenever she has occasion to use the word Tuesday because she is never certain of the spelling.

=The switchboard.=—­Life may be likened to an extensive electric switchboard, and only that man or woman has complete freedom who can press the right button without hesitation or trepidation.  The ignorant man stands paralyzed in the presence of this mystery and knows not how to proceed to evoke the correct response to his desires.  It has been said that everything is infinitely high that we cannot see over.  Hence, to the man who does not know, cube root is infinitely high and, as such, is as far away from his comprehension as the fourth dimension or the precession of the equinoxes.  In the presence of even such a simple truth as cube root he stands helpless and enthralled.  He lives in a small circle and cannot know the joy of the man whose mind forgathers with the big truths of life.