Fort Mill times. [volume] (Fort Mill, S.C.) 1892-current, 1921-01-20

the matter Of road building were
true. On this side of York county
there Is no talk of new county; but
II the matter should again bob up 1t
doubtless win find both friends and
opponents. The Enquirer DISCUSSING
further the Chester election. says
that another possible alternative Is
the removal OF the court house to
Rock Hill. which can be done by q
-wo-thirds vote That also may be
in the minds OF certain York county
citizens. but It is likewise propo-
5sition oyer the advisbility OF which
public opinion would be divided"
| One does not have to agree entire
| ly with the observations of Walt
/ Whitman, the Kansas prose poet. to
| admit that he has written an inter-
| esting article on "Overeducation" of
! the youth of the land and that what
| he says Is worthy of serious consid-
Grafton. Mr.. Mason misses one es-
sential point, however, in his criti-
cism in failing to call attention
to the contents of many of the text
books in use in the public schools.
IT may or may not be true, as has
frequently been asserted, that by
the adoption of thrifty methods the
school book trust Is able to influ-
cnce State boards of education to
adopt almost any sort of text book
for use in the public schools, but
however that may, be. 1t is fact
that some Of the text books the chill
dren are given to study are not
worth the paper they are printed
upon and that others are adopted
without thought Of the ability of the
children in the lower grades to mas
ter subjects beyond them. There
are a thousand common humdrum
jobs waiting to be done, Mr.. Mason
tells US. but those who might do
them successfully are busy making a
stab at something more g1ittering,
but less important, which he attrib-
utes to overeducation. ''As, you
KNOW he says there are many
things wrong with this star-spangled
land. And some of the grief we see
has become a mania with us, this
thing of catching the children when
they are young and sending them to
school until they have whiskers down
TO their surcingles. The schools are
great mills and everything is grist
that comes to them. The kids are
led into the hopper and in due
course they come out at the other
end all packed with knowledge, and
90 per cent of the knowledge will
never be of any use to them. There
is the same mill for all the young
sters: the imaginative boy with the
soul of n poet; the hard-headed
youth whose ancestors were auction
GERS; the dreamy youth whose heroes
| are Mozart and Beethoven; the over
muscled chap with a retreating fore
head whom nature intended for
butcher. They all go through ex-
| actly the same process: they are all
fed into exactly the same hopper.
We are willing to forgive many
crimes and misdemeanors: but the
parent who doesn't want his children
to be educated all their lives must
face a heavy reckoning. We have
our truant officers. with their tin
stars and false whiskers. and II
boy runs away from school the off,
| GERS let loose their bloodhounds and
the chase is on" II does not appear
| that Mr.. Mason objects to education
| in SO far as 1t trains the young idea
| to do something worth while in the
what he calls "a great mass of alb
] struse bunk" He says that the
schools are taking the sunshine out
1 of tens of thousands of young lives
teaching things that are of no earth
ly use," and neglecting things that
would fit these pupils to do the real
work Of life. my education, so far
as schools are concerned, was a
| closed incident before was IA years
old. and I went forth into the world
In humble frame of mind. For
| years I was doing useful work be-
casue l didn't know enough to do
those superfluous kinds of work
/ which pay better but yield nothing
helpful. Had 1 gone to school until
was 20, I might have emerged
from the temple-of learning with n
great deal of useless information
touching Greek gods and tabled
springs and rivers; and l might have
elegantly twanged a harp; and 1
might have been able to translate
some Latin epigrams without violent
effort. But I can't picture myself as
being of any real use, loaded down
with an education. I know myself
| pretty we'll, and with such an edu-