“9. Probably about one-fourth of the pupils attending school are what you call ‘bad boys’ and ‘bad girls.’ They have little or no desire to attend school and to study the assigned lessons and branches at such a time and for such a length of time. They greatly annoy those who do have a taste for study, and their compulsory attendance constantly causes an increased repugnance for the school-room and for all the work connected with it. They become thoroughly disgusted with all learning. Thus, instead of creating a pleasurable desire for learning, you do not even let it sprout by giving them a little freedom and opportunity. “10. We have seen that not all pupils have a like mental endurance. Some are mentally exhausted before others. The mental endurance of the same pupil also differs from day to day. Again, some delight in study one day and dislike it the next. But your ‘school week’ consists of five days and your ‘school day’ consists of six hours, no matter what the other conditions are. The pupil who is through studying must remain just as long as the one who is not. Thus you are largely obliged to enforce attendance and order on those pupils who are not in a mood for mental work at that time. This condition of things necessarily causes a constant friction between teachers and pupils. It makes a cruel, crabbed, despotic teacher and a ruthless, stubborn pupil. I believe this to be one of the reasons why so many of your professional teachers are so overbearing, cruel and despotic, caring so little for the rights, freedom and welfare of others. My profession has called me to many of your teachers’ associations, and I am sorry to say that, as a rule, I have invariably found these assemblies composed of very narrow-minded men and women. As a rule, they have very little idea of freedom, equity, and the psychological principles upon which all successful instruction must be based. They generally hoot at any truth that does not lie within their narrow path of a little impractical book-learning. But this is all natural and inevitable when we understand the circumstances which produce your public school-teacher. To begin with, the teacher must generally get his position by more or less scheming, and when he has secured it he becomes a kind of lord and master over his pupils. If he is a principal or superintendent, his assistant teachers are generally more or less at his mercy. The assistants know this and often flatter him in order to stand well in his estimation. The less learned patrons also look upon him as a distinguished personage. This subordination of his companions, the absolute authority he exercises over his pupils, his real or supposed learning, and other advantages make a kind of baron out of him, and generally cover him more or less with ‘cheap’ vanity and ostentation. It also makes him very intolerant, so that an assembly of principals and superintendents who pretend to lead the intellectual world, nearly