The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1904-07-24
EDUCATION AND EXTRAVAGANZA
Smartcst Boys Get Their Education
Under Difficulties.

To the Editor: North Carolina is
making rapid progress In education
and wealth. In many sections every
child will receive a liberal education.
Those who are less fortunate will be
in miserable plight. when they find
themselves at the bottom of our CIVIL
ization. 1t is also true that those who
receive the highest education will be
at the top of the ladder. Many of
our successful and wealthy citizens
are making terrible blunders in the
education of their children. The law
of nature is action and reaction. AS
communities change from temperance
to license and from license back TO
temperance, SO extremes in other mat
ters change back and forth. Ihe
wealthy citizen of today laid up his
treasures by toll and self-denial. Ii
was hard life. but the grinding de-
veIoped him into Il man. With love
for his children. he brings them up in
ease and self-indulgence. He sends
them to the finely equipped school,
where all the modern improvements
are found and every facility for learr-
ing is pretended. The old adaGe. there
is no royal road to learning. is for
gotten. Each boy is allowed to select
his own course of study, and without
experience he selects the one that re-
cuires the least labor. Everything
must be done that will enable him to
| learn with least labor to himself Is
| it a wonder that such a boy, when he
| enters college or the struggle of life,
! is undeveloped and, soft? Yes, the
! boys from the most wealthy families
| do not generally take the front in the
! busy world. 1t is true that blood Will
| tell. and in spite of the difficulties of
a misguided education, many get
down to work and dig their way to
success. Thus the man of toll sue
ceeds. and raises children of ease and
| extravaganza who are failures.
. Our successful men as a rule come
| from those families where the chill
! dren secure an education under diff
/ ficulties. The boy that overcomes OBJ
/ stacles and FORCES his way by personal
effort is an overmatch for the soft fell
| low reared in luxury, or the fellow
! who in false pride spends his fathers
| hard-earned dollars in trying to live
| like the boy of wealth. Extravaganza
/ is found everywhere. If the demand
| was only for better teachers and for
! better and more nutritious food, no
| objection could be raised. But the
demand is for more luxury, more
| ease, more latitude. and less work. If
a boy has some poorly developed ia
| Guilty, and consequently has difficulty
in learning certain braches, the
/ trouble must be met not by grinding
| but by Sinking, and the difficult
| studies must be discontinued. The
school, that says no, generally loses
| the boy AS the twig is bent, so grows
! the tree. Every careful planter
prunes and corrects one-sided tree.
But when it comes to bis boy. the in
dulgent parent lets his boy follow his
bent and leave off what he has diff
ficulty with. and does not see that his
child is growing us lop-sided in his
mental development. Our schools
must yield and supply what is de-
manded. Examine the catalogues or
our most largely patronized 1nstltu-
| tons. and you will find the few TAX