MR. BYFIELD IS FITTED TO TEACH ATHELETICS ONLY TO JACKASSES LIKE

HIMSELF. I'm sorry, but that man is not only ignorant, he is a liar! I have taught ancient history at

Ithaca High School 35 years, I have been the school mother of hundreds of Ithaca boys and girls. I taught your brother Marcus

and your sister Bess, and if you have younger brothers or sisters at home I shall someday teach them too. Marcus and Bess were

both good -- honest and Civilized. Yes. The behavior of ancient peoples had mad them civilized from birth. Like yourself, Marcus

sometimes spoke out of turn, but he was never a liar. Now these inferior human beings of the world who were never anything but

fools -- they think of me as an old woman. He came here and delibrately lied to me -- just as he lied to me time and again when he

sat in this classroom as a boy. He has learned nothing except to toady shamelessly to those he feels are superior. I have seen better

men pushed around by his kind, the kind who go through life lying and cheating and crowding out men who are above such

behavoir. The twenty-two low hurdles! Low indeed! I didn't keep u in to punish you, Homer Macauley, I have

always kept in those who meant the most to me -- I have kept them in to be nearer to them. I still do not believe I am mistaken

about Hubert Ackley. It was Mr. Byfield who made him disobey me. I was going to send both of you to the field after a moment,

after a moment, anyway. You were not kept in for punishment, but for education. I watch the growth of spirit in the children who

come to my class, and I am mad happy by every fresh evidence of that growth. You agologized to Hubert Ackley, and even

though it embarrassed him to do so, because your apology made hime unworthy, he graciously accepted your apology. I kept you

in after school because I wanted to talk to both of you -- one of you from a good well-to-do family, the other from a good poor

family. Getting along in this world will be even more difficult for him than for you. I wanted you to know one another a little better.

It is very important, I wanted to talk to both of you. Yes, I know, I know how you feel, but every man in the world is better than

someone else, and not as good as someone else. Joe Terranova is brighter than Hubert, but Hubert is just as honest in his own

way. In a democratic state every man is the equal of every other man up to the point of exertion, and after that every man is free to

exert himself to do good or not, to grow nobly or foolishly, as he wishes. I am eager for my boys and girls to do good and to

grow nobly. What my children appear to be on the surface is no matter to me. I am fooled niether by gracious manners nor by

bad manners. I am interested in what is truely beneath each kind of manners. Whether one of my chilren is rich or poor, Catholic or

Protestant or Jew, white or black or yellow, brilliant or slow, genious or simple-minded, is no matter to me, if there is humanity in

him -- if he has a heart -- if he loves truth and honor -- if he respects his inferiors and loves his superiors. If the children of my

classroom are human, I do not want them to be alike in their manner of being human. If they are not corrupt, it does not matter to

me how they differ from one another. I want each of my children to be himself. I don't want you, Homer, to be like somebody else

just to please me or to make my work easier. I would soon be weary of a classroom full of perfect little ladies and gentlemen. I

want my children to be people -- each one seperate -- each one speciall -- each one an exciting variation of all the others. I wanted

Hubert Ackley here to listen to this with you -- to understand with you that if at the present you do not like him and he does not like

you, that is perfectly natural. I wanted him to know that each of you will begin to be truely human, when in spite of your natural

dislike of one another, us still respect one another. That is what it means to be civilized -- that is what we are to learn from a sstudy

of ancient hisory. (*Tempory Pause*). I'm glad I've spoken to you, rather than to anyone else I know. When you leave

this school -- long after you have forgotten me -- I shall be watching for you in the world, and I shall never be startled by the good

things I know you shall do. Run along to the atheletic field, race against Hubert Ackley in the twenty-two low hurdles. If there isn't

time to change to your track clothes, run as you are, even if everybody laughs at you. Before you go very far along in the world,

you will hear laughter many time, and not the laughter of men alone, but the mocking laughter of things themselves seeking to

embarrass and hold you back -- but I know you will pay no attention to that laughter. (*Sigh*). Run along to the field, Homer

Macauley. I sall be watching.

-- Mrs. Hicks

from the Human Comedy

by William Saroyan