The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1922-01-03

an honored name, by the scholars it
gave to the land.
"Tempora mutantur ct nos in Hills
mutamur,'' but unless the citizenship
of Pensacola has changed greatly since
the days when lived here and enjoyed
it's kindness and hospitality, however
proud as you may be of the splendid
building that you are dedicating today
to the cause of education, you viii take
greater pride in making a name for
Pensacola by the lads you send to COL
lege. and the riches that you add to
the commonwealth by the scholars
that this institution will turn out.
Heated discussions are more fire.
quently engendered from a different
understanding of the subject discussed
than from a difference of opinion
about the essential matter involved
due largely to the paucity of language
particularly the English language
to express shades of meaning. This Is
peculiarly true Of education, it's aims
and purposes. There be those who be-
lieve that an education is something
that can be gotten from a school or
college as one gets a suit of clothes
from his tailor, and that a diploma is
a certificate of education. There be
those who know that schools and col
leges can only prepare the ground and
teach how to produce the crops, and
that the educated man or woman is the
one who continues in the pursuit Of
knowledge after his college career is
ended.
Another difference of opinion exists
%r ey, 4
teach, and the character of education
upon which they open their portals.
In the olden days of the private school
teacher, it was considered by some
that all that was necessary to be
taught was the Three RS" readin',
'ritin'. and rithmetic, and 1 sometimes
wonder if they were so very far wrong
At any rate, they did not produce fad
dists, visionary theorists and. parlor
boIshevists Behind the homely doc
trine of the Three RS" lay the phi
losophy of those who regarded schools
as places from which to start on the
road to education, and not shops from
which education could be bought and
carried away. There Is no limit to the
development of the mind Illuminated
by the divine afflatus, whose possessor
has learned to read, for books lie on
every side from which higher educa-
ton may be acquired.
I might pursue this subject further
and show that even grammar and rhet-
oric if not included in the Three RS"
could be acquired from reading good
literature. but I abstain lest I may be
misunderstood as advocating a return
to the primitive course of the Three
RS"
Nor would have you think that any
community or any people as a whole
was satisfied with this rudimentary
system. On the contrary, at the same
time and in the same communities
where schools existed that laid claim
to teaching little more than the +Three
RS, were found educators the equals
Of Dornste at Drumtochty.
Part Of my early instruction was OBJ
tained in Accomac county, Virginia
The school house was a one-story, one
room building about 80x25 feet. It
had been the Office Of my great uncle
who owned the plantation His daugh-
ter who still owns the pHo-e ty was
then living in Rome ard raa rIanta-
ton was under lease to ..aatIenan
who had four sons and two daughters
He engaged a young man. fresh from
college, as their tutor and gave the
privilege to a few OF the netghborhood
boys and girls Of studying under him.
There were Is or 16 of US, and except
Mr. BIackstone's children. we lived
from three TO four miles away, and in
good weather we walked TO school The
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