Wichita eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1886-1890, 1888-11-14
GOING TO SCHOOL
Burdette Pours Out Some Philosophy on
Painful Subject.

Burdette fours Out Some Philosophy on
Painful Subject.
Dear little man, SO you are back in school
and you don't like it pretty we'll l don't Think
Well, that's natural and boy like, but it isn't
right Going to school is great fun, after you
are too old to so any more, which will be
when you are old enough to die, and then l
suppose you will go to another school. When
l was your age don't think l liked going to
school little Bit but that was because l
didn't have very much sense when l was
young | only worked and studied about six
or seven hours day then. and had but three
teachers to obey. l was the gladdest boy you
ever knew, when got out of school, and you
never knew me. Since then have been at
work all the time, and have to obey more peo-
pie than l ever saw in school house at one
time. The editor says if | don't have my COM
position ready by Friday night he won't have
it at ALL the foreman says he must have it in
hand Friday morning or it won't go in, the
proof reader says if he doesn't get the proofs
Thursday night they will have to read them
selves and the compostors-there are seventy
fve.or eighty Of them-declare they will strike
If don't write more plainly and punctuste
properly, and spell better. Then used to
recite before a small class or the school at
most, and now | have to read my compost
ton and say my piece before all the subscri-
bers, When | was boy the teacher corrected
me in the presence of the class, but now the
critic, a terrible fellow he is, corrects me
right out in print before everybody, and
when | don't say my lesson to suit him
doesn't he dust my jacket for me, thought
The way be makes the lint fly is a caution,
and the worst of it is l daren't 'holler," and
so get over it; that would only make him
worse and beside everybody would laugh
at me and cry, "Give him some more in the
same place." He can-and does-say just as
nice things as he does rough ones, but you
have to dot your is and cross your It's to earn
his approval. Then have to work for my
landlord, and the grocery man and the tax
collector and the shoemaker, and l don't
know how many other people. l have to buy
Oil for the marching club Of my party, and
have to march in the dust or the mud, and
listen to long speeches and make some longer
ones myself / have to say please and
thank YOU" and say ''sir" when | speak to
the governor; darea't go in my bare feet,
and I've only been fishing once this year,
and then didn't stay long and didn't catch
l am, have to serve everybody else before
get a bite to eat myself, and am always
the last one waited on; man down in
Bogus Hollow says he is going to lick me for
shooting his dog-and he looks like man of
his word, too-when everybody knows I'm
afraid Of a gun and couldn't hit e flock Of
barns anyhow, on a rest, and with globe
sights; another man threatens to put me in
iail tf 7 II o,,bt E,ll tl~A T L~,-, =
ceipts for, and a poor widow woman in Rag
alley, who takes in washing and gin, is going
to sue me if l don't pay her $40 because my
cow tore up her garden, when she has no
garden and never owned COW in my life.
can't follow the circus procession, can't
stay home when have the toothache, | can't
get excused when the fish are biting; some of
the boys in this great big school are DULLES,
and some of them are fools, and some of them
are toadies, and some of them are sneaks,
and some are liars, and some of them are
great, big hearted, loving fellows, that you
want to be with all the time, but they're SO
busy you can only snatch word with them
once in a long While. 1t isn't SO very much
different from your own school after ali, only
the discipline Is more severe, and the Teacher
is strict while he is loving and gentle But
every time you break rule you smart for 1t
Idon't wonder that some of the older pupils
are glad, CAD. glad, wnen their lessons are
ali said, and the blotted books are put away,
and they are called up into the higher room,
where they VIII be closer to the Master, and
all the hard places in the old lessons will be
explained away so lovingly and clearly that
never sigh will punctuate the recitation,
and never a tear blister the pages that We
blur and bunder over so stupidity and biindly
now. All, my little man, you'd better learn
to love your school; you'll never get out Of 1t
until they send word to the sexton that you
have graduated - Robert j. Burdette in
Brooklyn Eagle.