Iuka reporter. (Iuka, Miss.) 1888-1894, 1890-10-09
IUKA, MISSISSIPPI, THURSDAY. OCTOBER .. 1890

you saying; Mister! Mister! Give m >
| ahower." You have had that exper-
ience yourself, no doubt. | will tell
you OF a boy, and he il somenhing OF q
boy yet, born on the hills OF New Ham,
pshire, and apprenticed on a rocky
farm to learn to farm, where the old
story is that they SOW wheat with
rifle and sharpen the sleeps noses.
That is very old and very mythical.
That boy studied nature from the plants
kind OF grass-timothy, red-top clover
and to-day he can hoe in his little
garden patch and always kill the weeds,
because he knows them when he secs
them, and when he travels on the con.
tinent in Europe he can say: That
plant was on the old place; that was
not. That is, he studied botany. And
he studied zoology and knew the birds,
every bud in the woods, and he has
climbed up eighty feet after crows
nest and then wondered how in the
world he was going to get down. And
he hunted woodchucks, and | remem-
Der once he made a slight mistake in
regard to woodchuck. He studied
mineralogy, and if you were to look
at his hands to-day you would see the
marks made in his study of mineralogy
He studied physics in a logging camp
and at Splowing; in fact, the constant
| activities of that boy were directed TO
these great secrets OF nature in an
elementary way. And he went to
school where every boy had ringing in
his ears: knowledge is power. if You
would succeed, win knowledge" He
! took his dinner in tin bucket and
! tru lged through the snow to the little
school-house at the crossroads. Who
met him there? A man who knew him,
who coull look into his soul through
his eyes? All, MOI! Well. man; well,
he has to call him IL man now If he
has to meet him in the great hereafter
| he trust that that me,ting will be IL
short one. That little boy wanted to
learn to draw, as eyerp boy does, and
he drew on his slate a picture of that
schoolmaster. He wore Il swallow
tailed coat, and when, with an artistic
| flourish he was putting the buttons on
the coat tail (for he wanted to put in
the very last thing), that man drew
something upon him. and that boy
never drew again; that splendid ten
dency OF the mind to act was closed
forever BIZ the ignorance OF that teach
er. That boy can say OF him that a
spontaneous tendency toward beauty
and goodness was closed by that man,
that teacher, so far as possible. forever
II he had said to him: My boy. what
you have learned on the farm of plants
and animals and physics. that is pow
er Find out more" Then love would
have lit up that old school-house for
that lite boy into "a blaze of glory and
made that farm little heaven for him.
But no. He taught school for twenty
long years before he had suspicion
that the work done on the farm was
the best part of his education.
WHAT is THE WORK OF THE TEACHER
10 recognize what is good is the
work OF the teacher, and there is no
human sui in which some divine life
and light-may not shine. You have
seen the so-called bad boy. l have
sometimes said there were no bad boys,
and teachers have been very much
shocked. We were discussin bad bows
once in an institute held in Estes
Park, in the Rocky mountains. and
talking about the treatment OF so-called
bad and dull boys. My dear teachers,
when you look into the ohild's soul
with a prayerfu' desire to find the good
that is there, and awaken it into life.
you will find it just as sure as there i,
a divine nature to lead you. and you
will find the remedy. Look at the
child and not the results to bo obtained
externally. One teacher told of boy
who came into the school-house and
crouched into corner with a sullen,
dogged face. What did that mean?
Some teachers would say: THAT is a
bad boy. shall have to whip him. .
What does that crouching. covering
attitude meanp Nothing very bad.
1t means: Nobody cares FOR me, and
| cares for no one. He went into the
scAool-housc hating arithmetic and
grammar. but the teacher said: Il
viii find that chiId's soul; lind the spark
and awaken it to life" And she found
| II. She knew theboy loved TO fish, and
loved birds. and searched for them on
tho Platte river. so she got the CONVEX
satlon directed that way about birds
and fish, and asked ono pupil after
another questions about them, and Al
last she saw that he began TO look up,
and she said: John. do you know