Harvard President's Joke

Storehouse of Knowledge

At a dinner held in his honor one evening, Harvard president Charles W. Eliot (1834-1926) several professors gave him much praise in their speeches. "Since you became president," one colleague enthusiastically remarked, "Harvard has become a storehouse of knowledge."

"What you say is true, but I can claim little credit for it," Eliot retorted. "It is simply that the freshmen bring so much in and the seniors take so little away!"

The joke's on the teacher

GRAMMAR IN ACTION

The passing lady mistakenly supposed that the woman
shouting from a window down the street was calling to
the little girl minding baby brother close by on the
curb. "Your mother is calling you," she said kindly.
The little girl corrected the lady:
"Her ain't a-callin' we. Us don't belong to she."

* * *

The teacher asked the little girl if she was going to
the Maypole dance. "No, I ain't going," was the reply.
The teacher corrected the child:
"You must not say, 'I ain't going,' you must say, 'I
am not going.' " And she added to impress the point:
"I am not going. He is not going. We are not going.
You are not going. They are not going. Now, dear,
can yon say all that?"
The little girl nodded and smiled brightly.
"Sure !" she replied. "They ain't nobody going."