The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1890-06-05
BILL ARP'S PHILOSOPHY.
He Eliminates on the Schools.
litla,,ta Constitution,

| What long, long time IL mas TAKEN co
learn what little We know What an up.
hill business-what pull-whas strain.
There is no use in an old man struttipg
around and looking wise just because he
is old The truth is, our children and
grandchildren know more about many
things than we do. We never had to
study anything about locomotives and
telegraphs and telephones and dynamos,
and the skull and bones and nerves and
arteries, and what to eat and what not to
eat. Such things were not in our school
books. But now every school boy and
girl in the higher grades can make me
ashamed of my ignorance. They know
all about steam engine, and can tell
which moves the fastest, the top or the
bottom of driving wheel, and how the
outer wheels keep up with the inner
wheels in going round curve. They
know SIS much about the human frame as
an old fashioned doctor. I've been
thinking for fifty years that the heart
was on the left side under tie left breast,
but my children just laughed at me, and
said it was exactly in the middle. 1t
ed to be on the left side know, for |
heard an old preacher say that Eve was
made out of rib taken from Adams left
side, because it vas nearest his heart, and
remember seeing McCrady play Shy
lock in the Merchant of Venice, and he
got ready to cut the pound of flesh from
Antonio's breast nearest his heart and his
breast was laid bare on the left side. But
human hearts are getting further off now.
l used to believe that man had twelve
ribs on the right side aud eleven on the
other. [ thought that one was taken
away to make our great maternal ances-
tor, but it seems now that no man has
lost rib but Adam. These chaps of
mine talk learnedly abnut the sensor
nerves and the motors and the fexors and
extensors and how the sensors are always
on guard to keep US out Of danger For
instance" said Jessie, "if start to stick
a pin in your knee the sensors tell it to
the brain as quick as lightning and the
brain tells the motors aud the motors tell
the extensors and the extensors jerk your
knee out Of the way. Lot me show you,
said she, and I verify believed she would
have stuck me if hadn't extended my
extensors and caught her hand. The
way I thought it was done was my eye
saw tue pin and my experience told me
that a pin hurt aud 80 I kept her from
sticking me, but suppose that it is all
done with red tape now. 1t must be q
lightning business, for there is not much
time wasted when the eye lid closes by
instinct to keep gnat or q cinder out.
These school children study all these
things in the books and they have fresh
young doctor, I=mean young doctor
fresh from college, to lecture them on
anatomy, and he has o mannikin and a
genuine skull and bones to illustrate
everything. We used 10 be afraid of even
picture of skull and bones, but the
school children will walk right up to the
real thing low as bold as Hamlet and
will examine it with impunity. l never
knew how it was that chicken could
sleep on the roost without falling off, or
how it could hold on to it in storm, but
they told me that when bird sat down
the tendons in the legs closed up the toes
tight around the limb and the bird or the
chicken couldn't let 60 if it wanted to
without rising up 10 a perpendicular.
The chicken steelers know that and will
always push at the chicken before they
pull him off the roost. l. reckon it must
be so, for I notice that when chicken is
walking along the toes close up every
time the leg is raised I am learning a
heap from these children. Ireckon they
can tell me why a COW gets up behind
and horse gets up before, and how many
eggs bat lays, and why whippowill
can't set across limb, and why bean
vine climbs round a pole one way and q
hop vine the other, and what the dew
claws are on dogs hind legsfor Maybe
they know how it is that when horse
eats grass the grass makes hair, and when
a sheep eats grass it turns to wool, aud
when goose eats grass it turns to
feathers. There is reason for everything
in nature and this generation is Ending it
out One would think from the way these
school children talk about hygiene and
what to eat and what rot to eat and how
to cook it there vas nc need for anybody
to die if they would conform to science.
And it is a fact that life can be prolonged
in this way and I am glad the children
have such books 10 study. "The proper
study OF mankind is man." Orr greatest
lack is a knowledge Of ourselves. How
few of lis ever stop to think and say,
"What am I-who made me-what for
and whittier am I going?" How few
ever ponder upon what the mad prince
said: "What a piece Of work i, man !;
how noble in reason; how infinite in fa-
culties; the form aud moving, how ex-
press and admirable; in action how like
an angel; in apprehension how like
Cod
Itis enough to alarm man to see his
own machinery there is nothing to
compare with it, in all contrivance or in.
yention. We see it all in these manni-
kius--in these beautiful charts-all but
one tbing-the soul, the will, the fountain
of thought. Take out the brain and ex-
anime it with microscope, and the soul
is not there, nor the will, nor single
thought. Newton told US why an apple
fell to the ground, but no one has ever
told me why my will closed my hand or
extended my arm. | get to ruminating
about these things sometimes, and my
thoughts rise above the sordid things of
earth, and soar away to the confines OF
Immortality, but they don't stay there
long. / wish they would, but my hu.
manity draws me down, and soon fiud
myself devisiug some plan or scheme to
make little more money. The love OF
money is the great motor and censor and
hexor and extensor of our anatomy.
Last Sunday night Sam. Jones was trying
to get his people to raise two hundred
collars for some mission schools up in the
mountains, ard they didn't respond with
alacrity, and Sam. got mad and said: II
see in the Atlanta Constitution picture
of au elephant riding round on a quarter
of dollar, and I know right now where
Clark Howell got that idea. He got it
from you Gainesville Methodists. Some
of you are worth twenty and thirty aud
forty thousand dollars, and you strut
around aud feel as big as an elephant,
and are trying to roll into heaven on q
quarter of dollar. If this here railroad
that runs to Atlanta went straight on to
heaven, and you had got your consent 10
go, you would try to deadhcad your way,
and Sanford Bell would put You off before
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