Chariton courier. (Keytesville, Chariton County, Mo.) 1878-current, 1885-02-20
Tle coaatrg Bar Is. ths TeHn Ror.


| The keen practical business man o
over fifty feels the need of broade
leducation and determines that hi
children should lack nothing in edu
cational advantages, and the mother
resolve that whatever may be the
sacrifice, her daughters shall not lacE
accomplishments. Her life has beer
so bare of poetry and song in the
rough conflict with practical world
that she determines that her chill
dren's shall be full of both.
And so we spend large amounts OF
money in education, and pay tx for
eur country and city schools without
grddging.
But it is not time to look around
and see whether the results are COM
meEsurate with the expense, in fact
whether or not this vast expense has
been profitable.
Take, for instaace our college
graduates. Leaving out the profess
sions, how many of them make any
practical success in the world? They
know enough, but what they know is
IS not practical. They have mental
discipline, but with its enfeebled con !,
sttutions and lack of grip on world
ly things that enables the fellow who
has won his way by giving and TAX
ing hard knocks, to elbow them aside
and go up head.
Then take our city schools. Let
any man in town or country ask him.
self how many of the boys who have
graduated in the last ten years at
these schools have been heard of out
side of the county and give promise
of making their rank.
Go around the business streets OF
any town or city and inquire into the
antecedents of the business men
of the doctors, lawyers and preach
ers. You find two-thirds of them
not from the city or the city schools,
but from the farm and country
schools.
Now, is the trouble with schools
and school systems, or does it lie
back of this?
Looking back over twenty-four
years. what class of men and of what
antecedents have failed, and what
class have succeeded?
Our observation teaches US that
whether in~college or city school, in
business, IN professions or on the
farm, it has been the country boy
who wore stogies and jeans and
shlnned around lively to pick up an
honest penny that he sorely needed,
rather than a town boy who wore
cashmere, who was a favorite with
the young ladies.
The cause of the failure of so many
boys, of whom parents hoped so
much, is not so much in schools or
school methods as in other methods
that lie back of these
1st. There is great deal in
blood. Brains come largely by in
heritance. We do not mean the pc
culiar Kind of sharpness that enables
man to accumulate money, but
that well balanced kind that acts
with sound judgment and has the
capacity of seeing things as they are
and doing the right thing at the right
time.
I'd. There is great deal in
health. The man who comes into the
the world with an inherited faint
whether of consumption, insanity or
alcoholism, carries very heavy weight
in life.
There is very much in the sur
roundings of life. The country lad
who is trained to simple ways and
homely virtues and who learns what
dollar Is worth by actually earning
it, who under the laws of actual ne
cessity, has tremendous advantage
over the town boy. The country
schools are inferior to the town or
city schools, but this is far more
than counterbalanced by the fact
that the country Doy is trained to
work from the time he can pick up
corn cobs to ruu the kitchen stove
till he goes out to his own home.
The country boy has mile or SO
of walk to and from school which
gives him vigorous appetite and
health.
The country boy or girl. is face tc
face with practical realities. He sees
how slowly money is made on the
farm, he is taught from his youth uI
the need of economy, he has the ma.
ture of saving first explained TO hin
every day in the week; he is not ex,
posed to the temptation of the saloor
or ball room, and he is not tempted
so much to be a ladies' man before
he has occasion to use razor on HI:
downy cheeks. He may be a trifit
rude, he may not feel easy in com
pany, but in the long, closely con
tested race of life it is the chap tha
trudges to school barefooted in sum
mer, and in stogles in winter, Who's
mother cuts his halr with the sheer
shears, that leads the chap that goe'
! A., 49,, eohooI yr;tt fba etarphet