But this study is not about Mrs. Buttons; she would require
many studies. I will take a less impressive case of my principle,
the principle of keeping in the mind an actual personality when we
are talking about types or tendencies or generalized ideals.
Take, for example, the question of the education of boys.
Almost every post brings me pamphlets expounding some advanced and
suggestive scheme of education; the pupils are to be taught separate;
the sexes are to be taught together; there should be no prizes;
there should be no punishments; the master should lift the boys
to his level; the master should descend to their level; we should
encourage the heartiest comradeship among boys, and also the tenderest
spiritual intimacy with masters; toil must be pleasant and holidays
must be instructive; with all these things I am daily impressed
and somewhat bewildered. But on the great Buttons' principle I
keep in my mind and apply to all these ideals one still vivid fact;
the face and character of a particular schoolboy whom I once knew.
I am not taking a mere individual oddity, as you will hear.
He was exceptional, and yet the reverse of eccentric; he was
(in a quite sober and strict sense of the words) exceptionally average.
He was the incarnation and the exaggeration of a certain spirit
which is the common spirit of boys, but which nowhere else became
so obvious and outrageous. And because he was an incarnation he was,
in his way, a tragedy.

I will call him Simmons. He was a tall, healthy figure, strong, but a
little slouching, and there was in his walk something between a slight
swagger and a seaman's roll; he commonly had his hands in his pockets.
His hair was dark, straight, and undistinguished; and his face,
if one saw it after his figure, was something of a surprise.