The commercial. (Union City, Tenn.) 190?-193?, 1915-03-19
UNION CITY BUSINESS MEMS
FIFTH ANNUAL CLUB BANQUET
Two Hundred Of Our Good Citizens Gather Around the
Festal Board to Hear Leading Men Of the State
Discuss Subjects Of Timely Interest

man and woman at the banquet. Mr.
Jones had been instructed to Withhold
nothing, but drive to the point and
clinch the facts as they exist in Obion
County, which he did without the re-
metest possibility of doubt, but in an
eloquent and pleasing way, and in part
be spoke as follows:
Mr.. Jones said that he was pleased to
see us, that he had arrived day ahead
of time in order to make no mistake
The high school is vital problem and
he was glad to see us interested The
greatest problem of life is the growing
of better men and women. There is
nothing in the world more valuable
than man. He is the chief product.
What is your land good for only to grow
stuff to feed men? So the biggest
thing in Obion County is not your land,
not your wealth, but your children.
The biggest thing in the making of
men and women is your school.
1t was my good fortune" said Mr..
Jones, TO attend the first school taught
in my county. 1t was in a cabin and
an old Confederate soldier was the
teacher, and if he was as good in charg-
ing the Yankees at the front as he was
the urchins at the rear he must have
beer a gallant soldier" However this
may be, he was a very poor teacher,
and just as this school was conducted,
for forty years the public schools of
Tennessee have been run more on the
basis of sentiment than on efficiency
and business standards. There is no
danger of being too poor to educate
your children. The wealth producing
capacity of any people is in proportion
to their intelligence.
What has made New England great
country? The Puritan came to this
country with his gun in one hand and
his Bible in the other. He built school
and church houses and for many years
spent ten times as much as Tennessee
for education and furnished ten times as
much to the volume of business of the
country as did our people. Can you
buy as much education with half the
money? Can we afford to remain in
different while other sections of the
country are advancing in education?
Can we practically assume an inde-
pendent attitude at all while other por-
tions of the country are making edu-
cational progress. The country is grid
ironed with railroads and belted with
commerce. We are living in cosmo-
politan age. Every portion of the world
is a unit, an integral part of the whole,
interlinked and inseparable. You and
/ must live in the world and not in
Obion County. In the morning papers
we read of what is occurring in every
quarter of the earth, and we are con-
tributing our part to the events of the
age. Can we afford to deny our chill
dren the advantages of preparation to
take their places in the march of civil
ization. We must be prepared to meet
worldwide education.
Then it does make difference to'us
whether or not we shall be up with 9th
ers in education. Our business inter-
ests and our civic affairs must also be
kept in advance of the times.
- am told that you have three hun
dred school directors in Obion County,
the only county in the State with the
old director system, and probably the
only one in the United States having
that many directors. How is it pos
sible for any county to manage its pub
lie schools with that many directors!
The old county court system with two
and three magistrates from each civil
district is bad enough, but that your
schools should be managed by three
hundred men is out of the question. 1t
is impracticable. The old district di-
rector system will have to be abandoned.
Some of the schools here average three
a year, some four months and
some six months. How would you
formulate course of study for these
schools? How could you grade them?
Every child should have an equal
Of schooldays. Every taxpayer
should derive an equal return from his
school tax. Your school system will
have to be managed by business board |