The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1913-12-22

pears in the article, which is headed.
Professor ]. E. Allen, OF Pensacola,
teacher for fifty years. who scraped his
-hirsute adornment once before to cell
citrate new railroad line. makes vow
to do the same trick again. and then
the following appears:
BY JOSEPH p. WATKINS.
Pensacola. Fla, Dec. 20.-Prof. l. e.
Allen, an octogenarian, a school teach
er in Escamlb1a county for fifty years,
and one Of the most unique and best
known characters in the south, who
shaved for the first time in his life
when the Gulf, Florida and Alabama
railroad ran its first train into this
city about year ago, has now declar-
ed that he will stop shaving until the
first train on either the Memphis and
Pensacola or the Pensacola, New Or
leans and Mobile road enters the city.
Professor Allen has devoted his best
years OF his life to the development
Of the minds of the young in this
sparsely settled section of the state,
where the rural population takes very
little interest in educational matters.
He has been an educator for sixty
years, during q full half century, OF
which he has been identified with the
schools of this county. He has now
been engaged for another term at a
salary of thirty dollars a month. He
will have three pupils.
Having never known the touch OF a
razor for more than sixty years Pro-
fessor Allen was rather proud OF his
appearance during the twelve months
he was clean shaven. But so certain
Is he that this section is about to come
into its own that he is willing to take
a chance. He says that it can only be
for little while at best, and that he
still expects to go to his grave with a
clean face as well as a clean mind.
But he will not shave again until he
hears the whistle of the first train over
one or the other OF the two proposed
roads.
Professor Allen Is not at all in sym.
pathy with what he styles the defects
OF our present school system He
does not believe in teaching q child
to read before he. knows his letters,
and allowing him to go through life
with hardly any knowledge of spelling
ut all.
1T is a notorious and most depIora-
BILE fact" says Professor Allen. that
many OF our wdeest and best educated
citizens-even our doctors and lawyers
have Ho practical knowledge Of the
sounds OF the letters OF the English
alphabet, denoted by diacritical nnarxa.
It is said that q wink is as good as q
nod to a blind horse, and diacriticAls
are useless to those who know moth
ing about them And now, to cap the
climax, people are trying to do away
with the plOK11C HeLnOQs 4I1Q EG4Cn1nK
children to read without any knowl-
edge Of the names and sound OF the
letters
"a certain grammar teaches us that
q letter is the first principle or the
least part OF q word. We have in our
language forty three elementary
sounds, and only twenty-six LISTERS to
represent those sounds. For instance,
"a has seven sounds, as in fate, fat,
bar, fall what mass, last has
five, as In me, met, her. prey. there
''T'' has four, az heard in pine, pin,
bird, marine. And so on with the other
vowels. Grammar has been nassa-
cred to such an extent that am sorry
to say we now have no grammar OF the
English language. Twenty years hence
q scholar who knows grammar win be
q sight for sore eyes
Il think it is high time to call a
halt. and TO demand less and better
teaching. A we'll educated. life teach
rural disAMActs, where children are