CHAPTER XIX
JIM'S WORLD WIDENS
Mr. Hofmyer was waiting to give Jim the final convincing proof that he hadproduced an effect with his speech.
"Do you teach the kind of school you lay out in your talk?" he asked.
"I try to," said Jim, "and I believe I do."
"Well," said Mr. Hofmyer, "that's the kind of education I b'lieve in. Ikep' school back in Pennsylvany fifty years ago, and I made the scholarsmeasure things, and weigh things, and apply their studies as fur as Icould."
"All good teachers have always done that," said Jim. "Froebel, Pestalozzi,Colonel Parker--they all had the idea which is at the bottom of my work;'learn to do by doing,' and connecting up the school with life."
"M'h'm," grunted Mr. Hofmyer, "I hain't been able to see how Latinconnects up with a high-school kid's life--unless he can find a Latinsettlement som'eres and git a job clerkin' in a store."
"But it used to relate to life," said Jim, "the life of the people whomade Greek and Latin a part of everybody else's education as well as theirown. Latin and Greek were the only languages in which anything worth muchwas written, you know. But now"--Jim spread out his arms as if to take inthe whole world--"science, the marvelous literature of our tongue in thelast three centuries! And to make a child learn Latin with all that, athousand times richer than all the literature of Latin, lying unusedbefore him!"
"Know any Latin?" asked Mr. Hofmyer.
Jim blushed, as one caught in condemning what he knows nothing about.
"I--I have studied the grammar, and read _Caesar_," he faltered, "but thatisn't much. I had no teacher, and I had to work pretty hard, and it didn'tgo very well."
"I've had all the Latin they gave in the colleges of my time," said Mr.Hofmyer, "if I do talk dialect; and I'll agree with you so far as to saythat it would have been a crime for me to neglect the chemistry,bacteriology, physics, engineering and other sciences that pertain tofarmin'--if there'd been any such sciences when I was gettin' myschoolin'."
"And yet," said Jim, "some people want us to guide ourselves by thecourses of study made before these sciences existed."
"I don't, by hokey!" said Mr. Hofmyer. "I'll be dag-goned if you ain'tright. I wouldn't 'a' said so before I heard that speech--but I say sonow."
Jim's face lighted up at this, the first convincing evidence that he hadscored.
"I b'lieve, too," went on Mr. Hofmyer, "that your idee would please ourfolks. I've been the stand-patter in our parts--mostly on English and--sayGerman. What d'ye say to comin' down and teachin' our school? We've got atwo-room affair, and I was made a committee of one to find a teacher."
"I--I don't see how--" Jim stammered, all taken aback by this new breezeof recognition.
"We can't pay much," said Mr. Hofmyer. "You have charge of thedis-_cip_-line in the whole school, and teach in Number Two room.Seventy-five dollars a month. Does it appeal to ye?"
Appeal to him! Why, eighteen months ago it would have been worth crawlingacross the state after, and now to have it offered to him--it wasstupendous. And yet, how about the Simmses, Colonel Woodruff, the Hansensand Newton Bronson, now just getting a firm start on the upward path tousefulness and real happiness? How could he leave the little, crude, punystructure on which he had been working--on which he had been merelypractising--for a year, and remove to the new field? Jim was in exactlythe same situation in which every able young minister of the gospel findshimself sooner or later. The Lord was calling to a broader field--but howcould he be sure it was the Lord?
"I'm afraid I can't," said Jim Irwin, "but----"
"If you're only 'fraid you can't," said Mr. Hofmyer, "think it over. I'vegot your post-office address on this program, and we'll write you a formaloffer. We may spring them figures a little. Think it over."
"You mustn't think," said Jim, "that we've _done_ all the things Imentioned in my talk, or that I haven't made any mistakes or failures."
"Your county superintendent didn't mention any failures," said Mr.Hofmyer.
"Did you talk with her about my work?" inquired Jim, suddenly verycurious.
"M'h'm."
"Then I don't see why you want me," Jim went on.
"Why?" asked Mr. Hofmyer.
"I had not supposed," said Jim, "that she had a very high opinion of mywork."
"I didn't ask her about that," said Mr. Hofmyer, "though I guess shethinks well of it. I asked her what you are tryin' to do, and what sort ofa fellow you are. I was favorably impressed; but she didn't mention anyfailures."
"We haven't succeeded in adopting a successful system of selling ourcream," said Jim. "I believe we can do it, but we haven't."
"Wal," said Mr. Hofmyer, "I d'know as I'd call that a failure. The factthat you're tryin' of it shows you've got the right idees. We'll write ye,and mebbe pay your way down to look us over. We're a pretty good crowd,the neighbors think."