The Hattiesburg news. (Hattiesburg, Miss.) 1908-1917, 1909-06-24


aroused by Miss Powell, president Of
the State Improvement Association
in the improvement of the schools,
grounds, etc. Prof. w. l. Thames has
Offered prize of s25 to the rural
school of the Sixth Congressional Dis
trict- showing the most material ill-
provement during the next year.
Then there will be prizes for which
any school in Perry county may COM
pete. A committee of two Perry coun-
ty teachers, Misses Irene Carter rep
resenting the rural schools, and Eliza
Watkins, the city schools will visit
the business men and ask their as
sistance in the work of improving the
school equipment, grounds and build
ings in the way of money or prizes.
This little item of interest is given
Just to show how the local teachers
of the county have taken up the work.
Miss Carter taught the Batson
school last winter and Miss Watkins
is in the city school faculty.
Messrs. H. A. Camp, Mortimer Blk
Ter, secretary of the Commercial
Club; B. A. Johnson, Of Chicago, ed,
itor of the Southern Lumberman; J. n.
Wilder, of Epps; president of the
Yellow Pine Lumberman's Associa-
ton, were visitors at chapel exercises
on Tuesday morning.
Parent Teachers Association Visitors.
Mrs. R. B. Stapleton, state organ
izer for Mississippi of the Mothers
Congress, with a delegation of ladies
from the local Parent Teachers AS
ISOLATION. one of the congress branch
es, was present at the chapel exer-
cises on Tuesday morning. Mrs. STA
pleton read a very clever paper on
1.-THE Home and the High School.
Mesdames l. P. Trotter, Richardson,
Robt. Thompson Sampson and Abner
Polk with Mrs. Stapleton's guest, Miss
Keithley, composed the party.
I. !: =
Esthetic Basis of Education.
Supt. Lawton B. Evans, of Atlanta,
Ga, began his talk on the "Esthetic
Basis of Education" in the summer
school auditorium with a large audi
ence.
The first part of the talk was
a plea for the high school student. He
said the high school period is the most
important in the boy or girls life,
when they need more attention and
watchful care. Instead of this the
parent thinks the boy or girl is grown
when the child enters high school,
when really, that is the FINE. habits
are acquired for life and so it is a
critical tine.
There is = struggle for the seventh
and eighth grades and for college, but
high schools are really more import
ant He reminded the teachers thai
they are entitled to great and strene
ana vigorous power-they make men,
Teachers have projected themselyeS
through pupils into history.
Capacity-the ability to holds not
the best kind of equipment. Boys are
not casks. 1t is better, Mr. Evans
claimed, to emerge from college with
limited capacity and established habits
and faculty for making use of what
has been learned, or teaching 1t to
others. Mr.. Evans expressed pleasure
that the women's clubs are taking up
the study of high schools. A point
stressed also was that the great value
of an individual is what he will do in
a crisis, then continued. One can be
so profound in books as to be help
less even Buster Brown" says.
"Some boats can be loaded so heavy
that they sink" and there are men
who are so loaded with books that
they are helpless. If knowledge stay
in the head 1t does no good. The pur
pose of educs tion--of going to school
is not to learn, solely, but to learn GER
tain powers Of giving to Others. A
mans education Is stored away in g
warehouse as it were. Il he is not
useful in the world He referred to
the French "pate-de-foie-Gras, and
spoke severely OF ''cramming' in
schools. Crammed full Of lnowleds'
is indigestible. Beefsteak Is m
good, but when it becomes meat, It is
good. In the same way knowledge
pure and simple, is indigestible, but