Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 43.djvu/84

74 great forest trees, and in the hospitable halls of this home, many a generation of Normal pupils have had their merrymakings—springtime maple-sugar parties and autumnal fruit festivals and corn-roasts—the hearty participation of the master and mistress of the place making all feel at home. This home—with its evidence that refinement and simple but generous hospitality can be



maintained without wealth or extravagance; that gentle, winning manners and a cheerful heart are not incompatible with serious character and heavy burdens—has been the finest object lesson at Oswego.

Thirty years have passed since the tender shoot was planted that has grown into this stately tree: its fruits have dropped all over our land; some of the seeds have fallen on stony ground and withered away after a superficial growth; others have been choked by the growth of purely selfish ambitions and brought forth little fruit; but some have fallen on good soil and brought forth an hundredfold. Much has been done for education in our land during these thirty years, but a thousandfold more remains to be done to make the public schools what they must become to merit