A Burroughs, an Edison, a Thoreau, might have
his feet in the stocks and still have more freedom than such a man as
this. He walks about amid historic scenes with his spiritual eyes
blindfolded, and that condition of mind precludes freedom.
=Real freedom.=--We shall not attain our high privileges as a free
people until freedom comes to mean more than the absence of physical
restraint. Our conception of freedom must reach out into the world of
mind and spirit, and our educational processes must esteem it their
chief function to set mental and spiritual prisoners free. We have only
to read history, science, and literature to realize what sublime heights
mind can attain in its explorations of the realms of truth, and, since
the boys and girls of our schools are to pass this way but once, every
effort possible should be made to accord to them full freedom to emulate
the mental achievements of those who have gone before. They have a right
to become the equals of their predecessors, and only freedom of mind and
spirit can make them such. Every man should be larger than his task, and
only freedom of mind and spirit can make him so. The man who works in
the ditch can revel among the sublime manifestations of truth if only
his mind is rightly furnished.
=Spelling.=--The man who is deficient in spelling inevitably confines
his vocabulary to narrow limits and so lacks facility of expression and
nicety of diction.
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