The Bossier banner., 1891-12-24
THE MAGIC OF LEARNING.
How Education Impresses the Ignorant
and TIIIterate,

HOW Education Impresses the Ignorant
and TIlIterate.
Nothing is more astonishing to bar
oarous or primitive people than the use
of figures, diagrams and mathematical
formula by engineers and architects
There appears, we will say, among the
people of some mountain region of
Northern Mexico an American civil en-
glneer. He makes surveys and draw
ings and computations Then he goes
away, leaving his drawings and calcu-
lations with others. Men with picks
and shovels go to work in his track
constructing railway. Tunnels are
cut through mountains from opposite
sides, and meet, inch for inch, in the
center. Great embankments are laid,
and to make them there is just enough
earth brought, The surface of the
grade follows an even line ar far as the
eye can reach - wonderful thing to
these untraveled natives.
All the while the men who build the
railway consult the drawings and cal
culations of the civil engineer Every
thing is done according to them. Is it
any wonder that the simple lookers-on
regard this wonderful paper, which
opens the mountains and spans the val
leys, as bit of sorcery, magician's
touchstOne?
An African prince, visiting Paris dur
ing the great exhibition, sees the Eiffel
tower, thousand feet high, slenderly
built OF iron in such way that every
foot of the material contributes to the
strength of the structure or to the arch
ltect'S scheme of decoration. Nothing is
superfiuous. When the African prince
returns to his people, he can only give
them this account of the matter:
These white men are wonderful
magicians. None of our fetish men can
do such things as we have seen. They
have there a school of necromancy,
where men are taught to make lines and
figures in such a way that great palaces
| of iron are built. 1t is thus that a
white man of Paris has built tower
which seems to pierce the clouds, and
which at night is lighted with fires of
many colors. And all that, as it was
told to us, by means of lines, and rules
of numbers and figures But when the
white men sought to explain these lines
and designs, we understood nothing of
what they told us. No doubt they
meant that we should not understand
the secret. For if we knew their magic,
| their power would be lost"
But the magic" of the civilization of
the white men is no secret. 1t is sim
ply the magic of patient research and
industrious application. Nor is its pos
| session limited to those who are able to
go to college. Every student in the
public schools may treasure up scien-
titic knowledge which will be of the
utmost practical value to him when he
goes out into the world Here is an
| illustration:
Not long ago, in a New England pub
lie school, there was boy who took de-
cided interestin natural philosophy. He
said he was going to be plumber, and he
want-d to understand the facts that lay
at the bottom of his future occupation.
| His father was poor workingman, and
could not afford to send the boy to col
lege. But he permitted him to finish
the course at the high school The boy
never ceased to pay particular attention
to natural philosophy.
After he left school he went to work
for plum ber When he had been at
work about year there arose great
| deal of trouble about certain valves
that belonged to an important and cost
| Iv anDaratrS which had heen Sunnliad
to many people. No one could make
these valves work after they had been
in use short time. AS there was a
great deal of value at stake one practi-
cal plumber after another was employed,
but quite vainly, to remedy the defect.
Meantime, the high school lad had
gone to work on his own account to ex-
pertinent with the valves He recalled
some facts, which he had learned in his
natural philosophy at school about a
peculiar correding effect of water upon
certain metals; and he was able, through
this knowledge, to find the exact spot
in the costly apparatus where the fault
lay.
The discovery proved so valuable tC
the manufacturers of the apparatus
that the boy was taken into their en-
ploy. From this beginning he rose to q
leading and profitable position. He at
tributes his success to the excellent
grounding in the magic" of natura
science which he received at school -
Youths Companion.