The Ocala banner. (Ocala, Marion County, Fla.) 1883-194?, 1911-05-26

ANU, IHu00u, the WnOle human race
has been quickened into life and en-.
ergy through the education of the
common people.
| There has ever been an immense
amount of inventive genius inherent
in the human intellect; education de-
veloped it. In the olden time, before
the opening of the public school, the
rich man was content to enjoy his
riches. The. fine arts and literature
satisfied his ideas of luxury-what
more could he want?
But literature and fine arts, while
| they appealed to the common people
, in measure, did not satisfy No;
the poor man was worker: indolent
ease was foreign to his nature he
wanted to see the wheels go round
to hear the hum of industry. He be-
gan to study industrial problems, and
as he studied, things began to shape
themselves in his fertile mind.
The problem of transportation was
one of the first, as we'll as one of the
greatest, to press for solution. That
he solved it is abundantly evidenced
in the rapidly moving vehicles, pro-
PEELED by steam, speeding over our
steel-banded highways, bearing the
comfort-giving products of his indus
try to the remotest corners of this
broad land of ours.
In the olden time, before the era of
the public school, it required from
six weeks to two months to cross the
Atlantic ocean in the old-fashioned
sailing vessel.
Today, great palaces of steel con-
struction, propelled by steam and
carrying people enough to populate
good sizen town, accomplish the dis
lance in about five days Oh, yes, the
poor man, with the help of the rich
mans money, has solved the problem
OF transportation, and community
of interest has been established be-
tween the rich man and the poor
man.
Another problem that appealed to
the working man was that of labor
saving machinery, whereby the pro-
ducts of his industry might be multi
piled with minimum of labor. The
of ;c 80
be specified, but the working man is
solving it. Already we have machin-
cry so perfect in it's working that it
performs its functions with greater
uniformity and precision that would
be possible by hand labor, and the
end is not yet
AS for me, l would not presume to
place a limit to mans accomplish
ment along the line of material prog
ress, for, great as it has already been,
I feel that its scope is boundless.
Electricity is wonderful force in
nature, and man is doing much to
utilize it, and to make it serve his
purposes, but, who shall say that
there are not other forces in nature,
still undiscovered, more wonderful
even than electricity? l believe that
such hidden forces exist, and that
man will in time discover them and
make them serve his need.
Now, one of the dominant ideas of
this article is that the man of the
nineteenth century has no more nat
ural ability than had the man of the
centuries that preceded it. He was
simply fortunate in having the Cpl
pOrtunity presented by education to
develop his inherent power, and tol
the public school he owes that oppor-
tunity.
Man has always Deen aDIe to min
lister to the wants of his fellow man
When education was confined to the
rich man and his progeny, literature
and fine arts, music and painting. con-
stituted the sum of his requirements, |
and they were fully satisfied. For in
stance, VIM. Shakespeare, in litera-
ture, is acknowledged by the scholars
of all nations to be the premier writ
er of the English language. He wrote
long before the utilization of cleo
tricity or steam.
Mozart, Beethoven, Handel, and al
score of other musicians composed
their classic odes long before steam
or electricity was made the servant
of man, and they have not been sur
passed in their art by the modernl
school of musical composition.
The same is true of the great mas
ters of painting and sculpture. Ra-
phael, Michael Angelo, Murilo, Cor
regio, Guido and a host of others have
long since passed away, and the pig
ment upon their pallets has been dry
for centuries, and still their works