Education: The Drowsy Headmaster

For seven years, the 1,200 patient citizens of the farming village of Ifs in Northwest France had put up with Headmaster Jacques Mériel of the town's new elementary school. After all, they told each other, he was a harmless, peaceful sort of man. They attributed his strange habits to the fact that he had once been run down by a Nazi truck. But last week the 46-year-old headmaster was the center of a sudden explosion of wrath. Reason: his incorrigible habit of falling asleep in class.

No matter what he happened to be doing, he seemed able to doze off. He might...

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