The commercial. (Union City, Tenn.) 190?-193?, 1909-01-29
EDUCATION AND THE PEOPLE.
THE SCHOOL IN THE HOME.


schooling is important. The chief of
these is the simple fact that this is the
startingpoint of life. The proverbial
hearthstone philosophy needs no en-
comium 1t stands to fact and reason
that the first impressions are more last
ing and most beneficial. But some
lines on the matter-of-faet methods of
training children in the home will not,
we feel, be altogether out of place, be-
fore taking up the vital issue Of the
training school,
In the first place every child should
be reared with an eye to the future.
Every now and then we hear the cantist
say, Do not try to decide the child's
profession tor him; let him wait until
he gets older and decide that for him.
SELF But are we to believe from this
that there is no future CLEAN, no vision
of success, ahead, that demands some
effort in the present? Are we to think
that because we cannot place our boy,
now five years old, in the Senate in
1912, we should not seek to start him
in a path that leads to eminence? Shall
we take to the open track of poverty,
and teach our children the greedy love
Of gold, and neglect the 'weightier
matters of the law?" Shall we neglect
character building?
To every structure, if it be magnifi-
cent and lasting, there needs must be
foundation. Now the home teaching
may be a rock, the structure upon
which, built in after years, will never
wash by rains nor rock by winds; or it
may be sand, that when the floods
come, will surely wash away AS sure
as we live, foundations have to be laid
with reference to the superstructure of
any edifice. You cannot put a palace
on waste Of mud or mighty dome
upon place Of sand And so you can
not expect two-by -four fellow, grown,
say, to sixteen, to hold much place in
the school room or in the after world.
Just as surely as a fiye-horse-power en-
CINE cannot pull mighty locomotive,
so surely can a boy poorly trained in
the home, surrounded the first ten years
of his life by corrupt and evil influence
inspired by no impetus for the future,
and with no effort for the present, new
er hope to rise to distinction in the
class room. Do we live to put our chill
dren on delivery wagons, and hope to
die seeing them but guide the senseless
beast, ever to dumb forgetfulness
prAy?" Would we have Cromwells and
Wellingtons and Clays? Then we needs
must have the first step taken rightly
History teaches us that the influence
of the home does not stop with youth
or even manhood. It lasts, and lasting
sheds a benediction. Busy, energetic,
busting America is paying too little at
tention- to home training. The rush
and hurry of our busy age has lessened
ideal government, in the haste for ma
terial gain. The great Scotch plow-
man, Sapt in passion for his country's
good, portrays in "Cotter's Saturday
Night the secret of all his country's
greatness. The toil-worn craftsman, on
Saturday night, gets out the book OF in
struction, and round the ingle forms
circle wide" of all his children. They
read; they sing. Those boys are not
loafing on the streets in dead of night
But for them hope springs exultant ON
triumphant wing" They have some
chance for the future. And then the
poet says, From scenes like this old
Scotia grandeur springs, that makes
her loved at home, reyered abroad =
And so it is. The making of eiti-