The Laurens advertiser. (Laurens, S.C.) 1885-1973, 1901-02-13
BILL ARP ON IGNORANCE.
An Education is Now Easy Old
Text Books Bring Back Old
Days.

'l DSoip tSo tliCIC huS SOIllC cN
cuse for ignorance; we had but feS
schools in this Southern land and not
dozen newspapers in the State. Their
were not half as many reading book
IN all our town as have now in M
small library Of 400 volumes. In GU
schools we had a blue back spclhu.
book, Smilcy's arithmetic, Murray
grammar, Smiths geography and til,
English reader To master these wa!
considered a good old field educatio
have on my shelf a copy of that sam,
old English reader. A good lady sent
II to me not long ago, and almost
wcpt over It's delightful pages, for there
Is no school book now published that
mas so choice selection of varied
reading both il prose and poetry. |
have letter from nu old gentleman in
Florida asking where he will find Il
little poem that his mother taught him
and some of which he has forgotten.
cit b2gins," he said,
Pity the sorrows of a poor old
man." | do not know where lie will
lind it, except in the old English
reader. Ii was written in 1869 by
Thomas Moss, and was quoted by DR..
johnson and Goldsmith. Both loved
the pathetic, and nothing more pathetic
was ever written.
| Pity the sorrow of a poor old man
| Whose trembling limbs have born him
to your door,
| whose days are dwindled to the shortest
span;
All! give relief and Heaven will bIess
your store.
These tattered clothes my poverty be-
speak;
These hoary locks proclaim my length
ened years,
And many furrow in my grief-worn
as been the channel to n flood of tears.
Oh, take me to your hospitable home,
Keen blows the wind and piercing is the
cold
Short is my passage to the friendly tomb,
For am poor and miserably old.
These are some of the verses, and
in another occurs the line often quoted :
A pamPered menial drove me from the
This copy of Murray's English
reader was printed in London two
years before Queen Victoria was born.
1t was the text book in most Of the
schools when | was a boy, and from
it we got our speeches and learned
how to bow and gesture and gi ac-
cent and emphasis. This book, with
the teachers aid, ga c us an idea of
clocution and how TO read impressivcly,
ard ! wish it was in all our schools to.
day. We have good scholars, but very
lew good readers. IL is rare to find "a
preacher who can emphasize his text
on chapter or a hymn. Every col
lcgc, and especially every theological
seminary. should have Il plofcssorship
of reading and speaking. remember
hearing an eloquent divine preach a
sermon from the text, "My sin is ever
before me, and such was his utterance
OF that lamentaliOn of David and such
his profound and solemn rendering Of
tie enduring consequences Of sin, that
all his hearers were deeply impressed.
My sin is ever before me" still rings
in our mem lrics.
said that sixty years ago there was
some excuse Tor ignorance, but never
thclcss, that age and those schools pro-
duccd many very 1Otable men. The
young people were eager for knowl-
edge. new book was treasure in
the house, and there was more time
more leisure, and Solomon says that
in leisure there is WISDOM
But now the books are almost in the
way. They crowd us and surround
us, and the cry is, still they come.n
Young people read an average of two
or three week, and forget the con-
tents in month. There are maya
zines in every household, and thcv
contain our best litcrature-instruc
tive and entertaining; newspapers
flood the country by the millions. The
New York World boasts that it
published 240 million copies last year.
Every county IN our State has coun-
| tY newspaper, and the editor Of the
Carrollton paper says the children read
great deal more than their fathers
did and keep up with wars and politics
and murders and suicides.
Then what is the matter Blshop
Gambler wrote an excellent and in
structivc article recently on "Thc pass
ing of great men," He never writes
anything that does not give US food for
thought, and ! am thankful that he
has not passed. Yet the day of great
men has passed, not only in Gcol gla
but IN all tho South. EloQucnce in
the pulpit, the forum and the councils
OF the nation forty and fifty years aga
was our pride and our boast, when we
had among our preachers such noble
and true men as George Pierce, Dr.
Means, Longstrcet, Jesse Mercer, Ma
than Crawford, DR.. Tucker, Bishops
Elliott and Bcckwlth, Joseph Stiles
DR.. NixsoD, DIR. Gouding, and such
lawyers and statesmen as Forsyth
Troup, the two Cobbs, Jenkins
Toombs, Stephens, Johnson, Walter
Colquitt and Ben Hill. There are
twenty names given, and many more
might be added, and 1t is a lamentable
truth that their equals do not exist in
Georgia today. This decay of great
men is apparent in every Southern
STATE, and as for the North, there is
nothing there now but plltocrats who
buy their way into public Office and
defy trial or criticism. The struggle
for money is the curse of the age. L
has smolhcrcd the noblcr aspiration,
OF our nature. "Gct money; &c
money honestly if thou canst, but at al
events get money" Is now the motto
The common people want some, an,
the plutocrats want more. The massc
OF the people are on strain. All
one OF them, and ! know how it is, 20