People's Pilot, Volume 6, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 February 1897 — A Ride For Reputation. [ARTICLE]

A Ride For Reputation.

While they were discussing the melee in the school hoard the head of n big manufacturing establishment was moved to relate this experience: “I was once a pedagogue myself. I had resolved to do something worth while in the business world, and having no capital except what was wrapped up in my person I taught school to get a starter. I had some advanced students and had to skirmish in order to keep up with the procession. One day the whole class was stumped by an arithmetical problem, and so was I. In order to gain time for rayself I came the old dodge of tolling them how much better it would be if they would work out (he solution for themselves and gave them another day. “That night, behind locked doors and closed blinds, I worked in fear and perspiration. From the bottom of my trunk I took a key to the arithmetic, but even with that aid I failed to master the problem. By midnight I was desperate. It would never do to let the scholars, the parents and the whole cruel world know that I was not equal to my position. But it’s not in my make up to surrender while there’s a fighting chance. * ‘At the town, ten miles away, there was a loyal and highly educated friend of mine. He would help me and say nothing. It was one of the bitterest January nights I ever knew. But I slipped to the barn, appropriated a horse, made a ride more notable than many of those immortalized in song or history, froze my ears and toes and had iny vocal powers reduced to a whisper. “But you should have heard my whispered explanation of that problem and my regrets that none of the pupils had mastered it. ” —Detroit Free Press.