One Friday afternoon we chose up and spelled down, and the next Friday afternoon we spoke pieces. Doubtless this accounts for our being a nation of orators. I am far from implying or seeming to imply that this is anything to brag of. Anybody that can be influenced by a man with a big mouth, a loud voice, and a rush of words to the face--well, I've got my opinion of all such. Oratory and poetry--all foolishness, I say. Better far are drawing-lessons, and raffia-work, and clay-modeling than: “I come not here to talk,” and “A soldier of the Legion lay dying at Algiers,” and “Old Ironsides at anchor lay.” (I observe that these lines are more or less familiar to you, and that you are eager to add selections to the list, all of them known to me as well as you.) That children, especially boys, loathe to speak a piece is a fact profoundly significant. They know it is nothing in the world but foolishness; and if there is one thing above another that a child hates, it is to be made a fool in public. That's what makes them work their fingers so, and gulp, and stammer, and tremble at the knees. That is what sends them to their seats, after all is over, mad as hornets. This is something that I know about. It happened that, instead of getting funny pieces to recite as I wanted to, discerning that one silly turn deserves another, my parents, well-meaning in their way, taught me solemn things about: “O man immortal, live for something!” and all such, and I had to humiliate myself by disgorging them in public. The consequence was, that not only on Friday afternoons but whenever anybody came to visit the school, I was butchered to make a Roman holiday. Teacher was so proud of me, and the visitors let on that they were tickled half to death, but I knew better. I could see the other scholars look at one another, as much as to say: “Well, if you'll tell me why!” Even in my shame and anger I could see that. But there is one happy memory of a Friday afternoon. Determined to show my friends and fellow-citizens that I, too, was born in Arcadia, and was a living, human boy, I announced to Teacher: “I got another piece.” “Oh, have you?” cried she, sure of an extra O-man-immortal intellectual treat. “Let us hear it, by all means.” Whereupon I marched up to the platform and declaimed that deathless lyric: “When I was a boy, I was a bold one. My mammy made me a new shirt out o' dad's old one.” All of it? Certainly. Isn't that enough? That was the only distinctly popular platform effort I ever made. I am proud of it now. I was proud of it then. But the news of my triumph was coldly received at home.