The greater part and first essay, entitled Bill's School and Mine, was written in 1903, but the title and some of the material were borrowed from my friend and college mate William Allen White in 1912, when the essay was printed in the South Bethlehem Globe to stimulate interest in a local Playground Movement.

The second essay,The Study of Science, is taken from Franklin and MacNutt'sElements of Mechanics, The Macmillan Company, New York, 1908. I have no illusions concerning the mathematical sciences, for it is to such that the essay chiefly relates. Unquestionably the most important function of education is to develop personality and character; but science is impersonal, and an essay which attempts to set forth the meaning of science study must make an unusual demand upon the reader. Some things in this world are to be understood by sympathy, and some things are to be understood by serious and painful effort.
The third essay,Part of an Education, was privately printed in 1903 under the titleA Tramp Trip in the Rockies, and it is introduced here to illustrate a phase of real education which is in danger of becoming obsolete. The school of hardship is not for those who love luxury, and to the poverty stricken it is not a school--it is a Juggernaut.
The five minor essays are mere splashes, as it were; but in each I have said everything that need be said, except perhaps in the matter of exhortation.
For the illustrations I am under obligations to my cousin Mr. Daniel Garber of Philadelphia.

WILLIAM SUDDARDS FRANKLIN

South Bethlehem Pa.,

October 22, 1913.

To face page vi