The Birmingham age-herald., 1905-04-23

his little body to numbness? Should his first sense of touch be the pains which come to the little figure through the high seats without any backs? Would you have his ideal of the beautiful to be just what you've given him? It certainly can- not be a roseate rainbow which he paints for the future with such colors as you have placed on his palette.
 Would you have his only idea Of sweet sounds measured by the same expressions as you have forced him to hear, and will his heart throbs answer to the pains of others according as ye have meted 1t out to him? All these things has he borne and suffered for the ennobling cause of education. The boy is a man, can we expected him now to put away childish ideas?
 Instructions Father to the Man.
 The instruction is father to the man. When such pictures present themselves should we not shudder at our responsi- bility2 And we are not weaving in the dark. All of the lights are turned on to awaken us to the obligations we are due our children They are arising to de- mand their brthright. Let us turn our surplus into school houses, our increase to the enlightenment of our children. then will our barns be bursting and our gran aries full. You naturally ask the ques- tion, How to achieve such results? The state only provides a teacher for five months in the year, with little thought of how and where she shall do her work. The teachers inspiration must come from the home. The confederacy of the school room and the home is the unit Of civilization, the responsive sympathy be- tween the teacher and parent Is the base of the unit, and If we would build so our unit shall reach into eternity we must do it not through lands and goods, not through capital and labor, but through human relationship.
 We cannot supply our wants until we know our needs Our first purpose is to awaken a desire for education in Ala bama, public enthusiasm We want to so stlgmatze illiteracy that he who goes without an education Is the same as he who goes without raiment If we should ever advocate Lynch Law, let it be done only by making illteracy a crime To accomplish this contagion of enthusiasm we must he enthusiastic. A means to this end Is the organization Of school improvement associations in eY- cry district in the state. After we are organized we can begin work. Our first thought and ultimate end Is the build ing of a school house for our children. but we should not begin to build without all the requisites of environment. We want our school home for service and for beauty Usually we build our school houses as we build our calabooses-re- mote from all beauty of landscape, and the young student as the young prisoner, looks out upon gray world, peopled with a gray people, and gray dawn In his young life. We want to select for the school houses the most prominent and the most beautiful site in the community.
 Away from the dust and smoke, but prominent to the eyes of every stranger who enters the village If the ground IS already planted with trees we are for tunate-spare them. Let this be an early lesson to your boys in landscape gar dening-protect the trees; they are God 8 handwriting and must not be erased. If you have selected spot without trees, plant them at once. Let every home be responsible for the planting of one tree at least And in your selection Of trees | neglect not the crabapple and dogwood. | Their beauty is uneXcelled and their val lie inestimable. wish 1 could see a | grove of dogwood about every school house in Alabama. Then would we emu | late the festival spirit of our Japanese | friends, and rather than celebrate the l cherry festival our American children would yearly celebrate the dogwood fes- | tival. loving it's star-eyed beauty as il | chides the tardiness of the spring. Not ] only should we honor 1t for its early
 greeting and beautiful flowers, but foi . it's commercial valule. We are using It's firm wood for shutters in our factories
 as well as for keyboards on cur pianos | Our trees planted, we waat to arrange
 for a park in front of the building, talk ing care always that We have secured sufficient acreage for our scho)l home, The children's Park.
 | We want this park to be .hs resort ol ! the community. It's comfortable seats