The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1899-03-22
WEDNESDAY, MARCH %, 1899.
SCHOOLS AND COMMERCE.
Queer Traits of Life In and ArounQ
Pensacola.

DEAR GAZETTE: We have been for
several days among the shipping,
in the schools and with commerce
generally of this quaint oldIplace.
One feels a strangeness of feelings
steal over his senses as he climbs
upward to board one Of these huge
four masted, full rugged ships OF
$500 tons burden, and as you de-
scend some thirty feet to where the
huge hewn timbers 2Ox2O inches, 40,
so and 20 feet long are jerked by
powerful windlasses into place, you
feel that life is somewhat in danger
and the pay, 81 per day, is not
sufficient to induce you to underbid.
IT'S wild dare devil life these men
lead and their language is not calcu-
lated for cultured drawing rooms.
The Superintendent said to me,
"Your morals may receive shock,
if you go down there but if you are
sight seeing, I'd advise the visit. .
I really believe the men meant moth
ing by the vile oaths used, but
the habit was certainly not good.
Twas on one ship 1--WE saw five
pieces of hewn timber come through
the port holes, which scaled 1000
board feet. The men who work
outside in water, putting the Crap
pies on the timbers, get Sc per day.
Nearly all the ships loading lumber
this week are to go to Norway and
to Italy.
The fish and lumber industry of
this place is enormous, but far
above all else is the lumber. Fully
1000 people are supported by it.
I have given several days to
school visitation, both white and
colored. I have had sufficient time
to talk with colored teachers and
white teachers and with colored
pupils and with white pupils, and l
Ibelieve I have some educational
data which will be to me, valuable.
1t is quite impossible for this State,
with only six and seven months OF
school, taught only from 9 a. m. to
2:3O p. M, with 45 minutes out for
recess and lunch, to cope success
fully with the Northern States.
And above all this stands the bar
the poorly equipped teacher. Sew
eral earnest teachers have said to
me Chow can we travel and how
can we attend these educational
meetings, with nothing in our pock-
cts with which to travel?'' A
colored teacher said to me recently,
sOur county superintendent is a
better hunter and fisher than he is
school visitor, and the Lord knows
I need help" I found one old
colored brother in charge ola school
> containing third and fourth grade
pupils. Twas the only poor colored
school I had seen, but this son of
Ham deserves special mention.
Picture him-fully SO years old.
He said to me as I handed to him
my card, Else powerful glad to see
you. Here you, Tom, skip in next
doh aud get chair for the gemlin. =
A class ofabout 4Oin arithmetic was
on the floor when I went in. He
called for solution of a problem in
simple fractions. The answer didn t
come. He began, ''See har, you
good for nothing lazy niggah, wach
you bin doing all dis var beautiful
morning. Say, does you hear me?
I done told you fob the last time. :
The guilty one was girl of about
IA years old. ''Say you Abe Will
hanson has you got that book yet?''
ssNo Sir 'sYou haint, is you?
Now look yer; you know what !
ought to do wild you; well I tell you,
I ought to send you home three
months before to-day" The class
read for me short sketch-not bad
reading. The teachers of the first
and second grades near by were