One man advocates the plan of promoting pupils in the schools on the basis of character, and this plan strongly appeals to me as right, plausible, and altogether feasible.  Had this been proposed when I was a schoolboy I probably should have made a few conditions, or at least have asked a few questions.  I should certainly have wanted to know who was to be the judge in the matter, and what was his definition of character.  Much would have depended upon that.  If he had decreed that cruelty to animals indicates a lack of character and then proceeded to denominate as cruelty to animals such innocent diversions as shooting woodpeckers in a cherry-tree with a Flobert rifle, or smoking chipmunks out from a hollow log, or tying a strip of red flannel to a hen’s tail to take her mind off the task of trying to hatch a door-knob, or tying a tin can to a dog’s tail to encourage him in his laudable enterprise of demonstrating the principle of uniformly accelerated motion—­if he had included these and other such like harmless antidotes for ennui in his category, I should certainly have asked to be excused from his character curriculum and should have pursued the even tenor of my ways, splitting kindling, currying the horse, washing the buggy, carrying water from the pump to the kitchen and saying, “Thank you,” to my elders as the more agreeable avenue of promotion.

If we had had character credits in the good old days I might have won distinction in school and been saved much embarrassment in later years.  Instead of learning the latitude and longitude of Madagascar, Chattahoochee, and Kamchatka, I might have received high grades in geography by abstaining from the chewing of gum, by not wearing my hands in my trousers-pockets, by walking instead of ambling or slouching, by wiping the mud from my shoes before entering the house, by a personally conducted tour through the realms of manicuring, and by learning the position and use of the hat-rack.  Getting no school credits for such incidental minors in the great scheme of life, I grew careless and indifferent and acquired a reputation that I do not care to dwell upon.  If those who had me in charge, or thought they had, had only been wise and given me school credits for all these things, what a model boy I might have been!

Why, I would have swallowed my pride, donned a kitchen apron, and washed the supper dishes, and no normal boy enjoys that ceremony.  By making passes over the dishes I should have been exorcising the spooks of cube root, and that would have been worth some personal sacrifice.  What a boon it would have been for the home folks too!  They could have indulged their penchant for literary exercises, sitting in the parlor making out certificates for me to carry to my teacher next day, and so all the rough places in the home would have been made smooth.  But the crowning achievement would have been my graduation from college.  I can see the picture.  I am husking corn in the lower field.  To reach