THE WEALTH IN WORDSI was at an agricultural fair yesterday and I saw evidences of the encumbering weight of standardization, and I saw, too, redeeming flashes of originality. In the children's work there was an exhibit of writing. The exhibits read something like this:
"I am eight years old. I live at the Gorge. My teacher's name is Miss Smithers. I walk a mile to school."
All but one. One child wrote:
"Humble we must be
If to heaven we go
For tho' the roof is high
The gate is low."
That exhibit will be remembered even though it did not get a prize.
What an interesting competition this would have been if the children had been encouraged to choose a verse, or a sentence for its beauty. Think how the households might have been stirred in that search for a little gem of poetry—scrap-b
