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Netos of Interest Gathered Here and There
The Cost of a Feeble-Minded Child.
It is a great burden and source of danger every
where. In the homes of the poor (and most of
them are in the working men’s homes) they require
so much of their vitality and time that often the
whole family is pauperized.
In other homes they ruin the happiness of the
children and often run them away and to ruin. Also
the training to work of these defectives is neglected
because the tired parents can’t take time for it, and
they become worthless for life. Often the family
hides such a child as if he were a disgrace.
If they go to school they are the butt of ridicule
of pupils, and sometimes of teachers. Their dull
ness holds back the brighter pupils until they are
sent home and their chance of development is gone.
The state ought to have a large farm school where
trained teachers and manual instructors could de
velop them.
“The adult males,” says Dr. Fernaid, of the Mas
sachusetts School for the Feeble Minded, “become
the loafers, the irresponsible pests, petty thieves, de
stroyers of property and incendiaries.”
Society pays for the lifetime support and destruc
tion of life and property caused by neglecting these.
How much wiser for Georgia to start a central farm
school for these and the epileptics where trained in
structors and physicians can develop them into self
support. —Wesleyan Christian Advocate.
'Bucket Shop Gambling.
The Watchman has been asked to use its influence
in favor of the passage of the anti-bucket shop bill
now before the Massachusetts legislature. We do so
with pleasure. All bucket shop business is gamb
ling, and should be prohibited on the same grounds
as other gambling. And we hope the legislature will
be consistent and also prohibit all buying and sell
ing of stocks on margins. This is the essential ele
ment in the gambling of bucket shops, and we can
not see how it changes its character when done by
regular brokers. Buying stocks and paying for them
in full is trading. Buying stocks, or anything else,
and depositing only a part of the value, which is
lost or increased as the market goes up or down, is
gambling, whether it be done in a bucket shop or
a banking office. Bucket shops afford opportunities
to small gamblers. But if gambling is to be pro
hibited in bucket shops it ought also to be prohib
ited on stock, cotton and produce exchanges, for ex
actly the same reasons. —The Watchman.
* *
The Proper Kind of 'Religious Paper.
The Standard, published in Chicago, seems not
to be exempt from the experience common to
all publications. Its readers have been writing its
editors, making suggestions as to its policy, etc.,
and hence the following editorial in the last num
ber :
“Occasionally we receive communications from
kind friends with suggestions with reference to the
type of religious paper the denomination is believed
to require. These critics, whose motives are most
friendly, claim that The Standard is of too high an
order to meet the general demand, its leading ar
ticles, in their themes and literary style, being too
far beyond the thinking range of the average reader
to meet with popular response. It is asserted that
the rank and file of the denomination want a paper
of the gossipy sor-t, which is brought down to the
level of the ordinary reader. If this be true, even
to a limited degree, it furnishes one of the best
and most insistent reasons why The Standard
should remain what it is. If there is one thing of
which Baptists might well be thoroughly ashamed
it is an admission of inability to comprehend the
reading furnished by The Standard. The editors
and publishers of The Standard believe the denomi
nation should have a paper worthy the high name
and place which Baptists hold under God. They
refuse to lower its ideal to any superficial or com
mon standard in order to comply with a so-called
need. The Standard seeks to elevate and broaden
as well as give spiritual tone to the thinking of
The <old»» Age for April 25, 1557.
the average reader. Its mission it believes to be
that of a leader of thought in all the great questions
affecting the denomination, and not a mere purveyor
of trivial news, nor a collector of fugitive religious
scraps. It hopes to see the people come up higher,
not to let The Standard go down. There never was
greater need than now for a paper of elevating and
stimulating character. It is time really that Bap
tists everywhere realized this fact and took advan
tage of it.”
n n
The Univ ritten Lalv.
There is no place in well-regulated society for' the
unwritten law by which the individual usurps the
power of capital punishment. There is too much
contempt for the written law in this country. Jus
tice too frequently miscarries. The best preventive
of crime is the certainty of punishment. Courts of
justice have too frequently been remiss or craven.
Criminal lawyers have too frequently made them
selves accessories after the fact. That is why out
raged communities so frequently appeal cases to
Judge Lynch.
The mistrial in the Thaw case is a surprise. He
had unlimited command of money. He had the aid
of the ablest counsel obtainable, but seven of the
jury declared for conviction, and it is a warning
to all sorts of men threatened with brainstorm.
Three of our presidents were assassinated, and in
each instance the murderer was probably insane,
but the gallows is a very good place for such crim
inals, insane though they may be.
Under the law the private citizen’s life ought to
be as sacred as the Chief Magistrate’s, and in the
ory it is as wicked murder to assassinate one man
as another. That is the way they order it in the
Old World, and it must come to that here.
* H
Henry Ward Beecher's Reasons.
When stopping at a hotel in the White Mountains,
Henry Ward Beecher was asked to explain to the
guests his position on the use of intoxicating liquors
by Christians. He replied in these words: “It is
just like this: Suppose there is a precipice out
by the schoolhouse, where many children are assem
bled. Suppose that half way down the precipice
there is a spring that I especially enjoy, and,
strong man that I am, I can go down there safely,
by a narrow path, dangerous to many, but not to
me. Suppose that the children are determined to
go down there after me, and will not believe that
the path is dangerous since they see me tread it
with impunity. Some of them that try it fall and
break their necks, and others are lamed for life.
Now, what sort of man, much more, what sort of
Christian, should I be, if under these circumstances
I persist in going down that dangerous path? Nay,
verily, if I have one particle of magnanimity of
soul, if I have been at all taught of Christ, I shall
put a good strong fence across that path, and never
tread it any more. That is my position on the
total abstinence question.”—Exchange.
* H
Teaching Morality in the Schools.
Mr. F. Correl, in the Monthly Review (London),
in a recent article on the above subject, makes a
strong argument in favor of there being more at
tention given in the schools to the teaching of mor
ality. The following paragraphs contain the es
sense of his views:
“It must at length be recognized that since in
the child mind is contained the potential of the hu
man intellect, it is imperative that that mind should
be trained in the principles of conduct which expe
rience has shown to be the most favorable to the
welfare of society. The danger of organizing early
education in such away that its sole aim is seen to
be success in the strife for sustenance is, that it
conveys the impression that this is the only object
worthy of achievement, and the impression grows
that conduct in the struggle is only to be regulated
by the restraints imposed by law. It is true that the
prohibitions of the laws, and the punishments
awaiting those who offend against them, might be
taught as a means of enforcing restraint through
fear. But fear should have no place in moral edu
cation, and the law should only be explained as a
regrettable necessity which better and more ra
tional conduct might tend to remove.
“For the above reasons there is an urgent need
of an increase of moral teaching in education. If
conduct, right according to the average of the best
ethical opinion and adapted to contemporary life,
be taught, supported by practical demonstrations of
the social necessity for such conduct, does it not
follow that we shall obtain from such teaching the
most fruitful of all sources of social benefit? To
doubt it is to doubt the results, inadequate but
certain, already achievd by parental and religious
moral instruction, by the educative influence of
social opinion, and by the moral training of higher
education. Crime and immorality are largely due to
ignorance of moral and social principles, and if
these principles were scientifically and extensively
instilled, the effect would be to increase the value
and the happiness of the nation’s life.
“It has been objected that to hope for such a
result as this from moral teaching is to hope for
an impossibility, and the senseless adjective utopian
is frequently employed in this connection by those
who, while admitting that it would be desirable to
obtain a better social state, yet persist in thinking
that human nature contains an element of corrupti
bility, which no education can remove. This atti
tude of mind has always acted as a cog upon the
wheel of progress, perhaps as a not altogether use
less brake, preventing a too precipitate advance,
but its dictates are eventually annulled. Where there
is an admitted possibility of reform, human effort
must at length prevail to compass it. To oppose a
new idea of acknowledged or apparent social worth,
beyond the limits of a prudential circumspection,
is to retard the progress of society.”
Adbertising for Churches.
Leading divines of St. Louis and Denver are re
ported as favoring the adoption of modern methods
of advertising for the furtherance of church work.
Not long since a similar proposal was made by cer
tain Roman-Catholic clergymen in England, though
it has not transpired that the proposal was carried
out in action. The Rev. C. M. Chilton, an evan
gelist, declared to a St. Louis audience that
“churches must advertise.” “There is no other
way,” he insisted, “in a big city, when competition
is as keen as it is in other walks of life.” Almost
coincident with this utterance was one made by
the Rev. Frank N. Brown, preaching in a church in
Denver: “All modern Sunday schools should have
their advertising men and bureaus of publicity,” he
said, “just as the modern mercantile establishments
have those adjuncts.” The St. Louis Republic
reports the opinion of the Rev. Dr. W. W. Boyd,
formerly pastor of the Second Baptist church of St.
Louis, as follows:
“I believe in advertising. Most ministers, I think,
believe likewise, even if they don’t know it. With
me it is simply a question of methods. Sensation
alism, of course, should be shunned
“I should welcome a church from the present
practice of making a brief announcement of ser
vices to a policy of advertising with display and
prominence. I should be glad to see the churches
use more space in the newspapers, and better taste.
Let them employ black type and typographical em
bellishment in prnting the message they have for
the public. That plan would be in keeping with the
age.”—The Literary Digest.
I? *
A member of a wholesale liquor firm in Maysville
was arguing the other day with a customer to show
him the great advantage of the liquor traffic. The
man talking for whiskey had a beautiful stud in his
shirt bosom. The customer wore patched pantaloons.
“Your father,” said the man with the patches,
“sold liquor, and my father drank it. You now
wear diamonds and I wear patches.” No further
argument was necessary.—Kentucky Issue.
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