Webster City freeman. [volume] (Webster City, Hamilton County, Iowa) 1884-1946, 1916-01-25
THOSE OLD 1EXA.N|I-
4. NATION PAPERS
Marshalltown Paper Makes Sport 0v-
er Showing Made by Pupils
of Long Ago.


of utterly 5indefensible undertaking
the Webster City Freeman-Tribune
some time ago offered the extreme
and horrible example. 1t was like
this: Some one mousing through the
ancient school house of that burg on
the Boone river, ran across a bunch
}of school examination papers thirty
Todd years old. Filled with the un-
holy joy of. the antiquarian, who lives
to revive things that nature and ma
lures God buried long ago from
Pompeii to Webster City, he bore his
prize to the newspaper. 1t publish
led the list. The revelation was
shocking. Men and women who had
been depriving their children of pict-
ure shows and even applying the rule
of Solomon to their upbringing when
their examination percentages fell
below 80 and who glared with stony
eyed horror at "C'' on report cards
stood in naked shame before the COM
munity and the school children with
marks of 40, so and the like disgrace
full percentages. They wouldn't have
got "F"' under present conditions.
land the spelling would stop a clock.
Awful spelling. Their arithmetic
Twas scream, their history fiction
that would rouse the envy Of "Old
Slouth" and Ned Bunt1ine.' One
lone person had attained $50" and
The, it is so stated, has been swelled
up like poisoned pup or a dead
horse ever since posing among his
lerstwhile schoolmates as second
Thomas Darlington Macaulay, who it
will be recalled could read Greek at
S years old And SO neighborhood
was brought to open shame and fam
lily ascendency destroyed and the dis
grace of fathers made clear before
the eyes of their children.
1t was undertaking, no less. There
are things that having been buried
beneath the debris of time should not
be disturbed. And the examination
papers Of our school days belong with
these over which the veil Of Oblivion
should hang undisturbed and through
which none should eut peepholes for
the populace. ltZ 4
4 - - va no M ic fn
recall the glories of the past and keep
its antitheses out of sight in the
morgue. Of course Aunt Mary and
Uncle John will oft times fall into
scandalous Renaissance especially
when Uncle John has been beaten for
school director or Aunt Mary has
been snubbed when Mrs. Montmoren-
ci, she that was old Whiskey PeI-
'kins' daughter, holds hurrah with
an imported singer and three kinds
of cake and piebald ice cream. But
that's enough. That's as far as it
should go. Simply as a matter OF
self protection If nothing else. Take
it from William Shakespeare that the
evil that men do lives after them and
take it from observation that the rea-
son of its longevity lies in the scam
dial mongering ancient inhabitant'
who doesn't stop with examination
papers but refers to court records
and justices dockets and generally
tries to keep crooked history straight.
OF course Webster City and the
school children had lot OF fun over
the old examination papers. So would
any town and the outraged feelings
of father who spelled dog "doge' In
those old days doesn't call for gem
uine sympathy, but suppose that the
fellows actually started in to hew to
the line and let the chips fall where
they may, suppose that in the Tween
ty-tive and Forty Years Ago" in
stead of reprinting embarrassing
birth dates the newspapers running
such interesting features were to
print it all? Huh? Would there, be
wailing and gnashing of teeth and
increased assault and battery?
There is the old incident related in
the files of Mrs. Hyfigher's father
who was in Jail three months await
ing a trial for forgery and the arrest
of the leading temperance worker for
intoxication, and the divorce case
that attracted universal attention
and, o, we'll, almost anything you
care to think of from murder to va
grancy that happened-and took place
when the previous generation was
taking school exams and getting its.
start in the variety of directions,
wherein the channels of human
strength and weakness run. What in
terest such reproductions would
arouse and what unqualified hades
they would raise.
Old man Longfellow was a well OF
wisdom and he took out of the coolest
corner of the well that line which ad-|
yises us to let the dead past bury its
L. H.. =