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A General Educational Awakening.—" Making Two Blades of Grass Grow Where One Grew Before?
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VOL TWO
NUN VER SEVEN.
WHAT WE THINK OF WHAT WE SEE
A fond parent has been telling recently a bright
remark made to his teacher by the Young Hopeful
of the family. The teacher said to him: “Tommy,
this whipping hurts me worse than it does you.”
“Don’t stop, then,” said Tommy.
•e *
Some considerable effort has been m n de by prom
inent thinkers and educators to determine the exact
origin of the expression “23.” A Cornell profes
sor has traced it to its lair. He has discovered that
Caesar was stabbed 23 times, and from this fact
asserts that the word comes from that great
tragedv.
n h
We cannot conscientiously believe, when we are
in a normal condition, that the soul can be weighed,
as some scientists are now asserting. There is one
consolation granted us, however, and that is that
ours can’t be weighed and the neighbors told about
its exact size, until we have stopped using it. <So
we will go on believing it to be eighteen carat fine
and above the average in weight.
* »?
King Edward has a collection of 170 walking
sticks. They are each and all curious or distinctive in
some respect, and when he travels he takes some
fifty or more with him in his golf-bags. England
is a good neighborhood and King Edward is all
right, but he doesn’t get as much fun or cut as
much ice with his whole number of 170 sticks as
Mr. Roosevelt gets out of his one big one.
I? *
We have not studied astrology, but we have
often wondered just .vhat horoscope causes a per
son to think he can say funny things. It is a de
lusion that fastens itself upon one at an early age,
and simply cannot be shaken off. It causes one to
be misunderstood; it arouses pity sometimes; oft
ener, censure. Perhaps the most misunderstood
man in this beautiful world is the one who tries to
write funny and sparkling paragraphs. That, dear
friends, is what we have labored to do on this page.
And we have been misunderstood. People have
written us harshly; they have said unfeeling things
about our little gems. We do not make this as a
plaint; mayhap we deserve what we have received;
but we cannot forbear a few reflections anent the
injustice of certain dispensations. Let a man con
ceive a poor sermon and print it; let him set out to
prove something about the purpose of Nature in
making a caterpillar first and leaving to him the
responsibility of turning himself into a butterfly,
instead of making the butterfly originally; let him
discourse ever so dully upon any subject of a se
rious nature; and people will conscientiously read
it all, and then, if they can’t praise, they will say,
with kind inflection —“he means well.” It does
not occur to them to reflect that good intentions
have never been used except for paving—-and that
in a most disreputable locality. Why can we not be
toleratedf Why is every man’s hand against us?
ATLANTA, GA., APRIL 4, 1907.
A. E. RAMS A UR. Managing Editor.
But listen: Not long ago we received a letter
which in substance said this: “Dear Sir—l have
been reading your front page. You certainly seem
to have your facts mixed; and again sometimes.l
can’t understand what you mean, at all. I enclose
a stamp. Please write me just what you mean —
if anything—by a paragraph of two weeks ago,
about . If you are off, mentally, please
don’t trouble to write; because we can understand
the reason for this stuff, if you are defective in
the belfry.” We wrote him a long and courteous
letter, explaining that we meant the paragraph re
ferred to as a joke; that it was considered funny
by us at the time of writing; and we further men
tioned in self defense that as there were only seven
original jokes in the world, we could not be ex
pected, prhaps, to be always funny to all people.
We had a prompt reply. It was brief: “Sir —
How is it that you have never happened upon any
one of the original seven?”
The celebration of Easter dates back to very
ancient times, and was, naturally, a pagan festival
when it -was first observed, because pagans were
all there were in those days to celebrate anything;
unless we are misinformed. It was probably noth
ing more in its origin than a spontaneous celebra
tion of the return of Spring and the arrival of
warmth and life upon the living and growing things
of the earth. At that early day there were poets,
but they didn’t spell well. One of them said in
speaking of the Season:
f
“And smale fowles maken melodie
That slepen al the night with open eye.”
So we may get from this thought, aside from the
religious associations which have grown up around
the observation of Easter, a beautiful impulse of
warmth and light and thankfulness for our bless
ings and our joys. We may well be glad that the
earth and the birds and the woodlands evidence an
awakening of life and vigor, and may ourselves
have a Thanksgiving Day in the beginning of our
year.
•5 *
We are going to open a correspondence depart
ment with our readers on this page. There are
often things we wish to know, and have nobody at
hand to enlighten us —and again it may be that we
possess inside information on certain facts that we
could give in return. This purpose has come to us
through the fact that we were reminded recently
that we didn’t know the why and wherefore of
“All Fools’ Day.” No work of reference to
which we have access properly satisfies our desire
for information. We are in a sense satisfied with
our knowledge of the madness of a March hare;
we can comprehend the reasons for certain licenses
people claim for themselves in the way of horse
play and working tricks on people at certain sea-
sons; but why a day should be set apart for fools
and why they should be permitted to work all kinds
of pranks and put unsuspecting friends to much
trouble and anxiety, we are at a loss to understand.
Granting that a practical joke contains real humor
and that it is harmless, then it is its own justifica
tion ; but what is the real pith and point in cotton
battercakes? Why is there anything sweetly funny
when one kicks an old hat off the pavement and
finds a nice, re-pressed building brick within it? Is
it the joyful surprise that makes the latter expe
rience noteworthy? And why should the bystand
ers expect the victim of such a thing as this to
look as though he had just been advised of a legacy
left him by dear old, wealthy Uncle Ben? There
are two sure ways to fame. The greatest, broadest,
most royal way will be trodden by the man who
can invent a collar-button that won’t roll under the
dresser; the other is awaiting the footsteps of the
man who can coin a word that will relieve one’s
feelings when one kicks the brick as mentioned
hereinbefore.
There has been much discussion in the Georgia
papers recently as to who really threatened to swal
low Alex. 11. Stephens—in reply to which Mr.
Stephens genially remarked . that the swallower
would in such an event have a much greater quan
tity of brains in the alimentary regions than he
had in the proper brain receptacle. Some people
have accredited this retort courteous to Sir Walter
Scott; some have said that no such passage of
words was ever participated in by Stephens; but
the fact remains that there was no actual swallow
ing done, and Mr. Stephens retained and used his
brains to the honor of Georgia, through a compara
tively long life —considering his physical frailty,
which caused a contemporary to say of him that his
“soul was in a state of indecent exposure.” But
this is not what concerns us most. It is a question
asked by a distinguished minister in a public let
ter relative to the origin of the swallowing episode.
He declared that it never happened at all —and
concludes by asking if “anybody knew that George
Washington cut the cherry tree.” Now this is
iconoclasm with a vengeance. It is carrying things
too far. Os course George cut the tree and
of course he positively and definitely refused to
tell an untruth. It is as true as Santa Claus and
St. Patrick. It was common talk among the neigh
bors at the time, so we are informed by one Rev.
Mr. Weems who wrote a Life of George Washing
ton, Esq. Mr. Weems was right on the scene and
details the conversation which occurred between
George and his father at the time the tree was
freshly cut. He even quotes certain predictions
made by an aged woman living in the settlement,
who declared that George would one day be “First
in War, First in Peace, and First in the Hearts of
his Countrymen.” And sure enough he was. Do
we know he cut the tree? We do.
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