The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1904-06-28
EDUcATE1NG THAT BOY OF YOURS.
His Education Must Cost Him Something in Effort and
"a Self-Denial If It 10 to be of Value to Him.
Editors Progressive Farmer:

A%RSA
Editors Progressive Farmer:
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 a miserable plight,
when they find themselves at the bottom of our
civilization. It is true that those who receive
the highest education will be at the top of the
ladder. Many of our successful and wealthy citi-
zens are making terrible plumbers in the education
of their children. The law of nature is action and
reaction. As communities change from tenn
perance to license, and from license back to tenn
perance, so extremes in other matters change back
and forth. The wealthy citizen of to-day laid his
treasures by toll and self-denial. It was a hard
life, but the grinding developed him into a 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 I'M
provements are found and every facility for learn
ing is pretended. The old adage, there is no royal
road to learning, is forgotten. Each boy is allow
ed to select his own course of study, and without
experience he selects the one that requires 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 fam
lilies do not generally take the front in the busy
world. It 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 sue
cess. Thus the man of toll succeeds, and raises
children of ease and extravaganza who are fail
ures.
NO ROYAL ROAD TO LEARNING.
Our successful men as q rule come those
families where the children secure an education
under difficulties. The boy that overcomes OBJ
stacles and FORCES his way by personal effort is an
overmatch for the soft fellow 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 were only for better teachers and
for better and more nutritious food, no objection
could be raised. But the demands is for more
luxury, more ease, more latitude, and less work.
IF a boy has some poorly developed faculty, and
consequently has difficulty in learning certain
branches, the trouble must be met not by grinding
but by Sinking, and the difficult studies must
be discontinued. The school, that says no, general
ly loses the boy. AS the twig is bent, so grows the
tree. Every careful planter prunes and corrects
a one-sided tree. But when it comes to his boy,
the indulgent parent lets his boy follow his bent
and leave off what he has difficulty with, and does
not see that his child is growing up lop-sided in
his mental development. Our schools must yield
and supply what is demanded. Examine the cata-
logues of our most largely patronized i~nstitu-
tions, and you will find the few taking the cur
riculum which made scholars in the past, and the
many taking the new courses and the so-called
special course, provided for the fellows who want
only to go to college and nothing more. They
remind me of the farm negro who said that he had
been to college-he BACKED shoes there. Yes, to-
day, multitudes are going to college, but not many