The Tupelo journal., 1902-12-05
BILL ARP'S LETTER.
Philosopher Discusses One Phase of
the Educational Problem.
Thinks the Schools should BE Sup
piled with Standard Cyclopedias
to Answer the QuestiOns Of In
teIMgent Boys and Girls.

ho -
teIMgent Boys and Girls.
copyrighted, by the Atlanta Constitution
and reprinted by special permission.]
l am very much perplexed to know
whatsto do for the country boys and
girls. Of course they can get a lit
tie schooling under the present sys-
tenn, but that will be only in text
books of reading, writing and arith-
metic. What they need is books of
reference that will answer their
many questions. Every mail brings
me letters wanting to know things
that they cannot learn in their coun-
try schools. Their teachers cannot
tell them nor their neighbors. OF
course not more than half of them
care about knowing anything outside
of their school books, but the other
half do, and on that half depends the
culture and progress of country.
Why should these boys and girls have
to ask me and Joel Chandler Harris
and John Temple Graves and others
SO many questions? When they in
close a stamp l answer all l can, but
these young people need books that
they can refer to. If Mr.. Carnegie
would place in every country school
a standard encyclopedia, such as APP
p%leton's 16 volumes of universal
knowledge, or Dodd, Meade e. Co.'s
International of 16 volumes, the
young people would have a library
that would answer all their ques-
tions. Add to this Appleton's seven
volumes of American biography and
without anything else. A young
farmer in Alabama asks me what
books he must buy to improve his
mind and store up knowledge by
reading and studying at night. Well,
it will take near 500 to buy the
above books and he had better skip
over all the modern trash that does
nothing but entertain and amuse and
strain his farm and his cattle and
everything to get that hundred dol
lars. | think he could get them from
Wannamaker for SIS.
Now, of course, a boy or a girl not
yet il their teens would prefer books
to suit their age, and they ought to
have them. l still treasure with de-
light my enjoyment of such books as
Robinson Crusoe," arabian Nights
and Jules Verne's works, "Swiss Fam
lily Robinson" and some of Scott's
novels, like Rob Roy" and "Kenil-
worth" Children must have enter
tainment. AS they grow up they
must have knowledge, for as Lord
Bacon said, knowledge is power, and
Lord Brougham said: 81 had rather
trust the schoolmaster to perpetuate
this government than all the armies
of England"
Now, here is a youth who writes
to me to know who invented the al
phabet. Well, that is going affair
back, but it is a question that should
be answered, for the alphabet is the
very beginning of knowledge. The
alphabet goes away back a thousand
years before Moses was born. The
Phoenicians made the first one that
we know of. They lived in a narrow
iNSioi thdt liCS DCtNCCu IdleSltHc
and Syria, a country about 200 miles
long and 20 miles wide, and yet they
dominated the civilized world for a
thousand years, for they had control
of commerce and manufactures and
the gold of Ophir and the silver of
Tarshish and the brass and copper
of other lands were all theirs, and
- x-o, d. f,oL 4l-4 - - I
Silver has heaped up as dust in the
streets and was NOR plentiful than
iron" Hiram, the king, was the
friend of Solomon, but a thousand
years before their time these Phoe-
nicians had made an alphabet and
used it in writing and engraving.
But that alphabet has passed away.
In course of time the Grecians con-
quered Phoenicia and the Greek Ian
guage prevailed. Their alphabet is
the origin of ours, the very words be-
ing compounded of the first two let
tiers, alpha and beta. just as the
Phoenician language was lost and
went into disuse, just SO has the
Greek and Latin language been aban-
doned and our English will no doubt
be the language of the civilized world
before this century ends.
Nearly a hundred years ago an
Englishman by the name of James
Smithson bequeathed to the United
States something over a million dol
lars to be used to promote the diff
fusion of knowledge among men.
That sum has been increased by our
government from year to year until
now the Smithsonian Institute is one
of the wonders of the world. But
you cannot see it unless you GO to
it, and only the rich and members of
congress can do that. The common
people are still in the woods, and
that is why I wish Carnegie or some
other philanthropist would do some
thing for country schools. The
spirit of progress is doing well in the
towns and cities. Right here in Car
tersville our good women have or
gained a public library as an at
tachment to their club work. The
corner stone will be laid next Satur-
day and / have been honored with an
invitation to upheave the first shovel
full of earth, which I shall certainly
do if | am strong enough to lift the