Oxford eagle. (Oxford, Lafayette Co., Miss.) 1876-current, 1921-10-27
THE HOME, THE SCHOOLS, AND
CHURCH AS AGENCIES OF
EDUCATION.
fBy P. L. Rainwater; Supt. Oxford
City Schools.)
Continued from page five
of living.

of living.
Carlysle, in his savage way, once
declared that there are-I forget how
aany-millions of people in England
tsmostly FOOLS" This was, of course
the verdict of one rather soured on the
world, but there is an appalling NUM-
Der of fools in the world,-not fools
i'm the ordinary meaning of that un
pleasant word; but fools in that they
never count for anything in the pro-
gress of humanity, never are OF any
real use to themselves or to anyone
else, never make any contribution te
society in return for the splendid patri-
monv won for them by inconceivable
struggle. These persons are not natur-
ally fools; neither are they fools from
choice; they are simply called fools
because they are inefficient. For its
own sake as we'll as for theirs, the
world should take these persons out OF
the fool class and put them into the
effective class by deliberately and
wisely educating them. The pressing
business ahead of us is to change all
this. should accept it as challenge
to strength and not as an occasion for
despair.
As we stand in the presence of so
gigantic a task, we may at times half
believe the jibes of the spoilsmen who
picture us as a mixture of Don Quix-
ote fitting at windmills and Mrs. Par
tington with her protesting mop. But
the final question with us as with ev-
cry other man or organization that
fights the devil, is not: Is the work
worth doing? but how shall it be most
effectively done?
In truth, the remedy is simple and
close at hand. Let the churches, for
get dogma, creed, sectarianism, and
get back the teachings of Jesus
Christ in his sermon on the Mount.
Let fear of God and service to man be
the theme of every pulpit; not nice
ties of theology; not pickering of de-
tails of polity; not endless splits twixt
Tweedledee and Tweedleedum, as tho
Christ did not condemn that very thing
Let the program of the church through
it organizations provide activity in the
church that will appeal to young peo-
pie. And this is not an impossible
program especially if preparation is
made for it in the homes by proper
teaching. When so per cent of the
people in Mississippi are outside the
christian church it is time for all
christians to make searching exami-
nation of their faith to see that if af-
ter all they are not, by holding on to
their little bigotries, preserving the
plummage and neglecting the dying
bird.
Many times the school itself looses
sight of the real ethical principles of
education. The remedy is not to make
the schools church schools, it is not to
read more chapters in the Bible, it is
not to teach formal ethics and to re-
peat maxims, tho it is idle to consider
education a part from morals. An inn
moral education is, in the very nature
of the thing immoral, and however
highly finished cannot be good. But
it is equally idle to believe that NOR
atty in education is secured by the
formal teaching of ethical and relig-
ious truths. These truths must indeed
De the basis and the backbone Of all
teaching; but they must reach the
child through the hidden way of SYM
pathetic understanding, for by that
path alone can they ACTUALLY enter
his life and form his character. The
remedv then is to educate the teachers
in such manner and to such de-
gree that they shall understand what
real education is; it is to remove the
schools from the smell of the bargain
counter which cheapens the teachers,
substitutes shoddy for genuine mind
stuff, depriving the children and de-
frauding the community economically,
and morally to an extent unknown; 1T
is to give each teacher so small num-
Der of children that she can establish
between herself and each of them
a path of understanding and OF sym
psthy, and can send all her instruc-
ton straight along that path OF the
inner chamber where character is
building; it is for the teacher to de-
velop in the child the feeling that ne
lis not in this world as a guest, as q
drone, nor as seeker of his own sell
fish ends; but that he is here to work
out dominant purpose as an integral
part in the great engine of civiliza-