Several months later Miss Bell and Miss Lane called again on Dr.
Barrett.
"Have you come with another problem?" asked the doctor.
"No, we have come to report progress and to learn, if possible, just how
it has come about. There has been a wonderful change in the school. The
girls and boys are no less friendly, but it is without that silly
sentimentality which was so annoying. They are now just real good
comrades, and seem to help each other in being orderly, polite, and
studious. How did you do it?"
"Perhaps all credit is not due to me, but I will say that I gave Carl
the instruction I thought he needed and he has passed the good word
along. Several of the boys have met with me once a month to study
concerning themselves, and I can see that they have grown to have a
reverence for themselves and a deep regard for all womanhood. Carl was
in last evening, and said, 'Dr. Barrett, I am so glad Miss Bell sent me
with that note to you, for your talk to me that night has changed my
whole life, I know. I feel so much cleaner all through, and have so much
more respect for myself. And I think so differently of girls and women,
and especially of my mother, and I realize as I never did before how
important a thing it is to be almost a man.'"