"Aleck," replied the vicar of the stables with his quaint sunniness, "don't you know that no human being can teach any living thing--man or beast or bird or fish or flea--_not_ to do a thing? you can only teach _to do_. If there is a God of this universe, He is a God of doing. You can no more teach 'a not' than you can teach 'a nothing.' Now try to teach one of your sons nothing! This world has never taught, and will never teach, a prohibition, because a prohibition is a nothing; it has never taught anything but the will and desire to do: that is the root of the matter. Do you suppose I try to keep one of my cows from kicking over the bucket of milk by tying her hind legs? I go to the other end of the beast and do something for her brain so that when she feels the instinct to kick which is her right, what I have taught her will compel her to waive her right and to keep her feet on the ground. That is all there is of it." They were hearty and good-humored in their talk, and the minister did not budge: but the boy listened only to his uncle. "Do you remember, Aleck, when you and I were in the school over yonder and one morning old Bowles issued a new order that none of us boys was to ask for a drink between little recess and big recess? Now none of us drank at that hour; but the day after the order was issued, every boy wanted a drink, and demanded a drink, and got a drink. It was thirst for principle. Every boy knew it was his right to drink whenever he was thirsty--and even when he was not thirsty; and he disobeyed orders to assert that right. And if old Bowles had not lowered his authority before that advancing right, there would not have been any old Bowles. There is one thing greater than any man's authority, and that is any man's right. Isn't that the United States? Wasn't that Kentucky country school-house the United States? And don't you know, Aleck, that as soon as a thing is forbidden, human nature investigates the command to see whether it puts forth an infringement of its liberties? Don't you _know_, Aleck, that the disobedience of children may be one of their natural rights?" At this point the uncle turned unexpectedly toward his nephew:-- "Does this bore you, Downs?" Downs remarked pointedly that half of it bored him: he made it perfectly clear which was the objectionable half. The uncle did not notice the discourtesy to his guest, but continued his amiable observation:--