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THE YOUNG SOUTHERNER
All communications and contributions intended
for this department should be addressed to Mrs.
Louise T. Hodges, 83 East Avenue, Atlanta, Ga.
HE interest manifested in small towns
and villages and many rural communi
ties, in establishing public libraries for
the use of both young and old, is a
healthful sign of the times. The begin
ning in most instances is necessarily
small, only a few volumes; but interest
is awakened, and when that is done,
larger developments are sure to follow.
I have received an interesting letter telling of the
establishing of a circulating library at Madras. The
Library Association was organized in 1901, with a
constitution and by-laws for its government, and
the library was opened with only about forty vol
umes, but has steadily grown and the appreciation
of it by the people of the community has increased
until now it is recognized as one of the vital forces
for moral and intellectual advancement.
I quote the closing paragraphs of the letter. 11 As
the library has grown new interest has been mani
fested in it. The people of the community are be
ginning to look upon it as one of the vital factors
for the moral and intellectual advancement n f her
citizens. Healthy stories of ‘The Young Maroon
ers” type are eagerly read by the boys and girls,
while ‘Sesame and Lilies’ and ‘Emerson’s Essays’
are at the disposal of more advanced readers.
“May your paper be a means of hastening the
coming of the golden age.”
John W. Goes A-Fishing.
Editor Young Southerner:
Bob White wants the rest of us boys to help him
“beat” the girls. I don’t have any hope of beat
ing the girls, but I will write a few lines just to
let Bob and the others know that T have enjoyed
reading their letters, and I hope they will write
again.
One of the girls wrote something about the “Song
of the Chattahoochee” which the poet Lanier
wrote. T hunted up the poem and read it, and I
think it is very good.
Some Saturday before long I expect to go fish
ing in the Chattahoochee, and if I catch any fish,
T think that will be more interesting to me than
the poetry. I wonder if any of the other boys who
read the Golden Age ever go fishing. If they do,
T would like to know how they fish and where they
find the best ones. I think a trotline is a pretty
good way; but it takes a lot of trouble and time
to fix it.
With best wishes for all the boys and girls and
the Golden Age, I am, Your true friend,
John W.
The great merchant and successful Sunday-school
teacher, John Wanamaker, is credited with saying
that his biography is comprised in the four words:
“Thinking, trying, toiling and trusting.”
Such factors could hardly fail to bring success
in any line of endeavor, and yet, at first glance, it
would seem that if they comprise the whole of
one’s biography, the life is incomplete. The first
impression is of a life of continuous drudgery—
and all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy—
but a little closer inspection opens the way for
recreation, fun, rest and all the other ingredients
as well as work, that go to make the perfectly sym
metrical life; for the right kind of play, as well
as the right kind of work, requires thinking, try
ing and trusting.
“Think, try, toil, trust.” Isn’t that a pretty
ftnod motto for any boy or jirt to staH In Ufa whh'f
again.
Conducted by Louise Threete Hodges.
Fairy Flight.
Under the oaks in the moonless night,
I saw the fairies that took their flight,
With stars to guide them and shadows to hide
them,
And lilies for lantern light.
Like a flight of leaves that the wild wind reaves
From fading boughs in Autumn eves,
They fluttered and scattered, they whispered and
muttered
“Away! holla-ho! away!”
And now in my dreams I see them go
I hear them rustle, now loud, now low,
With shrill triangle, and cymbals that jangle,
Like a flight of bees through the darkling trees,
That chase and follow a wandering breeze,
They scatter and mingle, their bridle-bells jingle
“Away! holla-ho! away!”
Some day I know I shall hear them call
By leaping river or ivied wall,
M ith mystic rhyming, like silvery chiming
Afar in an elfin hall;
Like a flight of doves thro’ the leafy groves
I will roam afar with my airy loves,
Y ith bugles a-ringing and wee voices singing
“Away! halla-ho! away!”
—Pall Mall Gazette.
73
March 22, 1906.
Dear Editor Young Southerner:
The letters in the Young Southerner have been
very interesting to me, and I wish to join the band
of correspondents. I enjoyed “Bob White’s” let
ter most of all, but I think he was mistaken in
his idea that girls think they “know a lot more
than boys.”
That was a good motto that Mr. Upshaw gave
the children of the Vienna schools, and it was nice
of them to remember it and write to him about it
afterwards.
I think it would be a good plan for all of us
girls and boys to select a motto as a daily re
minder of what we ought to do. Let’s all select
one and write to the Young Southerner about it.
MABEL MAY SPRINGTON.
Select a Motto.
“To be honest, to be kind, to be brave, to be
cheerful; to do always the best I can, to make al
ways the best of things, to be glad over the work
of those who surpass me, and to help the next fel
low along,” this is the “working creed” of a
cheery Chicago toiler who finds friends plentiful
and life well worth living.
“To do the best we can and rejoice with those
who can do better,” is the admirable motto of a
New York Boys’ Club.
“Do your stunt and do not grunt,” is the man
ner in which a successful business man in Chicago
and New York expresses his own helpful watch
word.
“Paradise is the believing in it,” is another good
motto, pleasantly suggestive of the ends and aims
of faith.
“To-day,” inscribed upon a large piece of chal
cedony, was the motto of Ruskin, always in plain
sight on his study table.
“Deeds, not words” is the motto of General Neal
Dow, who also insists, “Always try to be on the
side of right, always against the wrong.”
THE AMERICAN BOY.
Mr. Andrew Carnegie has taken a cottage at Hot
Springs, Ya., where he will remain for two months
with his little daughter, Marjorie, in the hcipe of
teitering her MaltW
The Golden Age for March 29, 1906.
With Correspondents.
I am sure that all the young readers of the
Golden Age will enjoy the letters of Mabel/May
and John W. this week.
Mabel’s suggestion about selecting a motto is
a good one. and I hope the boys and girls -will act
upon it. Select a good motto and the effort to live
up to it, even if you do not fully succeed, will do
much to strengthen your character, and make your
life what it ought to be.
I hope John W. will enjoy his outing on - the
banks of the Chattahoochee, and bring home a good
string of fish. I trust that while trying to pull the
fish out, John will not himself tumble in. But I
suppose he can swim.
I hope John will write again and tell us if he
caught any fish, and if he saw anything else of in
terest in the river or on its banks.
A Little Health Sermon.
Just a word about breathing. The nose is not
so much for use in talking as in breathing. An
athlete is taught to breathe through his nostrils.
An Indian does not have to be taught so to breathe;
he does it naturally, because when a mere infant
his mother compelled him to do so, if he was in
clined to do otherwise. If an Indian mother finds
her baby breathing with its mouth open, she puts
a strap of rawhide around his jaws. She thinks that
if the baby cannot breathe through its nose it had
better die, because it will never be healthy and
strong.
Another thing to learn is, that one should breathe
deep. Do not breathe from the chest, but from the
lower ribs. It is said that the whisper of Sarah
Bernhardt, the great actress, has wonderful carry
ing quality. It is not that her vocal chords are so
strong, and her enunciation so clear, but that behind
her breathing is a powerful bellows; so that when
she whispers, the words come with force that car
ries them.
The Indian teaches us a lesson, too, in deep
breathing. Indians have been known to cover
eighty to a hundred miles on foot in a day, and
as much as two hundred miles on horseback. Their
strength and endurance largely comes from their
open-air life, their sturdy habits, their deep breath
ing. If you want to live a hundred years, you can
not expect to do it if you breathe only from the
little space under the upper ribs.
One thing, too, about your clothing. If you find
that your coat or your vest is tight when buttoned,
have the buttons moved over so that there will be
sufficient room for deep breathing. Women and
girls have much said to them along this line, but
men and boys need it as well. Unbutton your
vest and coat and see how far apart the buttons
are from the buttonholes when you breathe natu
rally. You may know then that if you must draw
them together in order to button them, you are not
giving enough room to your stomach and lungs.
Perhaps your mother and father do not appre
ciate'what this all means to you. Nevertheless take
my word for it; no better advice from the health
standpoint can be given you.
Appetite of Spiders.
The spider has a ravenous appetite, and his gor
mandizing defies all human competition. A scien
tist who carefully noted a spider’s consumption of
food in twenty-four hours concluded that if the
spider were built proportionately to the human
scale, he would eat at daybreak (approximately) a
small alligator, by 7 a. m., a lamb; by 9 a. m., a
young camelopard; by 1 p. m., a sheep, and would
finish up with a lark pie in which there were one
hundred and twenty birds—surely n gnod day’s
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