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Educational Netos and Progress
Locust Grote Institute.
Locust Grove Institute was founded thirteen
years ago by Rev. B. J. W. Graham, and with only
thirteen pupils in attendance on the opening day.
The most successful year in its history has just
come to a ch se. Two splendid new dormitories
have been erected during the year, and the an
nual register shows an increase of nearly 20 per
cent in the enrollment.
Splendid interest has been manifested in all
departments of school life, and especially has this
been true in regard to athletics. Locust Grove In
stitute takes a firm stand for pure athletics and
lias faithfully kept the spirit as well as the let
ter of the agreement ‘of the Georgia “Prep
League.” We are justly prouder of the high ideals
maintained by the student body than < f th? splen
ded victories won on the gridiron and diamond.
Our athletics for next year will be under the
direction of Prof. J. B. Turner of Wake Forest,
N. C. Professor Turner is an all round athlete
and, while in college, was probably the best ball
player in North Carolina.
The commencement exercises just closed are
considered the best the school has ever had. Dr.
L. T. Reed, Decatur, Ga., preached the sermon, and
Dr. D. N. McLaughlin, Macon. Ga., delivered the
address to the Alumni Association.
The Champion Debate and the Oratorical Con
test are features of the program worthy of spe
cial note.
The subject debated was, “Resolved, That the
expansion policy of the United States should be
encouraged.” Interest and enthusiasm ran unus
ually high in this debate on account of a. handsome
silver cup being offered by the founder of the
school to the society winning the decision. The de
cision went to the Philosophian Society, which was
represented by E. M. Chapman, Lithonia, Ga., and
J. C. Grimes, Newnan, Ga. The champions of the
Philomathian Society were P. E. Lester, Conyers,
Ga., and J. Carson Farmer, Palatka, Fla.
A Summer School and Business Department are
two new features recently added to (he educational
advantages at L. G. I.
The Summer School which is now in session is
being taught by two former graduates, Messrs. J.
C. Dukes and A. A. Lummus.
Prof. E. M. Chapman, another former L. G. I.
student, will have charge of the Business Depart
ment.
The vacancies in the faculty caused by the res
ignations of the teacher of English and the teacher
of History have been filled by the selection of
Prof. J. B. Turner, Wake Forest, N. C., to the
chair of English, and Prof. 0. 0. 1 olleson, Mc-
Donough, Ga., to the chair of History. All the
other teachers will return.
Messrs. Grimes and Lester are L. G. I.’s repre
sentatives to the Students’ Conference at Ashe
ville.
It H
Playground Contention.
What Froebel and his kindergartens with t heir
plays and occupations have done for the little
children of the well-to-do the Playground Associa
tion of America is doing for their brothers and sis
ters in the congested districts of our great cities.
The association was organized in Washington,
D. April 13, 1906. Dr. Luther Gulick, of New
York City, was appointed president. Mr. Henry B.
F. McFarland, of Washington, D. C., was appoint
ed first vice-president, Miss Jane Addams. of this
city, second vice-president, Mr. Joseph L e. of
Boston, Mass., third vice-president, and Mr. Fell
Warburg, of New York City, chairman of the
finance committee. It was the direct outgrowth of
s milar associations on a smaller scale throughout
♦he country, some of which were under municipal
jurisdiction and these were incorpova ‘ed into one
large association on a national basis.
It is a general clearing house of suggestions for
the smaller associations, and as such it has become
necessary to publish a magazine in the interests
Os the society. It is entitled "The Playground,”
The Golden Age for June 27, 1907.
a monthly magazine, and is edited by the chairman
of the executive committee, who has consented to
assume the responsibility of editor-in chief f r
the first twelve numbers. It serves the d üble pur
pose of chronicling the news of branch playground
associations and of publishing such plans and
schedules for playground construction and adminis
tration as may be of general value.
President Roosevelt, himself the honorary pre-i
--dent of the Playgiound Association of America,
recently pointed out the nati nal significance of
this June meeting in the following pubic state
ment: “The annual meeting of the. Playground
Association of America in Chicago in June, with
i's attractive play festival and comprehensive study
of play problems, is sure to increase this interest.
I trust all of our larger municipal’ti s wiT send
representatives to this exhibition to gain inspira
tion from this meeting and to see the magnificent,
system that Chicago has erected in its South Park
section, one of the im st notable achievements of
any American city.”
There will be morning, afternoon ai d evening
sessions and notable programs have been pre
pared for each. Tn addition to the papers and
addresses which are to b? given on the vario-s
phases of the playground movement, a great Play
Festival will be held to show games of a 1 ! s rts
for boys and girls of varying ages, from the kinder
garten to tlie college.
The object cf this convention is to inspire inter
est in this great constructive movement, the play
ground, and Chicagoans should lend their most ear
nest efforts toward it. for there has never been
a. time when the need for recreation e‘liters was
more urgent. The thousands of children to whom
play space is inaccessible warrant this assertion.
Every congested river ward presents an overwhelm
ing argument. Less congested parts of th? city,
which are making no provisions for future play
grounds needs should be roused to action. A com
parison of our magnificent South Park recrea'ion
center system with conditions which prevail
throughout the rest of tiie city reveals the prog
ress in playground achievement which Chicago has
yet to accomplish.
Our existing small parks and playgr. unds we
owe to the untiing efforts of inter sted citizens
co-operating with the Park Boards and Spacial
Park Commission. The most potent argument in
favor of playgrounds is the record of attendance
last year in the eleven municipal playgrounds—
an attendance which by actual count was 1,602,-
730.
Records of tin? Juvenile Court show that where
playgrounds have been established there has been
a substantial falling off in cases of juvenile de
linquency-—petty thefts, vandalism and kindred
fruits of misapplied youthful energy. The street
corner gangs, through the influence of the play
grounds, have become the athletic teams of the
neighborhood.—Extract from article by Ocie Long
Badger, in The Saturday Evening Herald.
"Some Essentials of Education. ”
Willi'am Allen White, of Kansas, recently de
livered the commencement address at Oberlin Col
lege. the address being on the above subject, and
as a specially s'rong part of his remarks, we quote
the following:
“The century last past has witnessed the mate
rial conquest of more of this earth than any oth-r
century ever witnessed. Man is coming into the
new century staggering under an armful of mate
rial things; steam and electricity have been har
nessed to the pulleys of civilization and have been
mad? to do the world’s rough work. It shall be th?
problem of educated men in this century to spir
itualize these material things that they may work
for all and not for a few.
“The stir in our world p li ics that is felt in
every American town and county, the earnest striv
ing among educated men and women for distribu
tion of justice, is an instinctive attempt to spiritual-
ize the gross heritage of the nineteenth century.
The new reformation is world wide; it is a quick
ening of conscience, a war against greed and for
the legislation and establishment of kindness on the
earth —the kindness that makes happiness.
“It our free sch >ols aid o.ir colleges an I uni
versities do not teach man the economic value of
kindness, then these institutions merely turn upon
society each year, a horde of armed vandals to
wo k for the destruction of society. Western .
civilization is in just as much danger from the
vandals in high hats as it is from the
Huns in red shirts. For the vaidals and the Hu s
are equally ignorant of God’s basic law of kind
ness. And their presence in the world mak.s min
who would be happy by being kind and generous
and helpful, in the routine of ordinary business
like men who roam unarmed in a savage wood,
and pay with their lives the price of the broad
humanity. The school that does not teach its stu
dents the duty of man to man, that does not im
phint deeply in its graduates a working wi-dom
in the fundamental human law of kindness, instead
of being a blessing, that school is a curse upon any
people.
“The education that does not teach self-reliance,
that makes men flabby under the delusion that they
aie kind, the education that makes a man’s visions
of righteousness mere fl siies of morality, is only
modified ignorance. For until a man passes his
education on, until he gives back to .the state in
service what it gave him in schooling, his right
to citizenship is based upon mere law and is not
a part of his being. Only the man is free who has
I ought himself free. The world is full of slaves
slaves to custom, to tradition. Io the things that
are, to party, to church, to outworn ideas—cowards
who know that the truth shall make them free,
but who fear to make the truth their truth by de
claring for it simply and without bluster and
without shame. He who serenely, with what wea
pons God has armed him, enlists in the fight to
make his private opinion public opinion, thereby
returning to society his patiimony—he is the ed
ucated gentleman. For he has won his education,
not sponged it. However he got his education, from
a machine in *a shop or from a shovel in the street,
or from horses in the field, that man who follows
the ins'inct divinely planted in his soul, follows
it through the paper walls of convention and usage
to the right as he sees if, still has he more culture,
more of Heaven’s own refinement, than if he has
a yard of scholastic letters lacked after his
name. For if there is anything in the brotherhood
ol man. the fatherhood of God is needed to prove
the brotherhood. And if there be a human kin
ship, there is implied some hereditary spark, call
it conscience, instinct, revelation, racial vision, or
what you will, which implies a broad democracy,
wherein at some small point men are equals. Edu
cation, if if be worthy of the name, should be the
bellows that makes the divine spark within each
soul glow into a to light his fellows. But
t o often our schools and colleges turn out nothing
more considerable than good citizens. Your good
citizen obeys the laws, conforms to the amenitis.
worships whatever God there be. and lets it go at
that. He does not get under the load of the world
and lift. He is a dummy director who fails to
realize that he is a partner in the injustices of
this life. Tie does not sei* that until he turns out
to the caucuses and primaries and conventi ns and
mass meetings and makes his protest felt, the
thieves that inhabit the* Jericho road will keep
right on assailing the weal, robbing tin* poor and
1 hwatening the welfar * of so -ietv. If he h*s a
light it is not only hidden under a bushel, but th*
bushel is nailed down and cleated to the floor. On?
of the curses of this country is the large class of
so-called ‘good citizens’ who. b-'cause they hav*
book learning and well-fitting clothes, are looU'fi
upon as leaders. Better government of stable boys
following sincerely and s°riorslv the light God
•jives them than a council of ‘good citizens’ adoring
yesterday and afraid of nothing so much as the
dawn of tomorrow,”
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