Virginia citizen. (Irvington, Va.) 1891-1921, 1904-11-25


the laying OF cornerstone of the
church furnished barrel OF whisky,
SO that al who came to the corner
stone laying could drink as much as
| they would.
sThose Good old Times
I would sooner live i'm my present
| modest home than in the damp rooms
| where Mary. queen of Scots, had to
| dwell. AMI AIS for the habitations OF
my graaGfSthcrs and grandmothers.
| they were places no living man would
now pat up with for a moment We
sentimcntally talk about the andirons
OF the old fashioned fire hearth. Did
| you ever try tie luxury Of one? Most
OF the rooms of the old farmhouses had
| to he closed IN winter because they
| could never be kept warm. In the
| bedrooms the ice would freeze i'm the
| pitchers. In the kitchens our grand
fathers would be hussiDg the fires and
| burning their coat tails ON one side OF
them while they were having whole
carnival of cEils playing hide and seek
on the other side of their physical anat-
omies. Then our grandfathers. for the
most part had the pleasure of dressing
| W ithtON NttN NVO.tn NnItENtUE ntAl
to their skins. They had the luxury or
malarial fever, scarlet fever aud diph-
iberia. which used TO ravage almost
every house on account of poor water
and drainage. They had the luxury Of
| sitting up i'm the house at night anu
using small tallow candle light to
read by when they were not too dead
| tired to read.
As for me, give me less of the poetry
| of old times and let me eat In my hum
BILE home my three meals day with
some other food besides ham, and let
me eat that food with n fork rather
than be ike Queen Elizabeth. who.
upon her palace dining floor, made Of
| cold stones, had her food placed before
heron the table, so that she might eat
| the meats with her bare, greasy fin
| gers.
| But. oh, II the well people, physical
| ~ and mentally. are better OF from a
temporal standpoint in this day than
they We're in our grandfathers' and
grandmothcrs' times. how much more
ought the sick to be thankful unto him
| who Is the Giver of all good gifts
| Think OF the merciful institutions
which have been erected for the in
valids. called hospitals! Think OF all
the marvellous wonders which have
been discovered or invented by means
of which pain can be driven away az
the point OF the surgeons knife or
cured by the physicians prescription
Think of the merciful angel "anaesthe-
sia," who comes to the side of the op-
Grating table and lays the soothing
hand of benumbment upon the witch
ing nerves and the agonizing brainl
Tell me- o sick man, that this is not q
better time TO live in than those times
in which our grandfathers livedl
No Dental Chairs Then.
Then think of the mercies which
have come to us through the dental
chair. In olden times when n man had
a toothacbe he would go to the village
doctor or TO the village blacksmith.
The forceps would embrace the aching
tooth. There would be groan, yell,
a kicking OF the sufferer. and out would
come the offending molar. What was
the resultl Among our ancestors Il
was no exception to find young man
or young woman of thirty-five years
OF age without n tooth in the jaw
Think OF the dyspepsia and after din
ner pains which were then caused by
poorly masticatcd food. Some of us
complain because we have not all the
different kinds Of food upon our tables
we would like to have. But in olden
times they not only complained aboIt
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 o:
our ancestors were shortened because
prematurely, as King Solomon express
ed IL, 1.-THE grinders ceased, because
they were few"
Then today make n big inventory OF
the blessings OF the modern public
school system OF America. In oldeu
, times 1t was the exception for the son
or daughter OF q home TO have what
is called liberal education. Yale and
Harvard and Princeton, then digniiied
by the names OF college, were in fact
nothing more or less than modern high
schools. These institutions and colleges
like them were very few and far be.
, tween. Only here and there we find
that young man was able to 20 &c
one OF them. The great masses of PEG
pie hundred years ago were entirely
uneducated. II you do not agree with
this conclusion. go and study the old
documents kept among the Revolution
airy records OF Boston. You can sec
them any time YOU go to Massachu.
sets. 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 hundred or even fifty
years ago the man who had n liberal
education was the exception, the man
or the generation which Is to come
after us who Is an uneducated man
VIII be the exception. So perfect has
our public school system become, SO
muititudinous are the American col
leges OF today. 50 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
10 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
VIII! Oh. carping pesslmist, 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 blessing in the fact that
Shakespeare and Burns and Scott and
Irving and Motley and Prescott and
Gladstone and Webster and Edison and
Millet 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 q mere afrecta-
ton. Education Is the wings OF in
SEPARATION which lift man up so that
his horizon takes in all lands. all seas,
all worlds and all ages.
Is not the opportunity OF developing