Goldsboro weekly argus. [volume] (Goldsboro, N.C.) 1885-1909, 1902-04-03
The Chairman of the County
Board of Education and the
County Superintendent
Make Addresses.
a FLouRIsHInG SCHOOL
Among a Prosperous and Moral
People.

Utility 1IIIICtO4tCI1UO OhC ROS1Spy VI
Friends predominant, has one of the
best district schools in the county,
running eight months in the year,
and requiring two regular teachers
in the school branches of study and
a music teacher. The faculty this
year was composed of Prof. N. f.
Farlowe, Of Guilford College, Prin-
,cipal, ard Misses Ida and Laura
Moore, of Woodland, assistants.
This splendid school held it's clos
ing exercises yesterday afternoon,
which were opened with a reading
from the Scriptures by the Principal,
followed by the National anthem,
"My Country" which was rendered
in fine style by the entire school,
with organ accompaniment.
Col. Jos. E. Robinson, chairman of
the County Board of Education, was
then introduced, and spoke as fol-
lows:
NY FRIENDSHIP coming to you
to-day, to be with you on the occa-
sion of the closing of your district
school, / am indeed most happy, for
there are none of us but like to go
back sometimes to the halcyon days
of youth and renew the associations
of childhOod'S careless years; and to
me there is no period of my life that
was SO free from care and frought
with happiness as my youthful
school days in the country, and
memory often goes back now to
dwell fondly on the scenes of that
time OF my life when as a boy /
trudged the cart path through the
woods to the old school house in the
oak grove of Salem church, beneath
the cool shades Of whose spreading
trees, in the recesses Of the long sum-
mel days, I used to sit and build
5Eair castles" of my future life, and
watch the visions I had painted fit
by in sun and shadow.
But it is not of this I have come to
talk to you to-day. My subject is
education. Now don't get alarmed
and restless, thinking that I am 60
ing to talk about books, and free
schools, and taxation, and compul-
sorry school attendance: Not at all;
those problems every right-minded
citizen can and will solve for him
self. But the education that 1 shall
talk to YOU about to-day is that in
which you are all interested, whether
YOU realize it or not: it is a work in
which we are all engaged; for educa-
tion is not restricted to mean that
which the brain receives from the
mere study Of books, but it cOmpre
-o-,I-L Ill 4I,O V-aN-rJoICc0 41oO q Door
acquires throughout a lifetime. Il
begins with life and ends only with
life. Hence it is a subject of many
branches, and as m~eaSureleSS as the
capacity of life itself when intelii-
gently and faithfully utilized. And i
by any word Of mine to-day I shall
arouse to activity and effort some Ia
tent talent in the minds of any O
my hearers, whereby he or she shall
attain to higher things-if any sug
gestion Of mine shall take lodgemen
with you-gO with you to you
homes and afford you food for pleas
ant or profitable meditation durin!
your leisure hours, [ will indeed b,
most happy, and shall not hav'
talked IN vain.
And noW, what OF Education? I
must have q beginning: There mus
be q foundation upon which to builC
this great work Of life. Ii the fOun
dati0n be narrow and weak, it cannO
supper a Droao and mighty super
structure. y few pertinent ques
tons, therefore, suggest themselve
here: Where is the foundation to b
laid? In the mind: How is it TO b
laid? BY early teaching: When
it to begin? In the first years {
childhood.
Man is a teachable being, and maj
kind is constantly advancing. Th
first birds that sung in the garden {
Eden on Creations morning mad
their nests as perfect, as beautifI
and as artistic as do the birds thu
make the forests glad to-day wit
their sweet songs. And why is tn
SO? Because they work by instinc
which remains at all times the SAM
The child just born knows no MOI
than a baby animal OF a birding.
manifests only instinct. After. aWhiI
it smiles in its mothers face-no al
imal smiles: After another while
tries to speak, though not unde
standing what it says. After a tim
words have meanings, vague and il
distinct at first; and then, by and b.
language has clear and definite meal
ings; then education begins. TT
father and the mother are not onl
the child's parents, they are also tt
>child's first teachers-they begin i
education. Happy they, and hapI
their child, if their early teaching
both by word and example, is VIII
it ought to be-true, good and tho
youghly Christian. Let US go to Il