red slate roofs; they are the nooks and corners of the earth. Its
teachers are not a few half starved silk worms feeding upon green
leaves doled out by philanthropic millionaires, but live, active men
who plant their own mulberry trees. When a man gets a sheepskin from
this school, he doesn't need to go scuffling around for work; he
already has a job. Its museum contains, not a few small specimens of
ore, but is the mine itself.

Let your son take an ante-graduate course of a few years on the road
and he will know to what use to put his book learning when he gets
that. I do not decry book lore; the midnight incandescent burned over
the classic page is a good thing. I am merely saying that lots of good
copper wire goes to waste, because too many college "grads" start
their education wrong end first. They do not know for what they are
working. If I were running a school my way and the object was to teach
a boy _method_, I'd hand him a sample grip before I'd give him a
volume of Euclid. Last night a few ideas struck me when I thought my
day's work was done. I jumped out of bed seven times in twenty minutes
and struck seven matches so I could see to jot down the points. The
man on the road learns to _"do it now."_ Too many traveling men
waste their months of leisure. Like Thomas Moore, in their older days
they will wail:

"Thus many, like me, who in youth should have tasted
The fountain that flows by philosophy's shrine,
Their time with the flowers on its margin have wasted
And left their light urns all as empty as mine."

Yet many improve their hours of leisure from business; if they do not,
it is their own fault. I met an old acquaintance on the street