The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1895-04-04

of yours about public school children
sporting in bath tubs, and tumbling
in gymnasiums, studying botany
amid the perfume of flowers and song
birds, learning motion, light, color,
taste, smell, force, energy, by the
assistance of all these glorious infiu-
ences of nature and refined life about
US. That ia true, but not as expen-
siYe as reform schools and prisons.
The reality OF ignorance is far more
costly than the ideal that looks
toward its amelioration.
There are immense sums of money
invested annually in amassing knowl-
edge. The crime of horded knowl-
edge like the crime of horded wealth
leaves the masses starving. Let there
be an outlay of truth at the expense
of the hordes becoming musty with
disuse. That is my ideal. Knowl-
edge beautified; knowledge tempting
inquisitive nostrils and curious eyes;
knowledge, perfumed, painted, cary
ed, gilded, harmonized, broken into
bits and given away. knowledge
made so beautiful that Hires Root
beer, show bills, the circus and
ballet dancers will not be the
only influences at work to feed
the senses. II you and I love the
beautiful and have ability TO recog-
nize and appreciate it and discriminate
between good and evil-lt is because
inspired minds, purses and time were
used to bring our natures in touch
with forest, sea, sky-the temples of
truth. What avails it that our world
is filled with power, beauty, grand.
eurs of art, science, literature and
goodness by divine thought, divine
goodness, if the divine ideal cannot
be carried out for the transformation
of natures that are not able to look so
high.
The bread of nature, knowledge and
eternal life must be blessed and dis
tributed SO that all may be fed. 1t is
no credit to any nation that it has OBJ
tanned high degree of intelligence if
the masses are in ignorance.
I verify believe, could God have
foreseen the desolate existence of a
large part of childhood, He would
have created third relationship to
supplement unfaithful fatherhood and
motherhood, and called that one
teacherhood. There is but one holier
emotion born to the soul than the
sweet, tender promptings of mater
nifty. It is the holy impulse of grace
and pity~ awakened at the sight of
children sent to school utterly desti-
tute Of the graces, refinements and
loves of mothers. Children whose
unkeFt locks and neglected garments
tell of the overWorked, motherless
condition of the home; children whose
shrinking forms at any approach to
kindness or caress impress upon you
the fact that they never kiss or
caress.
One of the greatest calamities that
can befall child is the calamity that
befalls nine tenths of the public school
children-empty-headeda and empty
hearted parents.
Someone has said: Read Homer
once, and you can read no more, for
all books else appear so mean, and
poor verse will seem prose but still
persist to read, and Homer will be all
the book you need. That is the truth.
You teacher, inspired to teach, must
be the compendium of all truth-lOfty,
profound or simple. Scholars will
read you; you are the Homer-all the
book they need; the life-light, truth,
and way to intelligence.
When children were treated more
like grain sacks than anything else
stuffed until they could hold no more,
and tagged with diploma. EX-
pressed in doggerel:
Ram it in, cram it in,
Children's heads are hollow;
Slam it in, jam it in,
Still there's more to follow
Hygiene and history,
AstronomIc mystery,
Algebra, histology,
Latin, etymology.
Botany, geometry,
Greek and trigonometry-
Ra IA it in, cram it in,
Children's heads are hollow.
Rap it in, tap it in,
What are teachers paid for?
Bang it in, slam it in,
What are children made for?
Ancient archaeology,
Aryan philology,
Prosody, zoology,
Physics, climatolOgy,
Calculus and mathematics,
Rhetoric and hydrostatics,
Hoax IL in. coax it in.