The tastes, talents and inclinations of the individual
should guide us somewhat, too, in his training for higher
usefulness.  TLe mountain child is by nature poetical.
What the child of the plains accepts as a matter-of-fact
occurrence, the child of the hills invests with mystery and
charm and weaves into crude rythmical verse or ballad.
His teacher can witness that the mountain child is a poet;
that he turns with indifference from prose to read poetry
with delight; that the preparation of prose composition is
regarded by him as a hardship, while the same subject will
be presented in verse with ease and often excellence.
"Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm" has many a counterpart
among the hills. Not only romance and tragedy, but even
trivial neighborhood occurrences and peculiarities are suffi-
cient to inspire descriptive ballad or verse. The ballad is,
in fact, his weapon of ridicule and again, his instrument
of eulogy. These compositions may deal with subjects as
sublime as love or war, or as ridiculous as the teacher's
faults and frailties. Even letters in rhyme and poetic sub-
scriptions are not rare among the first communications of
mountain boys and girls.
    Oratory is one of his richest gifts, there being many a
Cicero and Demosthenes among the hills whom even illit-
eracy cannot chain to silence. If he finds no other avenue
for the practice and display of this talent, frequently he
seeks the pulpit of a certain sect which welcomes unlearned
men as ministers, and permits six or eight speakers to
address an audience at one sitting, and there he displays
this natural oratory which fills and inspires him. Not a
dearth of speakers, but an overabundance of them may be
found in certain mountain counties. In some counties there
are very few men who will not attempt to express their
views or to preach or deliver an oration before an audience;
and a child omitted from the school exhibition program is
a child deprived, insulted and outraged.
    There are sufficient distinct characteristics and talents
of the mountain child to occupy a discussion of greater
length than the time allotted to this; but there are other
conditions of equal importance to the child and to those
who may be interested in his development.
    If there be one who can surpass the mountain child in
wealth of character and in brilliance and originality of mind,
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