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.
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