The Patient Observer and His Friends

States government wished me to state how many sons and daughters I had and whether my sons were males and my daughters females. I was further required to sta

e military or naval service of the United States, and whether my grandfather (if I had one) was attending schoo

ave never been summoned for jury duty, but if I ever should be, I shall accept with pride and in the hope that I shall not be peremptorily challenged. It needs some such official document as a census schedule to bring home the feeling that government and state exist for me and my own welfare. Filling out the answers in the list was one of the pleasant manifestations of democracy, of which paying taxes is the unpleasant side. The printed fo

d get and was prepared to insist upon getting. Harrington tells me that when he was married he could not help smiling when the minister asked him whether he would take the woman by his side to be his wedded wife. "What," said Harrington, "did he think I was there for? Or did he detect any sign of wavering at the last moment?" What reply does the clergyman await when he asks the rejoicing parents whether they are willing to have

l these is quite insignificant when compared with the number of questions that are framed every day in the schoolrooms of the world. Wherefore, I say, consider the multiplication-table. A greater sum of human interest has centred about the multiplication-table than about all doctors' and lawyers' and biologists' offices since the beginning of time. Millions of schoolmasters have asked what is

ends "Swelpyugod," and the witness on the stand blurts out "I do." The Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court asks the President-elect whether he will be faithful to the Constitution and the laws of the United States, and the President-elect invariably says that he will. The candidate for American citizenship is asked whether he hereby renounces all

familiar question Mrs. Harrington is suspicious and uneasy. She scents either a joke or an insult; and we are all Mrs. Harrington. If you were to ask a stranger whom did he consider the greatest playwright of all times and, instead of Shakespeare or Molière, he were to say Racine, it would be as if one were to ask him whether he t