Cameron County press. [volume] (Emporium, Cameron County, Pa.) 1866-1922, 1904-12-22
The Observer.

by The action of Sunday school con-
vention in the eastern end of the state
| in recommending that Santa Claus be
banished from the Church celebration
of Christmas. The Saturday Evening
Post can see in this action nothing cave
prosy disaprobation of a lie perpe-
trated upon children from time i'm.
memorial.
If this were all that there is in this
action, the Observer would heartily
second the Saturday Evening Post in
pleading the rights of youthful imagi-
nation and sentiment. Pure, naked,
abstract truth is something that no one
has ever yet become acquainted with.
Truth always wears garb when she
appears to human beings. Indeed, she
has an extensive wardrobe and appears,
now in this, now in that garb, accord
ing to the grade or kind of intelligence
she has to do with. In the infancy and
childhood of the race, she wore the
garb of fairy myth and fancy. AS the
race advanced, she kept changing her
garb to something more suitable to
mature minds. But truth was just as
precious and just as real under the first
garb as under the last.
We have become familiar with the
fact that the development of each in
dividual in species is repetition of
the stages through which the species
itself has passed. The infant is living
over again the prehistoric period of the
races life. The little boy or girl is at
the stage which corresponds to the
primitive time when myth and fairy
tale were the only forms in which
mems ideas were clothed 1t is Just as
natural for child to clothe it's fancies
in fairy forms, as it is for kitten to
play with a ball as though it were
mouse. Some prosy people think that
children are taught to lie through the
infiunce of fairy tales and Santa Claus
myths. The Observer does not believe
that this is so. 1t is also said that the
confidence of children in all truth will
be hopelessly shaken when they shall
have found out that Santa Claus is a
myth. The Observer does not for a
moment believe this.
Notwithstanding his advocacy of the
rights of the imagination of childhood,
the Observer heartily approves the ac-
ton of the Stroudsburg Sunday school
convention. There is a fitness in all
things, and Church celebration is not
fitting place for Santa Claus. BY all
means let him continue to drive his
prancing steeds over the snow.clad
roofs and to make his swift descents
down sooty chimneys, but let us warn
him that he is decidedly out of place
when he appears as a central figure in
Church celebration. If a public
Santa Claus celebration be demanded,
let it be held in some other place than
church, and let not the name of the
Church be belittled by calling such an
occasion a Church celebration.
The Observer has been taught to be-
lieve that Christ-mas-Day is the festi-
val of the nativity of our Lord, and he
is aggressive enough to say that the
central theme in Church Christmas
celebration should be the Christ child
and not Santa Claus. We need imagi-
nation and sentiment; and where can q
story be found that so appeals to the
purest fancy and the tenderest, Holiest
sentiment of young and old alike, as
does the wondrous story of the birth of
Jesus Christ.
=
If the play of Hamlet were to be
brought out, with the part of Hamlet
omitted and the grave-digger cast in
the leading role, the effect would not
be more incongruous than is that of the
ordinary Church celebration of Christ
mas, from which the Babe of Bethle-
hem is omitted and the central place is
given to Santa Claus.
Local Institute.
The Teachers Local Institute was