The Hays free press. [volume] (Hays, Kan.) 1908-1924, 1922-03-02
PREACHING BY THE KID
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Children and youth are appealing;
we find a never failing interest in
them; if they show unusual prococity
our first, often our enduring, impulse
is to exaggerate the talent htey have
and proclaim them-if it is our kid
one of the seven wonders Of the
world
It is worth while to remember at
this point, that the miraculous kid
seldom amounts to much in after
life; in some mysterious way the
flame is snuffed out and we hear no
more about it.
Just now Oklahoma occupies the
front page. Jake Hamon has passed; /;
Clara Smith Hamon has been acquit-
ted; the sheriff has been Ousted; the
Prosecutor has resigned; the Judge
accused of malfeasance in Office, has
resigned; the smoke of the last gun
battle with five dead on the field has
f1oated away, and the Kid, who felt
the divine applatus working in her
innards has passed all tests" except
the seventh grade; who delivered
tentative sermons at the age of
eleven; who is now mounting in ora
torical splendor as a full-fedge6
preacher of the gospel at the age of
thirteen and is now supplying the
Oklahomans with ecstatic exclama-
tion points. Her dad is not a mem
Der of the church, don't go to church,
and looks out of the corner of his eye
with something like a grin at the fuss
they are making about his kid ex-
horting the baldheads to repentance! {!
The violent and unthinking man
might feel tempted to spank the Kid
and send it back to finish the seventh
grade; but what is in demand in
Oklahoma is the gospel fresh and un-
defiled from the piping voice of
childhood; why bother with the
seventh grade when wisdom has cen
tered herself on Woodrow Wilson's
lucky number, thirteen; throw the
spelling book to the dogs, and point
sinners to the straight Sand narrow
way by the kindergarten. Pother on
the schools! why not go the other
way around and begin with knee
skirts and pinafores?
Brother Klippenstein, the pastor,
seems highly pleased at his discov-
cry; but Klippy, we surmise, is chief
ly interested in No One. If he can Sc
duce the Kid to act as his substitute,
he can loaf on his job-shrewd Kip
py! rather tough to find old age in
Oklahoma resorting to the cradle for
instruction; the secret is disclosed in
emotional religion, which is the dope
habit of inflated theological currency
the passing breeze of a slop-over-
a kind of a Jim Reed of Missouri
adolescent uproar. 1t is true and
sorry tbs It's true, that emotional re-
ligion is at the bottom of foisting the
Kid into the pulpit; but that shortcut
accords with our superficial Amer
lean method of education, not to say
that brilliant scholars issue from our
schools, high and dow; but these
minds would rise triumphant under
the most adverse conditions.
Ripened scholarship requires time
and assiduous labor; moreover, reli-
gion that Will wear is the product of
reflection, conviction, and the sober
second thought.
1t is a notorious fact, recognized
and admitted by scholars of the first
rank, that all through our school sys-
tenn, in its widest application, made
quate, surface teaching and slur-
ring over of the contents of the text
books, prevails.
The chief business of students now
is fun, athletics, pleasure, and the
storage of stomachs-a continuous
performance-by what they call a
banquet. The young people of this
prosperous country have entered up
on an orgy of fast living. 1t stings
any reasonable man to admit that
fact and write it down.
believe that the standard of
morals in Kansas is fully equal to,
that of any state in the Union; ours,
to be fair, is mild fever of dissipa-
ton; but off-hand, would you not say
that the great state of Pennsylvania
has a standing inferior to none? At
Lafayette College, Easton, Pa, the
students are IN revolt because the
Faculty has placed a ban on fratern-
ity house parties; the faculty has
found it difficult to obtain the
proper cooperation of the students
in the maintenance of decorum."