The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1897-06-05
GEMS FROM JOE WATERS
His Address to the Graduates
at Frankfort High School.
Poetry and HumOr Interspersed
in a Matchless Way.
Early School Days as Thousands of
Journal Readers Will Re
member Them.

AOl 14Su school, QeuVereQ last night,
was something entirely different from
the usual speeches given graduates.
He said:
Ladies and Gentlemen: That no in
nocent person may suffer a suspicion,
L unblushingly admit the doggerel which
threads its way through this address
is my own.
I have entitled this address Good
Advice. AS no wise physician ever
takes his own medicine, this speech is
intended entirely for the sole benefit of
the young ladies and gentlemen grad
yates of the Frankfort high school. In
designating it by this title, 1 do not
want to make the mistake the pharma-
ceutist did in labelling corrosive subli-
mate as buttermilk Nor do I desire to
be 50 exact and fnicky or stick so close
to the text as the butcher did when he
named his new mansion, built with the
proceeds of his slaughter, ''Tripe Villa -
The Kansas common school is an in
stitutiOn with which the parents of the
pupils of your city schools, if at all
elderly, have had but little personal
experience or acquaintance.
The graded school with the finishing
off process of the high school was not
then known FOrty-tWO years ago
there was but one grade and that was
known throughout the neighbOrhOod as
the threSh1nS department, and, unlike
lots of stock brought from eastern
nurseries, it was true to name. The
only graduating exercises then INDUCED
in were the elOpement of some Obdurate
boy with a freckled-faced girl and the
expulsion of some tough in embryo for
pure cussednesS; or rather if I am to
be on my good behaViOr,f for insubOrdin-
alton or incOmpatibility of temper.
No bonds We're then issued for an edi-
fee to pay the taxes for which the tax
payer grOaned like Atlas under his
load. It was then, in the hOmely YER
nacUlar a straight log cabin, covered
with rived shingles, chinked and daub-
ed with mud inside and out. The ven
tilatiOn was either the door or an auger
hole; the plumbing, a boy, wooden pail
and gOurd dipper, and the water works
was bubbl1ng spring in the side of
the hill, Overhung with foliage, shrub
berry and shade, and often the trysting
place of many a heart which palpitated
beneath it's jeans and linsey WOOlseys,
which tonight lifts above the mist of
years a vision of youth, and of which
you, my young friends, are its continu-
ing reality.
It was a sort of kindergarten shack
your parents attended, consisting of
one room, one window, a "chimbley'
and outdoors. It was provided with
the then modern Improvement of a pun
cheOn floor, slab seats, where the frOWsy
little tads and their elders, too, swung
their feet in mid-air above the holes
in the floor through which came rush
of the circumambient, without relay
or pause, from the outside. The
scholar was armed with the elementary
Rays arithmetic and an asafoetida
bag, hung round the neck to immune
the wearer from his companions NAL
aides, with sometimes a sulphur COM
partment which a few extremely eau
tious mothers added to make surety
doubly sure against human i'll said to
have had its genesis in Illinois. The
teacher was usually loaded with a pair
of Specs a healthy rod, ears with fine
acoustic properties and a splendid mem
Dry that never forgot fault and had
no place in it's storehOuse of remem-
a lp6 credit in the r.
count of any pupil
The teacher was a man; it were an
unhOly thing for woman to then APP
pear in public; the schOOlmarm was
metaphor declares that when dragons |
teeth were planted there sprang up |
armed men. 1t is not far fetched to |
adjust this expression to my present |
use. When we planted this teacher |
beneath the gumbO and tucked his COW |
erlet in. the product was a SchOOlmarm. /
She wears a first class certificate and |
pockets a third class salary. When I |
get on the school board she shall be |
paid for her services, and if ever I get /
to heaven in advance of her 1 will do /
my level best to see to it that she has |
an even chance with US men angels |
on the other side.
The school was then kept for three |
months in the year, and the long recess
of nine months. with it's measles, chores,
swimming. hunting rabbits and sore
toes obliterated almost the lessons of |
the preceding term. No blackboards,
no aliases, no globes, but rules, bruises,
switches, thumps, gads, Welts, birches
and ticks more than sufficient to supply
a bargain counter of a department
store Thank fortune, there was then
no patented school furniture to give
of the spine or dwarf the
vigor of youth. PiniOned as a scholar
IS now to his place behind the ink-wells L
Of one of these modern contraptions, 1
should think that j riot in the school.
such as we used to have, would now
be impossible.
The old teacher was narrow gagged
as a wheelbarrOW and of such dyspep-
tic and mathematical turn that his
criticism of the natural wag of a dogs
all was that its gyratiOns should have
been built solely on geOmetrlcal lines,
-angents and angles But the school
narml She is paragon; she buffers
ner bread with Browning; she thinks
n Latin. dreams in French, breathes
physiology and wakes to the tune of the
OinOmiual theOfem.
we had no school congresses, nor
nails nor Institutes. The only rules we
lad We're formulated by the irate peda-
rogue on the back of his wards. There
we're but few books; a house with a Ii
lrarv was unknown. The newspapers
we're then next to none. The telegraph
vas considered a. tinkering with the
mysteries of the Almighty. Keeley's
noter had not then issued a prospectus 4
or subscriptions. The loan company
lad not been chartered. The arc light
vas then moulded candles. rag
.arpet of the hit-Or-miss pattern in the
ront room: a ''wammus" for the men; +
;unbonnets for women. My young
riends. I do not intend to humble you
~ giving you some of the accessories
# your ancestry, but it ought to curb !
7olIr pride or at least adOrn it with
humility 0asa zines were confined ,
o Godey's Lady's Book and Fahen-
tock's almanac. Illustrations did not ,
hen exemplify the text There We're
few pictures between the lids of the
pelIer. and the one about the lawyer
nd the farmers gored OK is my shib :