The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1876-04-13

oning with such loose qualifications
as sin a certain sense" 'sWell-a-as
you look at it in one light" "as it were,
$50 to speak, you may be sure that
it was he who in boyhood thought Geo.
Washington was the First Man, flor
eigners excepted by an afterthought)
and Christopher Columbus settled
jamestown in the May flower, 1776 !
His own cousin, it may have been,
showed his appreciation of the essen
tial facts in an experiment. when for
cheapness he proposed to substitute
molasses for sugar, in the test of put
ting it in an equal quantity of water
without increasing the bulk OF the
fluid. His failure disguised him With
all science, for he was sure that "mo-
lasses was just as SaDeet."
Such lad has free pass for life to
anon seQatSter, every time he starts on
a train of ideas.
To accuracy of knowledge add mental
order, the fine habit Of classifying and
arranging, with tags tied on, Of all
facts and fancies, ideas and substances,
according to their natural relations,
rather than traditional affiliations.
Consanguineous ideas stick together
like brothers; those artifcially associa-
| ted like Notwithstanding are fas-
tened together bnt have been known
to knock elbows!
| BY false association things not really
lrelated get mixed. The harvest moon
made everything as eight as feather"
to one good lady who COMPOUNDED
deficiency of weight with luminosity,
because one word stood for both.
Punsters create such mis-alliances, and
fatten on them; but the laugh comes
in on the other side, when by a blunder
Jenkins enters in his memorandum
book: ''The members Of the Society of
Friends are remarkable for their inn
mense weight" having seen comments
on their great gravity
We think in old formulas, and our
ideas go masquerading in the casts of
dead faces, muttering conventional
] phrases, unmeaning and monotonous
as the noise of a clack-mill. il the bee
could only be something else than
"busy," the ant display some quality
besides ''frugality," and the dear violet
ceased to be so modest" as to give no
other idea, it would enrich the expert
ence Of us all. We are beggared by
this mental stereotyping, and the lnti-
mite variety of nature is WrOnged.
Immemorial tradition calls the whip
poorWin melancholy, SO when he pipes
his merriest. people straightway fall
into a pensive vein, think of dead
flowers, funerals and evil portents, and
the superstitious drive off the poor
bird that they may avert the disaster
| he prophesies, as if to foretell was to
cause, and q threatened life might be
insured by stoning the prophet. But
when we give tradition the cold shout
der and look only at the fact, we find
the whippoorwill jolly bird, social,
emulous, a lover of man and SO full Of
eager rivalries he will hurry his song
to get it out before his brothers. till
all together they whip up, dropping
one syllable and another, "Whippo,"
"Whip, whip, -as many q night have
heard them on the old home hillside.
So to me he sings of pleasant memories
and glad thoughts.
Why, even the very owl, with all
his solemn talk, is a happy bird; and
when you think he has gone, to the
funeral of all the Capulets, he is only
outg~ wooing9 his lady. Free the
mind from conventional associations,
and hackneyed modes of thought, and
you give it healthier play and a richer
world, with room to beindividual This
prepars you for the next lesson to be
taught. laaA
independence of mind throws the
pupils more and more upon his own
resources prompting him to see with
his own eyes, think with his own brain,
and utter the result in his own words.
You will not get much thinking done
by a boy who can cajole you into think
ing for him.
Many modern schools books are mere
Idonkey-Wagons, with the teacher in
harness, to pull lazy brains up the hill
of science by easy stages, and when he
is dumped there, the legs that should
have carried him up are as wimbling
as a last years cornstalk. easy les
sons" are apt to retain the habit, and
slip out as easily as they come i'll.
Food chopped too fine, leaves nothing
to masticate; it is easy boiling, but
hard digesting. A helpful word at a
pinch, kindly hint that gives, not
takes away suggestion will do more
for independent thinking than to back
one bodily over the '-Pons As57aoratn1, Z
and thrust whole into his ear what the
brain should evolve.
Pat made that mistake when hidden
to feed the oxen with "corn in the ear. :"
only "and sure the bastes shuck it out
of their ears, and it Wud not go down
at ahlp' and lucky for the boys were
they as perverse.
Set for. your learner a definite pur-
pose for his thinking, and hold him to
it. Walking up tread-mill to no
where gets discouraging, and it is a
true blunderbuss that scatters all it's