The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1905-08-13
BY r. l.. GRAY.

BY r.. l.. GRAY.
The establishment next month of
the new High School to be operated as
a part of the public school system
of Raleigh, marks the close of more
than a century of famous academies
for boys and young men in this city.
Fifty there will be at the head Of the
new school, one of the most famous
of the masters of these old time schools
which provided through private enter
prise the instruction which the slower
process of educational development
has now assured to every youth in the
city
This man is Professor Hugh Nor
son. wro for twenty-eight years has
taught in Raleigh and whose gradu-
ates have done him honor in scores
of colleges and in many of the towns
and cities of this and other States.
With the closing of the Raleigh Male
Academy on the second of last June.
the academy as a private institution
passed from Raleigh. the day to which
it had been tending for more than
hundred years having at last arrived.
Between the first development of
the teachings of the rudimentS and
the more fnished-not to say techni-
cal-instruction of the college or uni
yersity the academy occupies a mid
die ground that is as delicately plV-
ota to results as is Adde'S
cence to life itself. The edu-
cational future and, therefore,
largely the usefulness of the man de-
ponds as much on his academy life
as does the future of the man depend
upon the leanings of the years imme-
diately overlapping boy-hood. 1t is
the critical time, the necessary pause
for adjustment the spur to ambluOn
or the drag of Indifference. Thus the
first essential of a man who would con-
duct an academy is that he be a man.
Learning is a secondary incident.
Ability, even, to instruct is not con-
elusive. Nor does it suffice that the
teacher be a man against whom there
can be no moral reprOach. Such are
frequently as milk and water: equally
inefficient with their inSipidity. The
academy boy is strangely affected by
the man who rules over him in the
days when he must be spurred to
work. He judges with shrewdness
which cannot be avoided, tests him
with a hundred sudden crises. weighs
his conduct unconSciOuSly and comes
to Judgment as hard as stone. And,
having judged, the boy gives execution
against himself, for of such
is the, habit of youth. If the
master is a thing of learning, if he is
soft" if he is, more than all. un-
just, the boy faggelates himself in
contempt of a weak authority. The
academy is place where boys learn
strength or weakness according to the
personality of the teacher. They ac-
quire character for college. the desire
to learn. or the cynicism which comes
out only with effort dispropOrtionate
to the ease of infection.
These things are common known
ledge to the academy boy after his
school days are over. 1t is then. OF
course. that the real learning starts
and that character shapes itself from
the lump. What has gone before.
at the common school, at the acade-
my and the college is vastly more I'M
portant in what these years have forced
into life by way of personal con-
tact than in that which has been ac-
quired in the way of knowledge
which must come to fruit at the first
hand of experience and never can be
acquired from a book So that, in the
more impersonal relation of college
where instruction is, as it were, spread
on a free table for consumption, it is
the academy with its intimate touch.
it's young admirations or its youthful
contempt, that counts. The profess
sor of chair has largely done his
duty when he guides investigation in
to the mysteries of his specially; the
important role. The one shapes the
lump; the other gives it its consist
ency.
A Stern, High-Minded Breed.
This article shall have to deal.
necessarily with scant detail, OF the
growth of the academy for boys in
Raleigh. from the beginning of the
nineteenth century till the close OF
the system with the honorable demise
of the Raleigh Male Academy las;
June. In that time not more than
dozen men have kept straight the his
torical line. Among them are figures |
srander in their productive influence |
On life than the most successful of |
statesmen = braVe-hearted, simple |
men. looking high to the future and |
plainly at the present, doing their duty |
rs they saw it. sometimes stern to d
FAULT sometimes of quick temper.
sometimes intolerant but always with
the dignity of strength and earnest eff
ort about their every deed and their |
very word! A great handful whose
works endure. who beat on posterity |
with masterful fists who left their |
mark in the world. These were old
fashioned school teachers. A bit prim-
tive, perhaps but thorough. That was
their hallmark, their thoroughness
They knew boys-knew them under
The dirt, under the skin, to the roofs
Of their hair. And they made then
men. They were hated, sometimes
cared sometimes, respected always ir
the hearts of the rabble of hot blood |
which boiled the more violently TO, |
the battle. For it was a fight from |
he beginning this foregathering OF |
he old-time school-master and his |
normal charges. There was never d 4