The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1909-08-24

church, the house and the very body
and feature of man.
'I do not wish to look with sour
aspect at the industrious manufac-
turing village or the mart of COM
merce. ! love the music Of the water
wheel; / value h railway: | feel the
pride which the sight Of a ship in
spires; l loOk on trade and every me-
chanical craft as education also. But
therein. . Il would not have the
laborer sacrificed to the splendid re-
suit would not nave the laborer
sacrificed to my convenience and
let me discriminate what is precious
pride, nor to that of a great class Of
such as me. Let there be worse cot
ton and better men"
The Sun can never be otherwise
than intensely interested in the growth
and development of our public school
system. In touch with it for more
than thirty years. the writer has given
his best thought to a study Of its
needs-the manifestations of it's weak
ness and of it's strength. It. is the
very sout of all our hopes-for intel
%lectual, moral and spiritual improve
ment. The scholar. said q great
writer, must be the bringer of hope.
and must reinforce man against him
self. In him new set of distinc-
tons, a new order of ideas, prevail.
He sets a bound to the responsibility
of wealth. Into the charmed circle
Of learning, power cannot enter; and
in it's presence the bigot must cease
to be a bigot.'
This is the day of the practical.
EtMen that do things, is the cry of the
hour. In the light of the marvellous
material progress which has come
upon us so suddenly. it could scarcely
be otherwise than hat our eyes are
not only dazzled, but we ourselves
stand dazed. We need all that we
have and more in a practical direction;
but it were a calamity if we are de-
ceived thereby. Into life, practical
life, there must be and forever re-
main an exalted place for sentiment.
1t must be heard in every whistle OF
a steam engine, the hum of every whir-
ring wheel and seen in the coruSca-
tons of every electrical discovery. In
the mere mechanical, we must never
lose thought of the individual. "A
man is a fruit which it cost ali the
ages to. form and ripen. He
is strong, not to do, but to live; not
in his aims, but in his heart; not as
an agent, but as. a fact
Therefore, the Sun believes that the
greatest weakness in our public school
system today is the lack of sentiment
in the heart of our teachers; a WOful
want of acquaintance with the liter
ature of the great standard writer's
the medium through which sentiment
and soul have manifested themselves
to humanity in all the ages and eras
Of the worlds great movement
Try his matter, you county super
intendents. Our teachers can all
teach arithmetic-they can all analyZe
the forms of English speech. They
carry with them into the school room
every day dead records from the
worlds charne1-house labeled history.
OF these they have knowledge; and in
dead cold fact they line out and live
out these things to their children.
But try their taste-ask them to read
you a poem, an essay, or to discuss
with you the beauties of some stand
ard author. Of this few have heard,
and fewer really felt. Yet there sit
the children, oh my brothers,, my sis
tiers. Their imaginations all aglow;
their little hearts full Of expectancy;
their little souls longing for tender,
story-told interpretations of JOY and
hope and love. Shall they ask for
bread, these hungry ones, and you
give them only a stone?
Yesterday the writer found, by
chance in his library a little pamphlet
from which the extract at the head
of this article is taken. To the first
teacher who sends to the u the
name Of it's author, the Sun shall go
for twelve months. The cost of the
pamphlet was three cents. This is
given only as an illustration of
opportunities in this age are open to
the student teacher, and at what in
significant cost. All nature cries to
us in 4 thousand voices; yet we are
trying to have her studied and loved
through dead cold forms of mean
inglesS expression.
T-aN' after year we are doing more
and more to substitute the idea for
the ldeal-tO invest in patent modes
Of culture-in short term courses Of
scholastic preparatiOn-tO mould in