The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1881-08-26

In picking mp bundle Of school
books the other day, and carelessly
glancing through them, we were struck
with the almost Pagan darkness that
seems to envelop education. Journal
ism, photography, telegraphy and the
electric arts-everyt thing. in fact, has
made the most wonderful progress
during the past fifteen or twenty years,
but education, or the study OF the
sciences, is about the same old succotash
that il always was. We see that there
are stih two grand divisions Of the earth,
and they are composed of land and
water. That was the case twenty years
ago. We turn over a few pages and
find the following questions:
where are the Mountains Of the
Moon?" -,
"Where are the Himalayas I"
between what two bodies Of water
are the Philippine Islands situated ?"
Estate where the river Dneiper rises.
what course it runs, and into what body
OF water it empties."
Well, it has been many years since we
left the dear old school room, and our
teachers who we're so kind, and we are
positive that at that timo we knew where
the Moon Mountains were, the Hyma-
layas, the philippine Islands and the
Dneiper River, but we can place our
hand upon our heart to-day and say
truthfully that we do not know where
one OF them are, and We don't believe we
have heard one of them mentioned IN
the last fifteen years. Still, it must be
remembered that we are in the news
paper business. III we we're dealing in
groceries it would probably be different,
and we should use the Moon Mountains
every day in our business Customers
would expect it, and while they would
appear to be looking at the cheese to see
if there were any shippers before buying
wedge of il. they would in rea ity be
making up their mind whether we knew
where the PHILIPPINE Islands were. and
the general course of the Dneiper.
Some customers are very particular.
People have expressed establishment at
the success of some of the leading dry
goods merchants of Milwaukee, and have
how to buy goods cheap down east and
sell them for less than other merchants.
This shows how ignorance Is stalking
through the land. If one could peek
oyer the shoulder OF the most successful
merchants, when they are burning the
midnight oil and clawing into their hair
with both hands, they would be found
porting over a geography, trying to find
some little river in Asia Minor.
Then there is algebra and cube and
square root. Only last week we wrote
an editorial and did not know really
whether it ought to be published or not.
All Mt once the words of our teacher
came to us-"Prove it if it is correct
it can be proved" We threw radical
over it, raised it to the fourth power, ex-
tracted the cube root, and having and
given to us, we easily found the un-
known quantity Z, and the thing was a
bird.
One of the most successful grocers in
Milwaukee, man who has accumulated
a handsome fortune from very small
beginning, told us only the other day
that he owed all his success to the use of
algebra and few theorems in geometry
when picking mackerel out of the kit
with the hook and slapping it against
the side of the barrel to get the brine
off, and to buying just as close as he
could for cash. Where would that man
be to-day if he had only learned to add
and multiply fractions, and had stopped
there, and had bought his goods on time,
with ten per cent. added. Teachers have
great duty to perform. -Pecks Sun.