gone into electrical ventures, and I shall succeed. I must succeed.
— I know for certain that you will succeed!
Then you drew near me and said sweetly:
— Jim, I want you to come, at the end of the coming school year, to the students' party at the university where I shall be studying. Will you come?? Say — will you come??
I said:
— I will come.
And I took your hands in mine, and we stayed thus for some moments... Then you circled me with your arm, and lifted your head toward the silvered light of the stars, and your lips brushed my cheek with a light touch for the first time, and it seemed to us that the stars were falling to gather round us.
Then you said:
— I shall always remember this evening, my dear.
Did you remember it? Many things have passed since that night. The town of "Oakwood" has changed; the electric train has been done away with; the ornament of the green stretches of "Franklin" Street has been spoiled, replaced by passageways leading to ugly-looking garages, and the sounds of horns and the snorting of machines have come to trouble the quiet of the night. As for our little old school, it seems to me it gazes like a simpleton at the grand new school rising on the opposite side. And the young men have cast off the suits that showed the slimness of the waist and the breadth of the shoulders, and have exchanged them for loose sport clothes.
And the girls? They no longer wait for someone to escort them to the school dance; they hurry out with painted lips to the edge of the pavement, where the young
men sit in open cars and receive them with an insolence they have mastered by dint of repetition...
At the end of July you wrote to me that your mother thought the correspondence should be lightened. After that I wrote no more than two letters a week.
In those days I was not earning much money, but the future belonged to the branch I had chosen: electricity. The specialists were debating a new application of electrical power and prophesying the sending of musical melodies through the air. I began working night and day, thinking of you always.
And one day you wrote me that your sister had told your father — with the terrible recklessness of children — that you were in love with me, that you spent your time dreaming, and that you excused yourself from going swimming in order to write to me. I was then counting the days left of the summer until I should see you, when you wrote that your family had decided to send you off straight to the university.
And your answers to my daily letters grew further and further apart. The university party at the end of the year was all the hope left to me. I supposed your mother had protested, but you had already invited me, and there the matter ended; so I bought a suit that was not handsome — being unable to buy anything more elegant — and rented a "dinner jacket."
We had planned in our letters that I would take the four-o'clock train and reach the city where you were studying at six o'clock, rent a room in an inn where I would put on my evening clothes, meet you at the dinner hour, and after the party board the train to New York so as to be at my work by morning.
For lack of money I traveled
in an ordinary-class carriage, and in view of the high prices of the inns I rented a room in a private house.
At the students' residence you introduced me to your companions, and I found nothing to say; so you
Answer the following questions, then look up the correct answers on page 50 to learn how much you know of modern educational principles:
1. Do you believe that a nine-year-old child can take on by himself the responsibility of buying all his personal needs?
2. Do you believe that children deserve fixed wages for regularly performing household chores?
3. Do you agree that the ideal atmosphere for raising children is a calm, strictly regimented atmosphere?
4. If your child is behind the rest of his classmates in his reading, is it good to hound him and drive him harshly to study?
5. Do you agree that it is necessary to teach children, at an early age, the elementary rules of "etiquette"?
6. Do you believe in rewards — dolls, coins, and the like — offered to your child for a good deed he has done, instead of punishing him for wrong deeds?
7. Which of these two gifts is better for a child: a steam cart with rubber wheels, or a box containing wood, nails, and all the equipment that helps the child build such a cart himself?
8. Do you agree that the best remedy for your child's crying without cause is a well-timed "slap"?
9. Do you believe that a father must be a good example for his children to follow?
10. Do you agree that it is among the worst principles of upbringing for a father to lose his temper and shout at the top of his voice in the face of his stubborn, rebellious child?