The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1888-11-29
IT RULES ALL.
How the School Regulates Everything.
atlanta Constitution.

You may talk about presidents and
governors and senators and tariffs and
other big things, but the school is the big.
gest thing I know of. 1t takes families
to make nations and the school is of more
importance to the family than anything
else, and it has been so ever since | was
boy. The school controlled things
then, and it does now. It regulated the
family movements. The time for getting
up, the time for breakfast, and the time
for dinner was fixed to suit the school.
After supper the children monopolize the
table and the lamps, and can't read q
newspaper but what every few minutes it
is papa this and papa tiat, and it looks
like / will die 5in. the harness, and /
reckon that is the best way to die after
all. Every decent, reputable parent
lives for the children. The great busi.
ness of this .sublunary life is to educate
them and maintain them and make them
happy. We sell goods and practice law
and medicine and build houses and culti-
vate farms and work at all sorts of trades,
but after all the principal business is
raising children and preparing them to
take our places when We are dead. It is
the security for all good government and
obedience to law and order. Just imag.
inc a community without children. No
day school; no Sunday school no May
day; no Christmas; no kites nor balls,
nor marbles, nor dolls. No merry
laughs; no little hats and bonnets and
shoes in the, stores; no flowers in the
front yard; no ornaments, no nothing
but a solemn, prosy crowd who moved
about like there was funeral on hand
allthe day long.
:. Every morning now, we have to hurry
up to suit the children. They have to
be at. school at halfpasts eight or be
marked for tardiness, and it hurries the
cook and ihurries everybody. The school
teacher has got the scholars in close
place now. He has given them forty
pages in Sanford's arithmetic, and they
have four days to review compound mum.
bers, and he is going to write twenty
questions on the blackboard and they
don't know what the questions are to be,
and each one of the class has to write the
answers on slate; and they are not to
sit close enough to see each others
answers, and every correct answer counts
five and every scholar who don't get
seventy FIVE is, to be turned back into the
next class and try it again. I tell you
they are studying now have to help
every night at my house. | am power
fully worried with this school business
anyhow, for I've forgotten all my Latin
and can't read Caesar and aome OF the
sentences. are as; long, as the ten, com.
mandmenta and I can't find the verb that
belongs to the noun and everything is
mixed up and it ,lookl like it was all
done on purpose just to worry me and
the children. We boys had q simple
little book called Historioe Sacroe, and
/ it began with "God created the heavens
and the earth in six days." and the verb
followed right after the noun, just like it
ought to. I don't believe any later book
is worth q cent except the dictionary.
/ can learn from the dictionary that
canine comes from CAMS, a dog, and telling
from feljs, cat, and paternal end mater
nal from pater and mater, and so forth,
and that ia all the use we have for it.
Nobody reads Latin-not even the pro-
fessors.. I'll bet there is not one in
Georgia that can read Latin book that
be never. read before. They wouldn't il
they could. Ifa boy has got q transla.
tion he can sorter get along. Every
scholar ought to have translation. We
used to have them in college and could
make pretty good sense out of the Latin.
We cut the leaves out and bad them
slipped in our Latin book and could just
fudge along splendid. Sometimes We
would pretend to get stalled and would
use some other words that meant about
the same thing. We got splendid marks
| in Latin, but ne couldent read q sentence
without translation. A translation is a
good thing in dead language. It gives
Life to it, I could read Xenophon in
T Greek the same way and can now, but
without the trans alton can't tell when
the book'i upside down or downside up.
It is all Greek to me. / used to know
ota from epsilon, and omicron from
amega, but I don't now, and / don't want
to. Let it stay dead. If the inhabitants
of Greece wont talk their old Language
why should I. don't suffer much ior
language, and there is good deal more
of Euglish than will ever learn or have
any use for. They had spelling bee ln
Atlanta and gave out words that nobody
ever uses or sees.in print. 1don't believe
in that. Mark Blanford, one of our
supreme court judges, had case about
forty years ago, defending q man who
was sued by a school, for his tuition, and
his plea was that the teacher wasent 6t.
ten to teach, for he couldent spell bard
words, and he proposed to put him on
the stand and spell him. The old squire
thought that was fair, and so Marx
spelled him on phthisic and catalyptit
and catawampus, and finally gave him
ampomhynoosuck and because he missed
on word that wasent 10 the book, he
lost his case. Mark defended another
fellow who was sued by doctor, and be
called for the doctors diploma, and the
doctor dident have it, and had to ride
seven miles to town to get it, and then
Mark put him on the stand and asked
him to read it to the magistrate, Well
il was all in Latin, and because the doc.
+ tor couldent translate the Latin into
English, be lost his case, for the old
squire saw he dident know whether il
was diploma OF treaty with the In
dians.
[ consider it disrepect to the English
language to print diploma in Latin
DR.. Miller says the reason they do il
because diploma is certificate that the
graduate knows all about medicines and
diseases and is ftten to practice and it is
such lie that they put it in language
that folks can't understand. He says il
is less harm to lie in Latin and curse in
Latin than in English. Language does
have good deal to do with these things
A preacher told me that be was Prince.
ton with young Armenian who was
studying theology and expected to 60
back to Armenia and preach Christianity
to his people. One cold morning he got
put out With his stove and told oul
preacher that when he shut the door il
no burn at all, but when he open the
door it burn like hell. When he was
rebuked for using such language he look.
ed snrprised and grieved, and said
."sTbatsis no bad in my language. My
mother tell me- to fix stove for her tc
cook dinner and make one good fire
and say, mother, stove all fx-fre burn
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