The Montgomery advertiser. [volume] (Montgomery, Ala.) 1885-1982, 1902-09-24
AS SCHooLM.ASTER.
| Uncle Sans School Reaches from
Porto Rico to Alaska.
sun-wed-fri.

| Uncle Sans School Reaches from
Porto Rico to Alaska.
indianapolis News.
Uncle Sam is the busiest schoolmasteI
with the biggest class in tho world. II
is in session all the week round. Every
body is in it, from the little colored boys
in the Lanana and coffee and tobacco
plantations of Porto Rico to the million
aires who drive their flashing autom D.
biles through Newport.
OF course, they cannot sit in a class
room. There wouldn't be room for a
classroom big enough IL the whole city
of New York were rooted over and laid
with floors and crowded from the Bat
terry to the Bronx with desks So Uncle
Sam prints his lessons and sends them
out every day to all who desire to study
They are truly interesting lessons, be-
cause they are not out Of books. but
out of real life They take the student
from the glow of the magical Orient to
the palms of the lazy tropics, from the
land where the midnight sun shines out
over deep still black waters to the home
of the citron and the lands of wine. from
Russia to Alaska, from Cape Horn to
Greenland.
Down in the Caucasian Mountains,
whence the beautiful Caucasian slaves
still go to Turkey, the mountain streams
are to be harnessed the same way; and
soon there will be trolley cars speeding
from VladIkavkas to Suhkum. Those troll
ley cars will carry strange passengers.
They will have business men dressed
like your fathers and living very much
as they do. There will be oil merchants
and oil we'll diggers from Baku, which
is the Oil City of Russia. Alongside of
=, 49, I.aT ta,r
with crooked sword and silver-mounted
pistols in his gorgeous sash.
That is not a dun sort of geography
lesson, Is it? Here is another. Open
your atlas at Africa. Look at the Straits
of Babel Mandeb that connect the
Gulf of Alden with the Red Sea. Those
were always hard straits to remember
for us grown pupils. How are they with
you? We'll, just west Of them Is land
called Abyssinia-'he real, true land of
the Philippians OF ancient history. These
are queer folk. They have been Chris
tians for many centuries. Their ruler,
whom they call the Negus, boasts that
he is a direct descendant of King Solo-
mon. He calls himself the Lion OF Judaea.
He rules over 3,5O0.00) folk, whose men
certainly are lions in fight, for they de-
feated great Italian army most terribly
only a few years ago.
An African ruler whose name is Men
elk has at last decided to build a rail-
road from Adds A5beba, one of his
inland cities, to the French boundary
on the coast. This railroad will enable
merchants to cross great desert, which
Is so dangerous now that II takes cara
vans a long while to traverse it, dur
ing which time they are threatened by
all dangers from wild beasts to robber
bands.
But Americans cannot increase their
trade as they wish. because the caravans
are so slow that it costs $193 a ton to
transport goods from the seacoast TO the
Abyssinian cities. The Arabs and Somaii
warriors and other daring desert men
who form the caravans and lead them
know that they take their lives in their
hands every time they cross the sandy
wastes, so they take good care to charge
accordingly.