Page:Counter-currents, Agnes Repplier, 1916.djvu/194

Counter-Currents "When I tell him about it, Tony shouts, 'Hooray for Mr. Edison!' right in front of the battery, just as he used to say, 'To hell wid de cop.'"

Now this is an interesting exposition of the purely sentimental view of education. We have been leading up to it for years, ever since Froebel uttered his famous "Come, let us live with our children!" and here it is set down in black and white by a man who has the welfare of the young deeply at heart. Judge Lindsey sympathizes with Tony's distaste for study. He points out to us that it is hard for a boy who is "the leader of a gang" to be laughed at by less enterprising children because he cannot cipher. Yet to some of us it does not seem altogether amiss that Tony should be brought to understand the existence of other standards than those of hoodlumism. Ciphering is dull work (so, at least, I have always found it), and difficult work too; but it is hardly fair to 178