Simple Things

July 25, 1853

            I have for years had a great deal of trouble with my shoestrings, because they get untied continually. . .  Some days I could hardly go twenty rods before I was obliged to stop and stoop and tie my shoes. . .  At last the other day it occurred to me that I would try an experiment, and, instead of tying two simple knots one over the other the same way, putting the end which fell to the right over each time, that I would reverse the process, and put it under the other.  Greatly to my satisfaction.  The experiment was perfectly successful, and from that time my shoestrings have given me no trouble, except sometimes in untying them at night.

            On telling this to others I learned that I had been all the while tying what is called a granny’s knot, for I had never been taught to tie any other, as sailor’s children are; but now I had blundered into a square knot, I think they called it, or two running slip-nooses.  Should not all children be taught this accomplishment, and an hour, perchance, of their childhood be devoted in instruction in tying knots?

           Two things here.

           1.  There were few individuals as perspicacious as HDT, and he never learned to tie his shoes?  We all of us have holes in our résumés, I suppose.

           2.  This goes to the age old complaint that I, as a teacher, hear with some regularity: "Why don't they teach us anything we need to know?"