I admit that here we have a very unusual case, but is it[Pg 162] too much to ask of an educational system which, at vast expense, takes a child at four or five and now carries him on to twenty or so, that it should succeed in doing for the student a little something of what this man has done for himself? What, among other things, has he taught himself? The joys of exact knowledge in science, of speculation in philosophy, the joys of nature, of music, of rational recreation and sane expenditure, and “some of the secrets of a contented life.” How many American colleges of today would have given him as rounded an education as that? Let us read another letter that is on my table. It is from a woman in one of the largest, wealthiest and most populated states in the Union, the public school system in which should be of the best. She began as a school teacher herself. “No doubt I did the work badly enough,” she modestly writes, “but I did like to work with children and I began to study them. Then and there I became a rebel against the methods and system advocated and I departed from them just as much as I dared. After five years of teaching I married. Ten years ago my little daughter was born. Here was my opportunity to do as I pleased, for a while at least. I began by interesting her, talking to her as if she had a mind when she was a tiny baby. Before she was six months old, she had spoken several words plainly enough to be understood by disinterested persons. At thirteen months she was making sentences. Before she was three years old she was reading script and print. The most delightful books I could find were procured for her. Of her own volition she was learning much each day. She had no lessons. In her little Readers she began anywhere her fancy dictated. An eighth grade geography was worn out and[Pg 163] another was procured. She browsed among the books we owned; at four reading from Holmes and Longfellow. At five she had read Poe and Hawthorne. At six years old I found her reading Emerson’s essay on the Intellect. She had nature books and travel books, and we thought she was doing splendidly at home but to conform to custom at “half past six” we sent her to school (rural). She didn’t fit anywhere. She was more interested in the work the eighth grade pupils were doing than that of the lower grades. Fortunately she had a tactful teacher. He did the best he could with her, finally placing her in fourth grade.” The next year, under a teacher unfitted for her work, the child lost all interest. The following year she was kept home, “doing most excellent work”. The next year she returned to school and for seventh grade work was given reading, spelling, grammar, arithmetic, penmanship, geography, local state history, United States history, physiology and health education. “At the end of the term the County Superintendent gives a final examination. Beginning at 8 o’clock the children write on all these subjects and also on Reading Circle books.