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

States blue, while the LoVejoy cadets
wore the West Point gray. Some time
before the war the late brave and ef-
ficient General d. H. Hill opened al
Charlotte a military school of excel
lent quality. If | remember correctly
Chief Justice Walter Clark attended
it, But North Carolina was not lack
ing in fine schools for girls as well as
boys oxford had a superior female
acad ny as far back as 1880. Later
it had the Baptist Female Seminary,
first under the charge of the late Rev.
DR.. Waite, former president of Wake
Forest College, and later unuer the
successful management of the late
John H. Mills, a man of learning and
marked ability. There were superior
schools also at Greensboro, Hillsboro,
Warrenton, Louisburg, Raleigh, Muir
freesboro and other towns for the
girls. They called North Carolina
"Old Rip Van Wrinkle" but while
sleeping she somehow got ahead of
other States, and after she got fully
awake she furnished as many troops
as Virginia, Georgia and Tennessee
combined, and is abreast with all now
in commercial, agricultural and manu-
featuring activity.
Whatever may have been the def
ciencies of the past in modes and
theories in teaching, all is not sunshine
and glory now. Those who watch
passing events, keep pace with the
hurrahing and blowing of the present
see what Northern publications and
teachers say of conditions and failures
in the prevailing system of inStruc-
ton, etc, need not to be ashamed of
the old-time teaching, and the pupils
who went out and won places of i'm
portance and trust. Look at the
South'S splendid war record, and be-
hold the men who gave it such sue
cesses for a season, and left such an
impress upon the world. While mod
ern systems spurn the Greek and pre-
fer other things of less Importance,
there are those who still cling to the
ancient languages, and would make
Greek still foremost in the curriculum
of great colleges and universities. A
distinguished teacher, Prof. Rouse
Head Master of Perse Grammar;
School, at Cambridge, England, in n
recent paper in the famous 'Cornhili
(English) Magazine" wrote this, and
recommend il to certain teachers who
are sick of Greek, and would drink at
another and more modern fountain:
"Civilization of mind exists only by
virtue of what the Greeks have given
us, and we can drink it in only at
the fountainhead. For a thousand
years Greece was forgotten. We call
those the Dark Ages. What a time of
horror it was-ignorance, vice, cruelty.
religious persecution. Then Greece
again showed her light; the dawn
came, the New Birth of Europe" This
wise, gifted teacher has much to say
| quote again: I'VE are living now
most of us, on what we have got at
secondhand, filtered water, because
the pipes are foul. A few can still
drink at the fountain head, and if the
number is not largely increased we
may get trade or we may not, but our
money will do us no good. We shall
be a nation of animals, our ideal Of
happiness a glorified Bank Holiday
our life a triumphous procession
from one public house to another.
What nonsense it is talk of the
beautiful, the ideal! You may go a
long way without seeing the beautiful.
and as for the ideal, you won't find
that this side of Heaven" ] have not
said much of the old-time teaching,
but / have called up the memories of
those who taught. In fact, l could
not present a lively, amusing picture
Of an old-time school if l essayed the
task. OF course many funny things
happ\ed in q score or SO of years Of
schooling. but they would only show
the fun if given, and offer really no
proper view of the past. Today hui
man nature is the same, and boy
nature is unchanged. Several years
since | read q small volume, quite en-
tertaining, on Greek life in the past,
and / found that boy-lfe in the days
IF Pericles and Aspasia and later.
was very much like the boy-life / saw
in my own bucolic days, and as it ex-
SITS now in 1905 | am sure that in
any decade or century the North Caro-
lima boy is able to hold his own with
he contemporary boys of any coun-
try or section. When Pettigrew, the
golden, was at a famous German Uni
versity. about 1849, and had been
there but a few months, he was so
wonderful that he waws named among
$500 students as the most distinguish
ed of all. by two English students in
conversation with the late Judge
Victor Clay Barringer. He gave it to
ne soon after his return from Europe
that year or the next
THEODORE BRYANT KINGSBURY.
Wilmington, N. G..
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