Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1904-11-21

been discovered or invented by meaps
of which pain can be driven awav n
the point of the surgeons knife =,
cured by tbs physicians prescriptionr
Think of the lnercisul angel ''anaestha
sia." who comes TO the side of the on
Grating table and lays the soothing
hand of benumbment upon the twitch
ing nerves and the aGonizing braini
Tell ne. O sick man. that this is not a
hotter time to live in than those times
in which our erandfatLees lived!
No Dental Chairs Then.
Then think of the mercies which
have come to US through the dental
chair. In olden times when a man had
a toothache he would go to the village
doctor or to the village blacksmith.
The forceps would embrace tile aching
tooth. There would be a groan. . veil
q kicking of the sufferer. ANA out would
come the offending mOlar What Was
the result? Among our ancestors ii
was no exception to find q young man
mr. a Young woman of thirty-fiye wears
of age without a tooth in tie law.
Think of the dyspepsia and afte. din
ner mains which were-then caused bv
noorlv masticated food. Some CT us
complain because we have not Ill tie
different kinds of food upon our tables
we would like to have. But in ollen
times they not only complained about
the few kinds of food they had to eat,
but they also complained about their
sore gums with which they had to mas
ticate that poor food. Many lives Of
our ancestors were shortened because
prematurely, as King Solomon express
ed it, the grinders ceased, because
they were few"
Then today make a big inventory of
the blessings of the modern public
school system Of America. In olden
times it was the exception for the son
or a daughter of a home to have what
is called a liberal education. Yale and
Harvard and Princeton, then dignified
by the names Of college, were in fact
nothing more or less than modern high
schools. These institutions anu colleges
like them were very few and far be-
tween. Only here and there we find
that a young man was able to go to
one Of them. The great masses of PEG
pie q hundred years ago were entirely
uneducated. If you do not agree with
this conclusion, go and study the old
documents kept among the Revolution
airy records Of Boston. You can see
them any time you go to Massachu-
setts Almost without exception the
men who stood by Samuel Adams and
James Otis in the struggle for Ameri-
can liberties were practically unedu-
Gated men.
But though a hundred or even fifty
years ago the man who had a liberal
education was the exception, the man
Of the generation which is to come
after us who is an uneducated man
will be the exception. So perfect has
our public school system become, SO
multitudinous are the American col
leges of today, so prevalent are libra
rieS everywhere. that an Abraham Lin
coin getting an education by a pine
knot will never again be known in
American political life. Now every
boy, every girl, can develop the brain
to the utmost. Now all our boys and
girls, by the magnificent system of
schools which we have, can fit them
selves for any line of work that they
will. Oh, carping pessimist, do you
not see any blessing today in the fact
that you can educate your mind so that
you can daily be the associate Of the
master minds of the centuries? Do
you not see a blessing in the fact that
Shakespeare and Burns and Scott and
Irving and Motley and Prescott and
Gladstone and Webster and Edison and
MilIet and Raphael and Angelo and
Beethoven and Wagner and Thorvald-
sen can all be invited to your study
desk any night you will, to paint, or
sing or chisel. or preach, or teach for
you? Education is not a mere affecta-
ton. Education is the wings of in
spiration which lift a man up so that
his horizon takes in all lands, all seas,
all worlds and all ages.
Is not the opportunity of developing
the mind and heart and the life of
man by education great advance
ment over the educational opportuni-
ties which were offered to the genera
| tons that are past and gone?
Thus at this glorious Thanksgiving
time I find the world is not only grow
ing better, but it is better than it has
| ever been before I find we have a
better government better church,
better homes, better physical and men
| tai men and women and better chill
| dren to take our places after we are
gone. Let US thank God on this com
ing harvest festival for what he has
done for US. May we pray to him to
give us strength to go on doing the
work he has given us to do, and may
| tho time come when our future work
may yield even far greater harvests,
mental. physical and spiritual, than the
work of the past and the present have
Welded In thanking God for the bless
| ings of the Thanksgiving day of 1904
let us also thank him that as this
! Thanksgiving is better than any
| Thanksgiving in which our ancestors