The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1899-04-21

| WnSIOeF IneN were WIckeu OF SCOu.
There were two wrong things abouv
Jephthah's VOW. First, he ought never
to have made it. Next, having made it,
it were better broken than kept. But
| do not take on pretentious airs and say:
Il could not have done as Jephthah
did" If in former days you had been
standing on the banks of the Ganges
and you had been born in India, you
might have thrown your children to
the crocodiles. 1t is not because we are
naturally any better, but because we
have more Gospel light.
Now~F make very practical use of
this question when l tell you that the
sacrifice of Jephthah's daughter was a
| type of the physical, mental and spirit
| ual sacrifice of 10000 children in this
day. There are parents all unwitting-
ly bringing to bear upon their children
d class of influences which will as GER
tainly ruin them as knife and torch de-
stroyed Jephthah's daughter. While l
speak, the whole nation, without emo
ton and without shame, looks upon the
stupendous sacrifice.
In the first place, remark that much
| of the system of education in our day
| is a system of sacrifice. When children
| spend six or seven hours in school and
| then must spend two or three hours in
| preparation for school the next day,
will you tell me how much time they
will have for sunshine and fresh air
and the obtaining of that exuberance
which is necessary for the duties of
coming life? No one can feel more
thankful than do for the advancement
| of common school education. The
printing of books appropriate for
schools, the multiplication of philo-
sophical apparatus, the establishment
| of normal schools, which provide for
| our children teachers of largest caliber,
are themes on which every philanthro-
pist ought to be congratulated. But
this herding of great multitudes of
| children in ill-ventilated schoolrooms
| and poorly equipped halls of instruction
is making many of the places of knowl-
edge in this country huge holocaust.
! Politics in many of the cities gets into
| educational affairs and while the two
political parties are scrabbling for the
honors Jephthah's daughter perishes.
| 1t is so much so that there are many
schools in the country to-day which are
| preparing tens of thousands of invalid
men and women for the future; so that,
in many places, by the time the child's
education is finished the child is fin
ished! In many places, in many cities
of the country, there are large appro-
priations for everything else and cheer
full appropriations, but as soon as the
| appropriation is to be made for the edu-
cational or moral interests of the city
we are struck through with an economy
| that is well-nigh the death of us.
In my parish in Philadelphia little
| child was so pushed at school that she
was thrown into fever, and in her
dying delirium, all night long, she was
! trying to recite the multiplication ta-
BILE. In my boyhood remember that in
our class at school there was one lad
who knew more than all of US put to-
gether. If we were fast in our arith-
metic, he eXtricated us. When we stood
| up for the spelling class, he was almost
always the head of the class. Visitors
came to his fathers house, and he'was
always brought in as prodigy. At IS
years of age he was an idiot. He lived
ten years an idiot and died an idiot,
not knowing his right hand from his
left or day from night. The parents and
the teachers made him an idiot.
You may futter your pride by forcing
your child to know more than any other
children, but you are making sacri-
flee of that child if by the additions to
its intelligence you are making Ii sub
traction from it's future. The child will
go away from such maltreatment with
no exuberance to fight the battle of
life. Such children may get along very
well while you take care of them, but,
when you are old or dead, alas for
them if through the wrong system of
education which you adopted they
have no swarthiness or force of charac
ter to take care of themselves. Be care
full how you make the child's head ache
or its heart futter. I hear a great deal
about black mans rights, and China
mans rights, and Indians rights, and
woman's rights. Would to God that
somebody would rise to plead for chill
dren's rights The Carthagians used
them into the arms of an idol which
thrust forth its hand. The child was
put into the arms of the idol, and no
sooner touched the arms than it dropped
into the fire. But it was the art of the
mothers to keep the children smiling
and laughing until the moment they
died. There may be fascination and
a hilarity about the styles of education
of which | am speaking, but it is only
laughter at the moment of sacrifice.
Would to God there were only one
Jephthah's daughter!
Again, there are many parents who
are sacrificing their children with
wrong system of discipline-too great
rigor or too great leniency. There are
children in families who rule the house
hold. The high chair in which the in
FAINT sits is the throne, and the rattle is
the scepter, and the other children
make up the parliament where father
and mother have no vote, Such chill
dren come up to be miscreants. There
is no chance in this world for child
that has never learned to mind. Such
people become the botheration of the
CIuIClI VI oOQ d1IN lIC BCSb VI thS "OAAA'
Children that do not learn to obey hu-
man authority are unwilling TO learn
to obey divine authority. Children will
not respect parents whose authority
they do not respect. Who are these
young men that swagger through the
street with their thumbs in their vest
talking about their father as ''the old
man," ''the governor 1.-The squire"
1.-THE old chap" or their mother as 'the
cid ,,.o111 ar,o,' They ere those Hxhn in