Explore "The Object Lesson" by James Whitcomb Riley on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Barely a year ago I attended the Friday afternoon exercises of a country school. My mission there, as I remember, was to refresh my mind with such material as might be gathered, for a "valedictory," which, I regret to say, was to be handed down to posterity under another signature than my own.
There was present, among a host of visitors, a pale young man of perhaps thirty years, with a tall head and bulging brow and a highly intellectual pair of eyes and spectacles. He wore his hair without roach or "part" and the smile he beamed about him was "a joy forever. " He was an educator -- from the East, I think I heard it rumoured -- anyway he was introduced to the school at last, and he bowed, and smiled, and beamed upon us all, and entertained us after the most delightfully edifying manner imaginable. And although I may fail to reproduce the exact substance of his remarks upon that highly important occasion, I think I can at least present his theme in all its coherency of detail. Addressing more particularly the primary department of the school, he said: --