Reveries of a Schoolmaster

by Francis B. Pearson

In thinking of the pursuit of happiness I am inclined to personify happiness and then watch the chase, wondering whether the pursuer will ever overtake her, and what he'll do when he does. I note that the Constitution does not guarantee that the pursuer will ever catch her—but just gives him an open field and no favors. He may run just as fast as he likes, and as long as his endurance holds out. I suspect that's where the liberty comes in. I wonder if the makers of the Constitution ever visualized that chase. If so, they must have laughed, at least in their sleeves, solemn crowd that they were. If I were certain that I could overtake happiness I'd gladly join in the pursuit, even on such a warm day as this, but the dread uncertainty makes me prefer to loll here in the shade. Besides, I'm not quite certain that I could recognize her even if I could catch her. The photographs that I have seen are so very different that I might mistake happiness for some one else, and that would be embarrassing.

If I should conclude that I was happy, and then discover that I wasn't, I scarcely see how I could explain myself to myself, much less to others. So I shall go on hoeing my potatoes and not bother my poor head about happiness. It is just possible that I shall find it over there in the potato-patch, for its latitude and longitude have never been definitely determined, so far as I am aware. I know I shall find some satisfaction over there at work, and I am convinced that satisfaction and happiness are kinsfolk. Possibly my potatoes will prove the answer to some mother's prayer for food for her little ones next winter. Who knows? As I loosen the soil about the vines I can look down the vista of the months, and see some little one in his high chair smiling through his tears as mother prepares one of my beautiful potatoes for him, and I think I can detect some moisture in mother's eyes, too. It is just possible that her tears are the consecrated incense upon the altar of thanksgiving.

I like to see such pictures as I ply my hoe, for they give me respite from weariness, and give fresh ardor to my hoeing. If each one of my potatoes shall only assuage the hunger of some little one, and cause the mother's eyes to distil tears of joy, I shall be in the border-land of happiness, to say the least. I had fully intended to exercise my inalienable rights and lie in the shade for two hours to-day, but when I caught a glimpse of that little chap in the high chair, and heard his pitiful plea for potatoes, I made for the potato-patch post-haste, as if I were responding to a hurry call. I suppose there is no more heart-breaking sound in nature than the crying of a hungry child. I have been whistling all the afternoon along with my hoeing, and now that I think of it, I must be whistling because my potatoes are going to make that baby laugh.

Well, if they do, then I shall elevate the hoeing of potatoes to the rank of a privilege. Oh, I've read my "Tom Sawyer," and know about his enterprise in getting the fence whitewashed by making the task seem a privilege. But Tom was indulging in fiction, and hoeing potatoes is no fiction. Still those whitewash artists had something of the feeling that I experience right now, only there was no baby in their picture as there is in mine, and so I have the baby as an additional privilege. I wish I knew how to make all the school tasks rank as privileges to my boys and girls. If I could only do that, they would have gone far toward a liberal education. If I could only get a baby to crying somewhere out beyond cube root I'm sure they would struggle through the mazes of that subject, somehow, so as to get to the baby to change its crying into laughter. 'Tis worth trying.

I wonder, after all, whether education is not the process of shifting the emphasis from rights to privileges. I have a right, when I go into the town, to keep my seat in the car and let the old lady use the strap. If I insist upon that right I feel myself a boor, lacking the sense and sensibilities of a gentleman. But when I relinquish my seat I feel that I have exercised my privilege to be considerate and courteous. I have a right to permit weeds and briers to overrun my fences, and the fences themselves to go to rack, and so offend the sight of my neighbors; but I esteem it a privilege to make the premises clean and beautiful, so as to add so much to the sum total of pleasure. I have a right to stay on my own side of the road and keep to myself; but it is a great privilege to go up for a half-hour's exchange of talk with my neighbor John. He always clears the cobwebs from my eyes and from my soul, and I return to my work refreshed.

I have a right, too, to pore over the colored supplement for an hour or so, but when I am able to rise to my privileges and take the Book of Job instead, I feel that I have made a gain in self-respect, and can stand more nearly erect. I have a right, when I go to church, to sit silent and look bored; but, when I avail myself of the privilege of joining in the responses and the singing, I feel that I am fertilizing my spirit for the truth that is proclaimed. As a citizen I have certain rights, but when I come to think of my privileges my rights seem puny in comparison. Then, too, my rights are such cold things, but my privileges are full of sunshine and of joy. My rights seem mathematical, while my privileges seem curves of beauty.

In his scientific laboratory at Princeton, on one occasion, the celebrated Doctor Hodge, in preparing for an experiment said to some students who were gathered about him: "Gentlemen, please remove your hats; I am about to ask God a question." So it is with every one who esteems his privileges. He is asking God questions about the glory of the sunrise, the fragrance of the flowers, the colors of the rainbow, the music of the brook, and the meaning of the stars. But I hear a baby crying and must get back to my potatoes.

CHAPTER XVI

CHANGING THE MIND

I have been reading, in this book, of a man who couldn't change his mind because his intellectual wardrobe was not sufficient to warrant a change. I was feeling downright sorry for the poor fellow till I got to wondering how many people are feeling sorry for me for the same reason. That reflection changed the situation greatly, and I began to feel some resentment against the blunt statement in the book as being rather too personal. Just as I begin to think that we have standardized a lot of things, along comes some one in a book, or elsewhere, and completely upsets my fine and comforting theories and projects me into chaos again. No sooner do I get a lot of facts all nicely settled, and begin to enjoy complacency, than some disturber of the peace knocks all my facts topsy-turvy, and says they are not facts at all, but the merest fiction. Then I cry aloud with my old friend Cicero, Ubinam gentium sumus, which, being translated in the language of the boys, means, "Where in the world (or nation) are we at?" They are actually trying to reform my spelling. I do wish these reformers had come around sooner, when I was learning to spell phthisic, syzygy, daguerreotype, and caoutchouc. They might have saved me a deal of trouble and helped me over some of the high places at the old-fashioned spelling-bees.