New Iberia enterprise and independent observer. (New Iberia, La.) 1902-1944, 1903-07-04

The milking Of COWS in the morning,
the cackling of chickens, visions OF
crayfish and gumbo pare are sweeter
music to my senses than lectures on
abstract questions and oratiOns on
political and social conditions. l am
raised and born here and love and
breed all the idiosyncracies of my envi-
ronment l cannot change it and care
not for questionable betterment.
Bill: know we have a rough and
rugged road to travel; a road full OF
thorns and rough edged rocks but the
sentiment you represent and you sc
religiously cherish must give way
to modern ideas, to American customs,
to demands of citizenship and self gov
eminent. You cannot live the life OF
an alien born on this soil. The public
schools are the source of citizenship.
Youths passing through them are inn
bued with the spirit of the republic.
They are the preliminary ground, of
American type of man. The relations
of authority and citizen, Of servant
and master are there explained and a
healthy public opinion created for the
preservation of the rights Of man. In
your old time upright holes surround
ed by planks and matched by bramb-
les and briers, you were taught the
aud Goo no IF ion ~ ~
vague and shapeless definition of the
immortality of the soul and giltedge
promise or an iron clad mortgage of a
happy hereafter. They taught dreams
to keep the mind in childish state
and endeavored to explain miracles and
the supernatural. They made you
happy by keeping you under mental
enthrallment. They developed moth
ing in you save an eager desire to live
long and easy. Your mental and
spiritual nature was sadly overlooked
and am afraid if the neglect of these
two faculties is widespread there is
almost no room for improvement.
Jack. My dear friend; your rhe-
toric frightens me. If your scheme
for more public schools and better
education succeeds you will gradually
change our peculiar characteristics,
and local customs and habits, our ira
ditional civilization. You will give
US new language, new world, a
new life. Imagine our young bare
headed urchins, our Lafayances, Pata-
ssas and Aristides reading and talking
English, instead Of the favored must
cal Acadian and discussing worldly
problems with the eloquence of a Web
ster? and our lassies exchanging the
soft, languorous tune of the Patois for
the vigorous, harsh, grating Anglo
Saxon? Is this the picture you in
tend to attack and transplant into
another panorama?
Bill. That is mossbackism. Prog
ress means energy, movement, toll,
ambition, high ideals. Your love of
the old forms, and the tremendous
curly locks adjoining the patriarch
means degeneration or fears the force
of activity and the tax OH effort 1t
is dream of Mirvana; a pralyzing
pail Of despair. The electricity Of
modern times demands development
of mind and body and requires the
use and the employment Of acquired
skill and talent. You may squirm
and wriggle, barefoOted and barehead-
ed, in your arm chair, but you will
never turn back the hand of the clock
of time. The School question has
come to stay and as long as there are
children demanding public school
course, the question will remain ac-
tive.
Jack. l will meet you again
next week and try again to convert
Won CxOnd hive r n