The Maryville times. (Maryville, Tenn.) 1884-1944, 1899-09-23
"RoBIN's RoosT,"
JOHNSON CITY, Tenn, July "a, 1899.

re not happy today in your peaceful
immunity from books, and states, and
chalk, and black boards, and cold facts
and figures, and queries from every
grade of intelligence and every shade
of curiosity; l wonder if you do not feel
like birds just out of cage-unfettered
and unconfned, with whole ornaments
of freedom to fly in and whole forests
of rest to dream in.
Through all the weary months you
have been teaching the young idea how
to shoot, and / am sure that when the
last lesson was recited and the last SEN
timental essay was read and the last
Grafton Illuminated the horizon on
commencement day it was moment of
unutterable happiness to you; am
sure that when the college doors closed
behind you and you started in search of
the old familiar haunts of summer to
swing in grapevine swings and lounge
on lazy lawns you could scarcely re-
strain the impulse to swing your hats
in the air and shout: ''Hurrah for Old
Vacation"
The summer outing is the bright
oasis in the life of the professor. 1t
hath groves of recreation and gardens
of pleasure; it hath fountains of laugh
ter and brooks of song; it is breathing
spell for the tired spirit; it is bed of
roses for the weary brain. l always
feel like bowling with uncovered head
in the presence of the school teacher.
The stonecutter chisels the rock from
the quarry; the teacher cuts and carves
and molds in the imponderable ma
terial of mind and soul. The architect
builds the chiseled stone into massive
walls and erects mansions for the
physical man, but the teacher builds
temples of knowledge and palaces of
thought. None but the noble and the
pare in heart should be allowed to
teach, because their works endure for
ever. Mind touches mind either to
beautify or to pol!ute; character touches
character either to adorn or to blacken;
soul touches soul either to bless or to
blur.
1t is not only the province of the
teacher to lead the child in the paths
of knowledge, but it is also in his power
to inspire honesty and to impress the
principles of truth and virtue. A COM
munity blessed with good teachers is
sure to be blessed with an enlightened
and worthy citizenship.
/ think there has been more progress
in education in the last half century
than in any other realm of endeavor.
The standards are higher than the old
standards, and the methods are SUI
perior to the old methods. Our institu-
tions of learning are working wonders.
They are the blossoming of higher
and better civilization, and on this
rock rests the safety of the republic.
No country in the world has SO rapidly
advanced in the building of school
houses and in the increase of educa-
tional facilities as the South. We have
universities not more than a third of
century old which are already the pride
of our people and the glory of our coun-
try. Our colleges have increased in
number and influence; our public
schools are spreading everywhere, and
it is now only in the most remote and
poverty-stricken sections where even
the poorest children have not the OPP
portunity to taste the sweets of knowl-
edge.
We are in the race for educational
supremacy. Our Northern brethren
have had about a century the start of
us, and they laugh in our faces and
comment on the ignorance of our peo-
pie. l have seen published in the
magazines of the North accounts of
plays and novels portraying our murder
of the Kings English" Only little
while ago saw in one of their periodi-
Gals the pictures of the actors and &C.
tresses who are amusing innocent audi
ences with play purporting to repre-
sent the illiteracy of the South. 1t is
the superlative of SANDER and the acme
of asininity. / have lived in the South
forty-eight years, and l have never
heard the most ignorant person say
"we-uns." We have our provincialisms;
SO has every section its peculiar
provincialisms. have heard Bos-
tonians say: "You hadn't ought to do
it, This is no sweeter to the ear than
the Southerner's expression: 1--we done
done It." The Philadelphia says wat"
for what" This sounds as funny to
us as when an illiterate man from a
Southern district planks down a broad
"which?" when he fails to catch ques-
ton propounded to him. Many people
right in the shadow of Harvard college
say "to hum" which, being translated,
means "at home" | might name long
string of "sich," but ''hain't" got time.
repeat that the North has hundred
years the start of us in this educational
race; but / warn them to keep their
eyes on the wire and their spurs in the
flank, for, as sure as the Lord reigneth,
the country they laugh at today will
show them its heels tomorrow; for, in
the language of one of our distinguished
Southern teachers, literature loves a
lost cause" There never was truth
more beautifully expressed. Poets have
already begun to sing among our broken
columns Oratnrv still lives to- lmInnr-