The news scimitar. (Memphis, Tenn.) 1907-1926, 1919-04-04
TEACHERS RESPONSIBILITY

1t is not amiss to say to the teachers from West Tennessee,
assembled in convention, that their responsibility in the future
will be far in excess Of any obligations they have assumed in
the past.
Education is to the stable governments of the world what
religion is to the spiritual world.
Without the ministry and without the religions spirituality
would anguish, and the spark of immortality would remain
~unkindled, Without education the world would lapse into a
l~seething mass Of c~ontending elements, with prejudice and malice
the stronger forces, and reason entirely dethroned.
The European countries are facing a war with Boshevsm.
PERHAPS il will not be \ war Of swords and guns. but if IS a
battle that will determine whether they shall have a rule Of
governments and responsible heads, or a rule Of mobs and ire
sponsible individuals, who gain favor by appeals to prejudice ard
passion.
This country is menaced by no such peril but it can be kent
away from our shores only by enlightenment, and future gener-
atoms can be saved from it only by the work in the schoolroom,
where the youth learns to reverence his country and its institu-
Euons.
Patriotism has never been a part Of Our school curriculum,
Our teachers have neglected to stress the superiority of this
country over any other; they have not faced the necessity Of
making distinctions between governments and between the df-
fefent elements of peoples that must be taken into consideration
in the future.
For the past fifty years the youth of this nation has con-
fined his study of history to the Civil war. The youth of the
North read Of unbroken Union victories, Southern atrocities and
the inexcusable and indefensibe conduct of the South.
In the South the student read histories that almost made
him want to fight the war over again, Histories, like some
other commodities have been written with the view to quick
sales, without regard to merit,
Perhaps we shall not reconcile our views with the neighbor
to the north as to the causes of the war, for Lincoln's views
were not materially different from those of the radical South
erner.
But that war is in the distant past, and there is no man
but feels that the end was fortunate, and wonders how anyone
Acould have ventured a prediction of any other result,
Few years of a persons life are spent i'll the schoolroom,
but those are the plastic years; the years when opinions become
NJ sxed and lasting impressions are made. The little minds are
oded and the lives are shaped for the future, and the pupil
&started in the right direction.
Henceforth the teachers should make the best of their oppor-
tunnies. Events are transporting every day that will test the
mettle Of the coming generation, even if they are resisted by
older persons,
The pupil should be trained to believe that he lives in the
greatest age in the world in the greatest country in the world,
and under the best government in the world.
Bolshevism is but an expression OF distrust. There is moth
ing stable in suspicion, There is nothing substantial in the lack
Of faith. Bolshevism and anarchy are poisons that fanatics
endeavor to inoculate the country with, and from which they
hope to see a revolution produced.
The responsibility of the teacher is to see that the mind of
the pupil is clear of all infection; that there are no germs of
evil, and that the character is strengthened to resist the poison
virus that seeks a foothold in our land.
1t is no small task that the teacher has but its nobility Of
purpose renders the performance imperative. The Biblical
Injunction to bring up a child in the way he shall go, and when
he is old he will not depart from it" is an awe inspiring thought.
No teacher can ponder over the suggestion and fail to realize
the tremendous possibilities that are in his or her keeping, or
fail to pledge anew the best that is in them.