Herald and tribune. [volume] (Jonesborough, Tenn.) 1869-current, 1872-04-11
COMMUNICATION.
For the Herald and Tribune.
DULL o

lCdEuCu " 49,
went along when the tools were dull.
With this kind of mattock, axe. hoe, and
plow, we have operated more than to our
hearts content. When the work isto be
done with a tool in bad condition, it can
but be done tardily and imperfectly but
with an efficient tool your work may be
done we'll and easily. Who has not OBJ
served in every woodward the scars or
scrapes made by the dulled axe? Obser-
walton has taught us that among every
class oflaborers there are those who operate
with dull tools, year in and year out in
deed most tools used are dull but to bore
with a dull auger is perhaps the worst
operation of any.
Now there are those in the mental
world who are the exact counterpart Of
dull tools.
The farmer who farms after the style
of fifty years ago, has no muck-hill, uses
no fertilizer, but little clover, tries to till
twice as much as be can do well, and who.
reads no agricultural paper is at work
with a dull tool.
. The physician whose library consists of
books issued from the press fifty or more
years ago, reads no medical journal and
who combats every disease by the use of
m~ercurials and the lance, works with a dull
tool.
The attorney at-law who never sees the
interior of a book Of law, but depends
on what he learned a score of years ago,
when a STRIPPING in case of a preceptor,
and who make no better defense of his
clients now, than he did when admitted to
the bar, is another who works with a dull
tool.
When we look over our beloved East
Tennessee, (indeed all over the South
and see the facilities for manufacturing,
the immense banks Of coal, forests Of
timber, and streams of water, full of falls,
and scarce a mandatory among us and
if some one proposes to manufacture, offer
him all the d:ssouragements possible and
and if any has the temerity to manufac-
ture any thing among us ftarve him out,
by refusing to patroDise him prefering to
purchase from one in another state or ma
ton. Alas! we are made to feel that our
entire community is operating with an
exceedingly dull tool.
We look over our State at the rising
generation, growing up for the most part
in ignorance, with no efficient system of
free-schools many of whom arc destined
to be paupers and criminals for want of q
liberal education. And when We sec the
miserable things among us call school
houses, buildings for the most part Of logs,
about sixteen feet square-stick and clay
chimney. often but little higher than the
caves of the house-loose floor often OF
puncheons-slabs seats from the saw-nill
or by cutting down and splitting saplings,
boring four holes in them and driving in
some pegs or by sticking one cad through
q crack, and resting the other on a chunk
or rock, probably one edge up and the
other down, resembling the hard horse
that Jackson's soldiers used to ride so
reluctantly after some bad conduct-and
poor little child who occupies it is made
TO twist about and calculate Oh me-
And withal supplied with a teacher who
never saw a Teachers Journal" and
never attended a teachers association, one
that prefers the old time textbooks. such
as grand-fathers purchased half a centu-
nv ago, aud who insist that school must be
taken up at seven o'clock in the morning
and hold until five in the afternoon, with
only an hours recess at noon; the terri
bic conviction is forced upon us that the
destiny of the rising generation is being
bruised (not cut) out with dull tools; and
by those of whom they ought to expect
better things.
Unlocking abroad at the houses of wor-
shin that are all around us, only or slight
improvement on the school-house referred
to in all its parts. its story only seven or
eight feet high = pulpit that e~levates the
ministers head within a few inches Of the
ceiling and a half a log cut out of one side
for a window. And when he members of
the church think tho preacher ought to
devote all spare time. from his appointments
to visiting them and tilling a large truck
patch and if he happen to be worth more
than themselves, make him no comPensa>
t~ion.and if they do pay him anything, select
the raggedest bill they have. or the least
biood-shotten shoulder of bacon, the most
ordinary sack Of flour, and an indifferent
quality of corn and hay for his horse and
expect him to give them credit for twice
their real value towards his salary, and
occasionally puff them for their libcrality
in the country newspaper. When we see
things thus moving along-and see thus
we do, we are g%rieved to feel that the
cause of our Blest Redeemer and his
ambassadors is bruised and mangled with
dull tools.
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