The Middleburgh post. [volume] (Middleburgh, Snyder Co., Pa.) 1883-1916, 1894-01-11
A Half Century.

| Only q short life time, yet what
changes have taken place during
this period. The discoveries and
inventions have indeed been marve-
lous. The dissatisfied, restless spir-
it, inherent in the human race, pro-
NOTED by the prospect OF honor and
reward, has stimulated ingenuity
to decree of success never before
attained in u much longer period of
time, so that more useful inventions
have been produced in the last fifty
years than any hundred years
Of previous history,
A few years ago the Toledo Blade
humorously published the following
article: "We don't like to be ire
weren't but would like to ask, what
did our forefathers knowi" What
for inscance did George Washington
knowl He never saw u steamboat;
he never saw n fast mail train he
never held his ear to telephones;
he never sat for his picture in II
photograph gallery; he never re-
ceived telegraphic dispatch; he
never sighted Krupp gun; he
never listened to the fizz of an cleo
tion pen; he never saw n pretty girl
run sewing machine; he never saw
n self propelling engine to GO down
the street TO fire; no never heard
of ''evolution;" he never took laugh
ing gas, and never attended an
international exposition; he never
owne' bonanza mine; he never
knew I'D "Prob" ; he never warmed
his t. by coal fire. And l may
ada , never went to Jersey to
get rried. but when he went there
he ha another object in view. No
he hs none of these advantages.
Nv :" ok an excursion it was
= :. -. .oat When he wenv on on
n train it was mule train when
he wanted to talk to a man in Mil
waukee, he had to go there when
he wanted his picture taken it was
done in profile with n piece of black
paper and pair of shears when he
got the returns from tho back coun-
ties they we're brought in by man
with an OK cart when he took aim
Mt the enemy he had to trust to n
crooked barrelled old flint lock !;
when he wrote it was with goose
quill +; when he had anything to
mend his grandmother did it with II
darning needle when he went to a
fire he stood in line and passed
buckets when he saw monkey or
u clam he never dreamed that they
were distant relations when he
went to concert he heard the music
of Il cracked fiddle and an insane
clarionet. In fact if Washington
had lived three score and ten years
more the same would be equally true
When L was young and lived in Il
more eastern part of the state peo-
pie used to emigrate ''go west" to
Ohio, then comparatively IL wilder
ness. They didn't go on limited ex-
press trains, however, their mode of
travel was very limited, consisting
for II family of Conestoga wagon,
with a number of horses in front,
several COWS tied on behind, kettles
and buckets suspended from the
coupling pole, with some bedding
and other necessaries slowed under
the canvass cover; families left their
old homes and friends with many
tears and farewells for q long Jour-
ney of several hundred miles that
can now be covered in twenty-four
hours. We had the great American
desert marked in the biographies Of
my early school days, and our tuition
had to be paid. Therefore, you
must not blame US old folks for our
ignorance as we did not possess tho
advantages of good and free educa-
tion such as every child can now OBJ
tain. The early school houses were
often very rude affairs, where con
gregated scholars of all ages from
four to twenty years and over to re-
ceive their first lessons often the
, old and young taking their first les
/ sons in A B @, and these frequently
, in German. About the first thing
, / could read was rhyme on the
{ front cover of our German A B @
( book under the picture of big
, rooster it read
Der hawna greyt loud sein gigregee.
De kinder aufzuwecken free
Tsu l@rnen In der morgen shtund.
/ De morga shtund hut guild i'm mund
! The schools then did not have any