Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1883-07-18
VOL. XII.
Educated LabOrers.


might start off and leave him. Thi,
incident and million like it, raise th,
question whether an uneducated mind il
Of any value in any department of human
life. A brakeman or switchman or
stage driver or stockraiser ought to
possess all that advantage of menta
power which an education would give
This ilagman on the Hudson river road
was, perhaps, not bad man, but he took
hold OF duty with feebleness much like
that of an idiot. He might have done the
same had he been graduate of Harvard
but the law is that there is an immense
difference between the educated and the
uneducated mind. Mr.. Wagner himself,
had he known the situation of things,
would have run back hnudl ed, or two
hundred yards before even daring for a
moment to feel secure in the task.
Untaught minds are very expensive.
This accident will cost enough to educate
a regiment of hagmen and brakemen.
The awful burning up of almost thousand
persons in the theatre in Vienna came
largely from the stupidity of lot of
wooden men whose imbecile memories
forgot to drop the iron curtain and also
forgot TO turn on water; and while this
mental deadness was rei9nng at one end
of the theatre some woodenheaded police.
men were shutting up doors at the bottom
of stairways on the supposition that all
had gone out. They had not sense
enough to generate Il healthy doubt; for it
requires not a little amount of mental life
to induce mind to make an inquiry or
raise slight distrust.
A nurse in Chicago was told not to
take her little one year old charge near
the lake. She did not obey, and while
this nurse was chatting with another nurse,
perhaps her equal, the baby got into the
water. 1t was fished out by some men,
and it was apparently dead. the nurse
proposed taking the infant mile to a
drugstore, and was leading the men along,
away from the home of the child and
happened to be met by the mother herself.
The child was instsntly treated and saved,
but the nurse and her stupid assistants
had on plan of resuscitating the infant
which would have resulted in pathetic
little funeral the next day.
The steamer Sea Bird, with perhaps 25
passengers, was burned up ON Lake
Michigan by a cabin man who did not
seem to know that wind would blow
any WhClC. llC luICW IL DuCktI'
full of ashes and hot Goals over the
windward rail of the cabn-deck. The
contents of the scuttle landed safely among
the freight on the deck below. The man
who did this then went into the cabin to
keep out of the cold April wind. In few
minutes be perhaps was little amazed to
find that the steamer was all on fire. If
memory serves the writer he paid for his
own folly by dying in the fire and water
not long afterward.
1t is well known fact to all travellers
that the porter of a sleeping car ought to
possess as much culture as even Oscar
Wilde Can command. When one of these
servants is asked how far it is before
breakfast and he says, "It amt far now,n
he should be taken out and placed in some
school for aiding reason to dawn in the
feeble minded. Indeed, all these import
ant servants should be educated by the
state or the church OF railway until they
can comprehend that the words saint far
now," convey no information. If, also,
these could be taught not to wake passen-
gers when they are yet fifty miles away
from their destination, we should all prefer
TO pay them the night before rather than be
routed so early through the porter's fear
that some might escape "being busted
off," Pay the porter at bedtime and he
will not wake you so soon in the morning.
His mind is at least capable of peace after
the payment has come. On some of the
roads which 60 out of Chicago there are
porters who read, and who, in the long
through rides between that city and New
York or Omaha, will practice little on |
violin or read history or a good novel. |
These are the men fit for their post. They |
can answer question. They know the |
meaning of questions. Ask one how much |
the train is behind time and he will say, |
''Seven minutes" or forty minutes" but |
when you ask wooden headed porter he
will say, 'lts behind time considerable;
maybe it'll make up and maybe not. p"
All preachers without charge, and all
Yale graduates who have failed in the |
law, should seek in this sleeping car
service, for that is where we want
scholars, and philosophers and poets to
console us on our pilgrmages. For a
palace Car with an Oscar Wilde or an
American nSthete to be its conductor
would be immensely popular with those
who had to make long journeys. The
word Gravel" meant "hard labor" when
he laugnage was formed.
The works of man in the arts, and
even in dressmaking and in cookery,
surpass those of woman only because the
masculine creature has been educated for
'ges and has thus reached u rugged kind
u comman sense that can devise WAYS and
means. Woman reveals more refinement
n some directions and man more sense,
)ut neither class has any mental force to
Al. a. 1
barber and the butcher shall have mental
dimensions great enough to enable them
o be equal to their pursuits, and that is
making quite heavy demands, for
pursuit, however humble, sustains import
mt relations to the world.-Prof. Sizing
IN the Alliance