Now that might have been an exceptional case, but I found out later that is was not.  Wherever I went in that school, the pupils were polite and courteous and respectful.  That was part of their education.  It should be part of every child’s education.  But many schools are too busy teaching reading, writing, and arithmetic, and others are too busy preserving discipline, and others are too busy coquetting for the good will of their pupils and trying to amuse them—­too busy to give heed to a set of habits that are of paramount importance in the life of civilized society.  This school took up the matter of training in good manners as an essential part of its duty, and it accomplished this task quickly and effectively.  It did it by utilizing the opportunities presented in the usual course of school work.  It took a little time and a little attention, for good manners cannot be acquired incidentally any more than the multiplication tables can be acquired incidentally; but it utilized the everyday opportunities of the schoolroom, and did not make morals and manners the subject of instruction for a half-hour on Friday afternoons to be completely forgotten during the rest of the week.

When the principal took me through the school, I noted everywhere a happy and courteous relation between pupils and teachers.  They spoke pleasantly to one another.  I heard no nagging or scolding.  I saw no one sulking or pouting or in bad temper.  And yet there was every evidence of respect and obedience on the part of the pupils.  There was none of that happy-go-lucky comradeship which I have sometimes seen in other modern schools, and which leads the pupil to understand that his teacher is there to gain his interest, not to command his respectful attention.  Pupils were too busy with their work to talk much with one another.  They were sitting up in their seats as a matter of habit, and it did not seem to hurt them seriously to do so.  And everywhere they were working like beavers at one task or another, or attending with all their eyes and ears to a recitation.

Now it seemed to me that this school was operated with a minimum of waste or loss.  Every item of energy that the pupils possessed was being given to some educative activity.  Nothing was lost by conflict between pupil and teacher.  Nothing was lost by bursts of anger or by fits of depression.  These sources of waste had been eliminated so far as I could determine.  The pupils could read well and write well and cipher accurately.  They even took a keen delight in the drills.  And I found that this phase of their work was enlightened by the modern content that had been introduced.  In their handwork and manual training they could see that arithmetic was useful,—­that it had something to do with the great big buzzing life of the outer world.  They learned that spelling was useful in writing,—­that it was not something that began and ended within the covers of the spelling book, but that it had a real