WHAT IS MAN? AND OTHER ESSAYS OF MARK TWAIN

on a meridian and multiply by 6 1/2 pounds.

The spheres are to each other as the squares of their

homologous sides.

A body will go just as far in the first second as the body

will go plus the force of gravity and that’s equal to twice what

the body will go.

Specific gravity is the weight to be compared weight of an

equal volume of or that is the weight of a body compared with the

weight of an equal volume.

The law of fluid pressure divide the different forms of

organized bodies by the form of attraction and the number

increased will be the form.

Inertia is that property of bodies by virtue of which it

cannot change its own condition of rest or motion. In other

words it is the negative quality of passiveness either in

recoverable latency or insipient latescence.

If a laugh is fair here, not the struggling child, nor the

unintelligent teacher–or rather the unintelligent Boards,

Committees, and Trustees–are the proper target for it. All

through this little book one detects the signs of a certain

probable fact–that a large part of the pupil’s “instruction”

consists in cramming him with obscure and wordy “rules” which he

does not understand and has no time to understand. It would be

as useful to cram him with brickbats; they would at least stay.

In a town in the interior of New York, a few years ago, a

gentleman set forth a mathematical problem and proposed to give a

prize to every public-school pupil who should furnish the correct

solution of it. Twenty-two of the brightest boys in the public

schools entered the contest. The problem was not a very

difficult one for pupils of their mathematical rank and standing,

yet they all failed–by a hair–through one trifling mistake or

another. Some searching questions were asked, when it turned out

that these lads were as glib as parrots with the “rules,” but

could not reason out a single rule or explain the principle

underlying it. Their memories had been stocked, but not their

understandings. It was a case of brickbat culture, pure and

simple.

There are several curious “compositions” in the little book,

and we must make room for one. It is full of naivete, brutal

truth, and unembarrassed directness, and is the funniest

(genuine) boy’s composition I think I have ever seen:

ON GIRLS

Girls are very stuck up and dignefied in their maner and be

have your. They think more of dress than anything and like to

play with dowls and rags. They cry if they see a cow in a far

distance and are afraid of guns. They stay at home all the time

and go to church on Sunday. They are al-ways sick. They are al-

ways funy and making fun of boy’s hands and they say how dirty.

They cant play marbels. I pity them poor things. They make fun

of boys and then turn round and love them. I dont beleave they

ever kiled a cat or anything. They look out every nite and say

oh ant the moon lovely. Thir is one thing I have not told and

that is they al-ways now their lessons bettern boys.

From Mr. Edward Channing’s recent article in SCIENCE:

The marked difference between the books now being produced

by French, English, and American travelers, on the one hand, and

German explorers, on the other, is too great to escape attention.

That difference is due entirely to the fact that in school and

university the German is taught, in the first place to see, and

in the second place to understand what he does see.

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A SIMPLIFIED ALPHABET

(This article, written during the autumn of 1899, was about

the last writing done by Mark Twain on any impersonal subject.)

I have had a kindly feeling, a friendly feeling, a cousinly

feeling toward Simplified Spelling, from the beginning of the

movement three years ago, but nothing more inflamed than that.

It seemed to me to merely propose to substitute one inadequacy

for another; a sort of patching and plugging poor old dental

relics with cement and gold and porcelain paste; what was really

needed was a new set of teeth. That is to say, a new ALPHABET.