The leader. [volume] (Brookhaven, Miss.) 1895-1905, 1904-07-30

little shoulder and In voice n1e
enough to brighten most OF Us, said:
Go slow, boy, IL there's any time
l1yin round bose evenin'a you can
take your pillow up In that hill patch
and got move on You. They'a plow
in enough ID the fields for my boys
to do. ,thout this sort o. foolishness.s
The patient little teacher glanced
at me then, and understood at last
why she had seemed indifferent. And
the willing little lad my heart ached
for him. and tried to make my
fingers pressure on the dropping
shoulders tell him how gladly / would
have helped him, II might, to pillow
that hill patch"
wonder If parents realize how h
hurts when a child's hopes and dreams
are bruised by the hand that God
meant to be, of all. the greatest, ten,
derest one!
But to return to the point from
which | am prone to wander The
man who considered Improvement 81
house and grounds "foolishnessD il q
trustee Of the school, and is, with the
aid OF four little sons under IA, max.
| ing each year fine crops. And his ex-
ample is considered good, so all the
other patrons do as he does, and the
faithful teacher must sit in an empty
room whenever good day for work.
(and they are so many comes around
At the best, her school is run only a
I few months, because the big" CD
children are put in the CROP and the
little ones can't 60 alone. This is a
cruel hardship to children and teacher
alike. The children's brains suffer
and the teachers purse, since they
are paid in some counties according
to the average daily attendance. And
this, by the way, seems a strange law,
The teachers do their best, but only
the majesty Of the law, rigidly en-
forced by busy 'truant officer" will
ever force some parents to take their
children out of "the crop" and put
them in the school.
This average business makes me
think of queer state of affairs on
the place of a relative of mine in
Jefferson county. There is a school
for white children on one side Of this
place and it keeps the little teacher
on the rack all the time to make
Ter average" know her to be one
Of the best teachers in the State, and
her interest in her work and in her
pupils never flags. Both patrons and
pupils love and appreciate her, but
more than once she has failed to
make her average" and her small
salary, therefore, grows smaller. Her
pupils have to work., and frequently
cut Of the twenty-five enrolled fifteen
will be absent.
On the other side of this big plan.
tation is a negro school, with an en-
lrollment of close on to ninety. And
that teacher never loses cent
of his salary because he doesn't make
MS average" His daily roll shows
an average attendance of eighty.
And they are the laborers who make
the cotton and corn Of our State. The
difference lies In this, as Mr. whitfield
says, we must give our children better
tools with which to labor than we
ever mad. This fact most Of our white
people seem to ignore But it is
beaten in the brain land seems to
spring up in the hearty of every negro
Parent. by preacher and teacher alike
until they think they are committing
an objectionable sin by keeping sary
chile way frum school" / must con
fess that this close attendance does not
seem of advantage to some of them
even remotely, but it is the desire on
| the part of the parents of which We
speak Would that the superior race
mad half the reverence for "schoolin'
that animates the breast of the rudest
darby,
There would then be no need for
Bulletins or Educational Bureaus, =
and Mississippi would grow into a
paradise for teachers.
Memory recalls just here political
Tor, to be correct. politic) friends
advice about threading on my read
ers' toes" but a moments thought re
assures me, for know beyond. be
yond all question, that parents and
patrons Of the class / am here be
wailing will not take time from the
grass in the crops just now to read
about what. Parker is saying or the
latest discovery of Charlton or the boil
weevil, even, SO anything about
schoolin' is safe from their eyes
But yau, kind friends, who chance to
be their neighbors won't you help
their children and the children Of gen
creations yet unborn by striving con
ltinuaIIy to make better the schools Of
Mississippi, so that our young men
and women may have the best OF tools
with which to do Lies work, and may
understand the use Of the most dell
cate and intricate of them? You car
do this great swork at so little cost
Ito you, but it win, like the bread
tupon the waters return after many
days, with countless blessings in its
wake.
The judges Question.