The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1903-03-06
A TEACHERS APPEAL.

EDITOR BULLETIN:-Plea allow
me space in your columns for an ap-
peal in behalf of the children of
Hardeman County.
Fathers and mothers, let us talk
sense for five minutes. l am a
school teacher. You intrust to me
your dearest belongings, and you
ask that | shall make them noble
men and women, no matter what ig-
noble or bad traits you or your
ancestors have put into them. l
serve as a father to your boys and
girls, fifty or sixty at time. l
have heard your wife declare that
one nearly drives her crazy, but |
have fifty all at once and long hours
at a stretch. Day after day, year
after year, take these fifty and
successive ffties and try to hold
before them, unworthy as 1 may be,
the praise and glory of a manly life,
a clean, honest and generous life. l
have washed their dear, dirty little
hands, bound up their cuts and
scratches, sympathized with their
childish griefs and pacified them in
their little quarrels. l have put
my arms tenderly about the little
ones and dried their tears and sent
them away in smiles to play again.
Thus living and laboring with your
happy little ones l have learned to
love them all but as well as you
yourself do. Now, want to reason
with you few minutes.
You will admit that your children
are by far the dearest treasures you
have on earth. In fact you would
not take all the wealth of the world
for that least dirtY-faced boy or
girl who comes in from play and
lisps, "Mamma, I want dink wather."
You have great desire deep down
in your heart that comes to you
sometimes when you are alone, or
when you have snugly wrapped the
little fellow in bed for the night,
that he will be great and noble
man some day. Perhaps in your
waking dreams you see him filling
exactly the place your loving heart
yearns for him to fill.
Yes, every father and mother must
confess that this is true. When
you plan for crop on the farm you
purchase the best implements,
choose the best seed and prepare the
soil and plant the seed with great
care. You toll diligently and
carefully with growing plants and
are rewarded according to your care.
But what about the care and cult
walton of that child-plant which is
nearer and dearer to you than all
else? Have you taken the care and
given the labor in it's cultivation as
you would in a crop; or is 1t grow
ing up in the weeds and thorns of
ignorance and sin? Did you pay as
much last year for the moral and in
telIectual cultivation of your child
as you did for tobacco or some other
useless qualification of habit or
pleasure? Does your inner heart or
conscience tell you plainly that you
have done all your duty toward
making a great man or woman of
your son or daughter? The great
est Inheritance any man ever left
his son or daughter was thorough
moral and intellectual education
stored away in the heart and mind
where "moth doth not corrupt nor
thieves break through and steal"
Does any one of you think Wash
ington's mother ever regretted one
particle of expense or pains-taking
care she bestowed upon him? No,
Washington, himself said: "All
that l am owe to my mother" She
left a priceless heritage to the
heart of every loyal American.
Fathers, mothers, let me exhort you
to awaken to the infinite responsi-l