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THE ATLANTA SEMI-WEEKLY JOURNAL, ATLANTA, GA., FRIDAY, AUGUST 1, 1913.
THE SEMI-WEEKLY JOURNAL
ATLANTA, GA., 5 NORTH FORSYTH ST.
Entered at the Atlanta Postoffice as Mail Matter ot
the Second Class.
JAMES R. GRAY,
President and Editor.
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Utilizing the Prisoners'
Human Nature.
As a famous horse-trading philosopher was wont
to remark, there’s as much human nature in one of
us as another—and sometimes a little more.” If
the State will apply this shrewd truth in dealing
with prisoners, its laws will he more fruitful of
good and its problems of crime will grow simpler.
X For instance: the man serving a sentence In a
convict camp Is, after all, a man whether he happens
to have landed there through a sl.p of impulse, the
misfortune of circumstance or as a result of what
the old theologians were pleased to term “total de
pravity.” He thinks and feels; he is uplifted by
hope or crushed and made sullen by despair; he re
sents apparent injustice and for the most part he is
keen to appreciate a chance for freedom. He has as
much human nature as any of us, and, perhaps, a
little more.
If, then, this convict’s release should be made
partly dependent upon his good conduct, his obe
dience to rules, his faithfulness in -work, if he should
he given a measure of opportunity to earn his lib
erty instead of being bound by an iron sentence hard
and fast, would he not make a better prisoner?
Would he not do steadier and more efficient work?
Would he not come forth at the end of his term a
better man?
Herein lies the virtue of- what is called "the In
determinate sentence,” that is to say, a sentence
fixed by the court at a 'maximum and a minimum
period, to he served in its entirety or In part ac
cording to the Individual prisoner’s conduct. Thus
in certain cases, a judge might sentence an offender
to a maximum term of five years and a minimum
term of three years and it 'would depend upon the
prisoner’s record whether he served the longer or the
shorter term; the punishment would be shaped not
merely to the offense but to the man himself. The
differences among men in a convict camp are as
marked as those among children in a school room;
and until we take due account of these human dif
ferences, we shall obtain only negative results from
our penal system.
The indeterminate sentence has been adopted in
a number of State- where it has proved to be thor
oughly practicable and. efficacious. It is not a plan
of setiment hut of reason and experience.. It is
good not only for the individual but also for the
community. It is designed to be applied not loosely
but within limits ’• ell considered and well-defined.
It is a distinctly practical plan.
A bill providing for the indeterminate sentence in
Georgia, with due restrictions of course, Is now be
fore the Legislature. It has been favorably reported
by the committee to which it was referred both in
the House and the Senate. Chairman Davison, of
the State Prison Commission, forcefully presented
the merits of this measure when, in urging Its recom
mendation by the Senate committee, he said:
“The Prison Commission is cordially in favor
of the indeterminate sentence. We have had
practical experience concerning the operation of
such a law in the Boys' Reformatory; it has
worked well. We have found that it makes bet
ter boys. It gives them the incentive to work
for their release, and y*t we are enabled to keep
an eye on them and keep them under our super
vision after they have been paroled. They know
that their only chance to jjet out before serving
their full term is to make good in deportment.
“If the convicts are given 'indeterminate sen
tences I believe the same condition will prevail. 1
Instead of increasing their evil tendencies and
making them as sneaking and idle as they dare
to be they will have, an incentive to behave them
selves and do good, steady work. They will be
given the power to redeem themselves. We bate
discussed the measure thoroughly, and we ere
satisfied that with safeguards thrown around it
as they are, it is a good and practical one.”
By passing this bill, the Legislature will make
Georgia’s penal system more efficient and, in the
truest sense, more economical.
The Flying Mars.
The French aviator. Massen. who is aiding the
Mexican insurgents in their siege of Guaymas, has
furnished interesting evidence of the utility of the
aeroplane in warfare. Despite the guns of the fed
eral forces beneath and around him, he circled over
the city and the bay, dropped four bombs within a
few feet of the gunboat, Tampico, anu returned to
hie camp unscathed. *
^Iiis is not an entirely new feat, for the Italians
Tripolitan campaigns and the Balkan allies in
their attack on Adrianople used flying machines to
signal advantage. It is doubtful, however, if a bird-
man ever before came within so close a range of the
•nemy’s fire and escaped unharmed.
Castro.
Cipriano Castro, with more lives than a conjur
er’s cat and more stings than a gadfly, has burst
from oblivion to vex again the peace of Central
America. So at least run the tidings from Venezue
la which relate that the banished tyrant has secretly
landed and is being joined by many of his old par
tisans, preparatory to a revolution against the es
tablished government. If it 'he true that Castro is
home again, we may look for another merry war,
the like of which Mexico with all its peppery insur
gents could never produce.
Castro was born beyond his time. Had he but
lived in the lati. Middle Ages his name would
doubtless have gone down in tradition as one of the
great emperors or paladins, for, in that turbulent,
misty era, there were no hard distinctions between
robber and knight, provided the robber wore glisten
ing armor, rode v’ith a flourish, spoke eloquently,
fought lustily and was shrewd enough to hold his
retainers together. All these picturesque virtues, or
picturesque vices if you will, Castro possesses. But
he had the misfortune to-happen upon a particularly
practical century when the majority of folk have
little patience with brigandage, if it he elemental
enough for them to recognize it as such, and little
sympathy with the chap who cuts a throat one mo
ment and the next falls to discoursing upon the
rights of man.
Born and bred in rebellion, Castro kept Venezue
la and a considerable part of neighboring Central
American in a ferment so long as he remained in
that country. He captured the presidency In 1899,
swiftly turned It Into a dictatorship to which he had
himself “elected” three years later and then pro
ceeded to make trouble for the nations in general
and the United States In particular. He annulled
important concessions that had been granted to for
eign residents, cooly refused even to consider inter
national claims, hotly defied the whole world to
bring him to terms, confiscated the property of any
ol his own countrymen who refused him allegiance
In the slightest detail, persecuted citizens from other
countries and created a tumult that addled the brains
of almost every cabinet on earth.
International action at length led to the deposi
tion of Castro. He was in effect exiled and sent
packing to Europe where he has remained more or
less In mystery fo.- the past five years. But he has
evidently kept a wary eye on Venezuelan politics.
Within recent months, it became known that he had
sailed from the Canary Islands and shortly after he
turned up at the port of New York, seeking admis
sion to the United States. That was during the last
weeks of the Taft administration. There was much
ado, it will be remembered, over the question of
whether he should be permitted to enter, or remain
in this country, the Washington officials having ruled
that he should be excluded. While his case was
pending in the courts, Castro slipped away and it
was vaguely reported that he had gone to Cuba.
What the next step in this remarkable adven
turer’s course will be is a feuess rather than a pre
diction. But if it be true that he is in Venezuela,
he will certainly make all the' trouble he can not
only for the existing government of that country, but
for the United States and for all other nations with
which he may deal. It may be that another Inter
national blockade of Venezuela’s ports may he
necessary.
If an old soluier’s story doesn’t line up with his
tory he blames It on the historian, who probably
wasn’t there.
CORN
BY DR. FRANK CRANE.
(Copyright, 1913. by Frank Crane.)
America has added to the world’s supply of good
things for the palate the tomato, tobacco, the potato,
the turkey and corn. The greatest of these is corn. It
is the peculiar prize of the United
State*.
The richest agricultural region
of the earth is the land extending
from the Alleghanies to eastern
Nebraska, and from lower Min
nesota to southern Illinois. No
territory so inexhaustibly fruitful
as this exists on the globe. From
it, all the inhabitants of earth
ccjjuld be fed.
Chicago, the metropolis of this
district, is destined to become
the chief city of the world.
About this season of the year
the traveler through Iowa and
adjacent states may witness a
spectacle which is one of the world’s wonders. It is
the vast fields of growing corn.
Out of the car window he may see a boundless ocean
of dark, lush green, a vision of life, joy and strength,
the like of which was never beheld before the nine
teenth century. #
It drinks up the liberal rains with a healthy appe
tite. It thrusts its hungry roots down into a soil that
for centuries has been prepared for it.
Its broad leaves rustle like the garments of Ceres
touched by the winds; whisper like the blessing of
Jove breathed upon the land.
It rejoices in the hot sun and grows lustily under its
most ardent embrace. And no vision of ghostly plenty
is equal to its 'huge billows reaching far out every way
to the dim horizon,- glittering in soft and sombre maj
esty under the full moon.
Surely the generous Deity “hath not dealt so with
any nation.’’ The gift of corn is a gift to all.
Its juicy stalks and leaves are loved by the cattle,
the swine, the horses. Its grain eaten when young and
succulent and full of milk are a delicacy more choice
than any plants of the Old World produce. There prob
ably cannot be found a score of human beings who do
not like “corn on the cob.’’
Its dried fruitage ground into meal is richer than
wheat flour or oatmeal.
It is food for the fancy of the poet as well as for
the muscle of the ox and of the human laborer. For
far above the grape exalted by Anacreon, and the olive,
and the palm that have nourished the East, and all
fruits and vegetables that have translated the life-
force of mother earth into blood and brain and brawn
for her children, is the glorious, fecund and beautiful
dowry of the New World Corn.
The Longevity of Animals.
A charming front-porch philosopher recently-
advanced the distinctive theory that the biggest
creatures are the longest lived and, by way of proo/,
witnessed on the one hand the elephant, which at
tains two hundred' years, and, on the other, the
garden moth, which is born and aged and lightly
sepulchered all in a summer’s afternoon. Other
front-porch philosophers hastened to challenge this
suggestion with examples of frogs that have been
found imbedded, hut blinking, in strata which geolo
gists declared could be not less than a hundred
thousand years old; and there were also learned
citations of wizened cats that would outlive genera
tions of corpulent, greasy cooks.
Now comes a savant in the Farm and Home Mag
azine who contends that the relationships between
size and longevity are singularly variable. Two
such opposites as the crocodile and the carp, we are
told, each live three hundred years. The rhinoceros
is lucky to reach sjxty, but many a goose celebrates
her fiftieth birthday. A bull is considered venerable
at thirty, yet a lobster will sometimes live to be
twenty. Among birds, it seems, the falcon leads with
an age limit of one hundred and fifty years; the
parrot and the eagle have each an expectancy of a
hundred years. The lion’s span is sixty, the camel s
thirty, the horse’s twenty-five, the ass’ thirty, that
of the peacock from twenty-three to twenty-five, the
lion, bear, cow, pigeon, dog, deer and wolf about
twenty. A rabbit lives ^Jght years; a cricket ten.
It remains for some^other scientist to discover
the secret of these strangely varying ages. We can
easily understand whyJmost pullets die young and
also why there are so many Methusalehs among the
frogs of the earth’s hidden caverns, but why, prithee,
should a goose live longer than an ass?
Problems of Life and Death.
Everyone who appreciates the fundamental impor
tance of public health affairs will applaud the aption
of the House committee on hygiene and sanitation
in reporting favorably the bill providing for the es
tablishment of a State bureau of vital statistics. This
measure, it may be said without undue emphasis, is
one of the most essential now. before the Legislature.
Upon its enactment depend Georgia’s progress in
campaigns against disease and also her recognition
in the health reports of the federal government which
are read as authoritative throughout the nation and
the world. »
Now that the bill has been approved by the com
mittee, its passage in the House and the Senate
should be effect’d without difficulty or delay. The
appropriation for which it calls is really negligible
in view of the far-reaching good it will accomplish.
Five thousand dollars, we believe, is the amount
asked for. Failure to provide this small sum for a
purpose bo tremendously important would be unbusi
nesslike and grieviously unjust to public interests.
There are some needed improvements which the State
may defer but we dare not put off a problem of hu
man life and death.
Georgia’s Paramount Problem
The Legislature is now face to face with the
State’s paramount problem, that of fiscal reform.
Until this issue is settled, and settled rightly, the
treasury will remain impoverished, the school teach
ers will go unpaid, public institutions will be stinted,
urgent enterprises neglected and the interests of
»
every county and every citizen will suffer. Until
taxes are made Just and uniform, the State’s income
will continue to fall woefully short of its necessi
ties. the penalties of lax methods will pile higher
and higher; and there will come a day in the not
distant future when we shall be driven to a heavy
tax increase, if we reject the wiser and more tem
perate remedy of tax equalization that is now avail
able.
There Is little or no dissent from this general
principle, for, as everyone must recognize, the qntire
tendency of equalizing taxes will he toward reduc
ing the average taxpayer’s burden; when all men
hear their rightful part of the government’s expense,
every man’s portion will be lighter. But when R
comes to reducing this principle to practical details,
honest differences of .opinion arise. There are those,
for instance, who heartily favor county boards for
tax equalization but who object to a State board for
the same purpose.
This particular issue must he approached and de
termined as a condition not as theory; and thus re
garded, a State board appears clearly indispensable
to any effective plan of tax equalization. For the
same reason that a board of equalizers is needed
for each county, a similar board is needed for the
State as a whole. The same objections that are
urged against a State board might as logically be
urged against the county board, for, when boiled to
their essence, they amount simply to a contention
that everybody should be allowed to pay as little lax
as he pleases, leaving the State to be fed by the
stray ravens of Providence.
Surely, if it is right and important that inequali-
ities among individual taxpayers be adjusted. It is
equally right and important that the larger inequal
ities among counties be adjusted. And if that is to
be done, a State beard that can work intelligently In
conjunction with all the county boards must be pro
vided. Let us not be disturbed by imagined ills of
undue power in such a board. Its members would
be dependent upon the common counsel of all the
county boards. Tney would not dare deal otherwise
than justly with any county in the commonwealth;
and certainly, no county could ask more. A State
board of this kind would be somewhat similar in its
particular sphere of duty to the Supereme court In
the field of law; and one might as well protest
against the existence of the State’s highest court as
against the establishment of a State board of tax
equalization.
Of this much we may at least be sure: without a
State hoard, the plan of fiscal reform will be but
fragmentary and ineffectual, Georgia’s tax system
will continue largely in its old ways, like a gypsy
that dances here and there and then passes the tam
bourine for contributions. If the Legislature Is to
deal justly with the school teachers, justly with pub
lic Institutions and enterprises and justly with Lie
people themselves, it should adopt a measure of tax
equalization that will really produce results.
©UNTRY*
'TIKE.LTY
OfflL TOPICS
Cohwctzd emss. xr KJrerro*
"Went to sleep In box car In Atlanta; awoke in
Chattanooga." Some mistake in that headline. He
didn’t go to sleep in Atlanta.
On With the Tariff Bill.
As regularly as Republican amendments to the
tariff bill now before the Senate are offered, they
are promptly voted down. The Democrats are stand
ing, indeed, like a stone wall against every attack.
Naturally, the enemy’s camp is losing spirit The
passage of the bill has come to be accepted as pre
destinate and whatever objection the Republicans
offer are merely perfunctory.
This condition of affairs indicates that the bill
will be enacted earlier than wa6 at first expected.
The business world is prepared for its operation; the
sooner it comes, the better for all interests concerned.
DISHONORING THE HOLY BIBLE.
I note with more alarm than anxiety (and I confess
to a great deal of both) the opposition of certain min
isters of the gospel to the use of the Bible in our pub
lic schools. I wish they would read I Thess. 2 chap.,
13th verse, which I will here copy:
“For this cause we also thank God without
ceasing; when ye received the Word of God, which
ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of
men, but (as it is in truth) the Word of God
which effectually worketh also in you that be
lieve."
St. Paul the writer of these words, is still recog
nized as an authority in gospel matters. If he knew
what he was writing about (as we believe he did) then
the Bible is the Word of God; and not to be discredited
anywhere by the “word of men.”
To meet this question fairly we feel obliged to in
quire of these so-called ministers of the gospel where
and when they begun to indulge in this disbelief, and
if they are not verging on to anti-Christ and if they
should not be cautioned as to their own fitness to pro
claim the Word of God. Manifestly a book that is too
unsound or unsafe to teach from is not good enough
to preach from.
A preacher of the gospel always takes his. text or
his lesson from the Bible, and he is prima facie a
teacher. If he discredits the Holy Bible in other teach
ing places he is an unfit expounder of the Word in his
own selected place for teaching.
According to Bible teaching man’s only road to
eternal salvation is charted and laid down in the Word
of God. If these dissenting preachers deny this op
portunity to school children they will, by such depri
vation, cut off the descendants of those who still be
lieve ,the Bible to be the Word of God. Evidently they
have advertised themselves as Bible foes as well as
self made teachers of a LUlt which discredits the Bible
as the foundation vi. their preaching. When my mind
goes back to Luther's time and the early days where
good men sacrificed life, liberty and worldly estate to
furnish the Holy Bible to those who were hungry for
its teachings, I seem to glimpse a surrender to agnos
ticism where I least expected to see it, namely, under
the very rooftree of God’s own temples. In my early
days, we read some verses from th© Bible every d&y
Just before our beloved teacher asked God’s blessing and
protection on us all before closing school for the day.
I am glad I had this opportunity. May God save us
from coming evils.
• • •
KEEPING BOYS ON THE FARM.
In this era of rapid transportation, people who de
sire to get away from difficulties, real or imaginary,
can easily do it.’ * Boys who are impatient of home re
straints will often do it.
In earlier days when it meant foot travel the oppor
tunity was not so attractive, but nowadays we have
every day accounts of runaway boys (and girls, too,
for that matter). Sometimes children are too unruly
to stay at home, but the common run of boys go away
because they have lost Interest in the farm affair®
of the father. There, is but one remedy and that lies
in the father’s willingness tto give the boy an interest,
something that will yield profit, and it need n»t be a
great big affair, either, which will wake up interest
in the disheartened or dissatisfied boy. If the father
will give him a chance to make some money, like
cotton patch or poultry start, or an occasional calf,
or better, a colt of his own, the most of farm boys
will “stay by their stuff.”
It will be also a good Investment for the parent
In various ways. 'The best result will come from the
Improved disposition of the lad, but as soon as the lad
understands that his father is in dead earnest about
giving him a chance to make something for himself
he will do a lot more and do it willingly for his pa
rents’ interest. The boy should have a room or at
least a place where he can put his things without any
body's interruption. It should be his own place, and
his thflhgs should not be disturbed. Let him invite his
boy friends to vit.it him. If he wants to go to town,
take him with you, father. You will get better ac
quainted with your own child when he sees you are
anxious to give him pleasure. When the girls have
visiting friends, encourage your boy to have some of
his friends at the same time. That it will contribute
to everybody’s pleasure goes without saying. And it
may save your boy from seeking company elsewhere
that might give everybody pain.
• • •
A WILD CRAZE FOR NEW COUNTIES.
It is a well known fact that a suicidal mania grows
with what it feeds upon, namely, a morbid taste or de
sire to follow the example of those who insanely take
their own lives. There is a city in middle Georgia
where suicides have been as common as pellagra or
appendicitis. On© suicide calls for another exhibition
of self-destruction, and they come on with astonishing
and rapid succession.
We discover that there is another craze in Georgia,
and that is the new county craze. All over the state
there are delegations assembling and hastening to At
lanta to oblige some real estate speculators who want
new county towns where jails, court houses and pub
lic schools must be erected. They enlist the interest
of kinfolks of some public man. There is a mad ri
valry to get ahead in these new county applications.
The craze grows with wild fury.
With the state already heavily in debt and the gov
ernor compelled to borrow a half million dollars to pay
teachers, these fanatics are frantic to add on more
expensive legislation and to delay attention to needed
reforms and economic methods.
There is no pressing need for these new counties.
Heavy expenses hav© been incurred where the citizens
of these proposed new counties are in honor bound to
settle, according to pro rata obligations. They should
fill their obligations. But the time of the legislature
is completely absorbed with these raving, ranting dele
gations who seem to be like boys at a circus, fairly
delirious to see or do something strange and novel,
and the stage is set in Atlanta at the capitol, and the
boys are wild for a trip and a good time at somebody’s
expense. Behind it all is the attempt to build new
county towns with extra members for the legislature
who had a poor show in the older counties.
• • •
WHERE DID THE HEBREW GOLD COME FROM?
I wish somebody could tell us where the Jews pro
cured the enormous amounts of gold that they con
tributed to the ornamentation of their temples, and
what they paid in ransoms, etc. When Moses spoiled
the, Midianites he secured for the treasury a large
amount of gold, chains, bracelets, earrings, etc.
It is stated in Chronicles that David accumulated
for temple building for his son Solomon a hundred
thousand talents of gold and a thousand thousand
talents of silver.
A Hebrew talent Is estimated at $17,400. Count
for yourself the value of the gold devoted to the
temple.
Where did it come from?
Are all those prolific mines so completely ex
hausted that no trace of them remains?
There was, according to Maccabeus, two hundred
talents laid up for widows and fatherless children.
Heliodorus took that relief money away.
Menelaus stole vessels of gold and silver out of the
temple. Antiochus carried out a thousand and eight
hundred talent®. Nicanor went after Jewish gold
with a rush but Judas Maccabeus cut off Nicaner’s
head and hung it on a tower.
365 B. C. Philip of Macedon had a gold mine named
Philllppi. He took out a thousand talents every year,
estimated at a good deal more than a million dollars
in our money.
“The river Pison compassed the whole land of Have-
lah, where there is gold.”
The delight in gold never grows less, and it is a
fair question to inquire, “Where is all that gold?”
and “Where did It first come from?”
THE NEW RURAL SCHOOL
III—ALL IN A DAY’S FUN.
BY FREDERIC J. HASK1N.
If, when you were a little hoy or a little girl, your
father and mother had sent you to a school where you
had nothing to do all day long but play, wouldn’t you
have thought them kind? Prob
ably you went tc a schoo* ane
sat for long, silent hours on a
hard bench, longing to be out of
doors, and yet trying to master a
multiplication table that was ab
surdly silly; or else having to
pretend to patience while some
grim ogress of a teacher pounded
into your ears the foolish theory
that fairy tales were, after all, .
nothing but “discourses" made up
of nouns and verbs and adjec
tives and adverbs. Did the teach
er make you "parse" a line from
Hiawatha? Now alf that sort of
thing Is diyte away with In the
exper:...^.. rural school at Rock Hill, S. C., as has
been explained In the two articles preceding this one.
In the Rock Hill school the children learn not only the
multiplication table and the rules of grammar, but
they learn a great many things in botany and zoology
and chemistry from the very first day in school. Of
course, the teacher Is too kind ever to make use of
the word “grammar” or •’chemistry," for she Is helping
all the children to have a good time, and it would spoil
the game to make work of any little thing. At Rock
Hill an* education comes naturally—it’s all in a day’s
fun.
• • •
The very second week of the school’s life the kitch
en began to be a center of activity. The children
made an inventory of all the utensils and dishes, the
-little ones counting aloud as well as they were able,
the older ones making lists. The spelling in the lists
was corrected and the best one pasted up in the cup
board door. Sometimes kitchen work is dirty, so the
towels had to be provided. The boys and girls hem
med the towels and then the girls and boys saw that
there must be some way to hang them up. So off to
the carpenter’s shop to cut some moulding^ for the
towels—it was too rainy to work In the garden.
• • •
Again the teacher make’s a discovery. Being con
ventional, she and the men who planned the school
had devised a conventional separation of the sexes In
occupational activity—they believed/ the boys' would
delight in the carpenter shop and the girls In the
kitchen. The first thing was that the girls insisted
on doing the carpenter'work, and then the hoys refused
to be shut out of the cooking and the sewing.
« » •
But one day the towels must be washed. The
teacher asks all the children about washing clothes
and discovers various methods in use in as many
homes. But the school decides that the school towels
will be washed In soap, boiled In soapy water, washed
again without soap and then rinsed twice. The teach
er writes the orders on the blackboard:
Fire—Paul and Jack.
Tub—Silas.
Lnle—Lonnie and Marlon.
Water—Bennie. Clarence, Mclver and Estelle.
Towels—Bruce.
Clothes Pins—Margaret.
Soap and Washboard—Sara.
* . .
i
By this time even tiny Nell has learned to read her
own orders. (The ischool is now entered on its fifth
week). The materials all provided, each child washes
his" own towel, and puts it in to boll. Then all of
them take the "cut out” letters and make on the table
such words as rub, tub, water, soap, towels, wash, etc.
Then they read a teal reading lessons: “Rub, rub,
rubi See my tub. This is washing day. I like to
wash. Do you like to wash?" etc. When the towels 1
are being washed through other waters they all sing
“The Mulberry Bush"—"This is the way we wash our
clothes, wash our clothes," etc. And when they were
dried they were Ironed to the same songful accompa
niment Parenthetically It may be said that nothing
is of more Importance on the farm than wash day, and
that nothing is so badly done on the average farm.
• • • 4
When the washing jyas done everybody went to tha
garden and found that the turnip and squash leaves
were curled up in the heat. What went* with the wa
ter that was in the towels when they were first hung
out on the line? Does the water leave the turnip
leaves in the same way? And If we had rolled up a
towel would it have taken longer to dry out? That
Is why the leaves curl on a hot day, so that they won’t
dry out so quickly, the teacher tells them. And they
know it is true. But they don’t know they have had
an elementary lesson In hydraulics.
• • •
Not that the children are in the least afraid of big
words, or that the teacher shelters them from poly
syllabic terms. For Instance, in the study of ths bean,
where each child minutely marked every stage of the
germination and development of the plant, one of the
children asked what was\the name of the two fleshy
“seed leaves,” and the teacher told them that they
were cotyledons.
Now the teacher had never said a word about gram
mar, but without saying anything, in writing down new
words to be learned one had always arranged them in
columns, the names of things in the left column, words
describing them in the middle, and words of action in
the third. The children naturally grouped nouns, ad
jectives and verbs in this order. The soaked beans
were exhibited and discussed, picture* of them were
drawn, and then the children copied from the black
board the title, “The soaked bean.” Under that they
wrote what they pleased, but followed Mrs. Browne’s
columnar habit of arranging words. Mclver Coker,
being but six years old and never having written any
thing in his life before, indeed only a day or two
earlier for the first time he had proudly refused help
in reading orders from the board, Mclver wrote about
the bean. He put down only three words, and put
them all in the first column. The three were: “see,”
“coat” and “cotyledon,” and they were all spelled cor
rectly.
• • • —
Nine-year-old Estelle Collins found out so much
about the soaked bean that it required two pieces of
paper to hold it all. In the frist column she had bean,
seed, coat, cotyledons, plant radicle, stem, plumule,
scar, spot. In the second column: tough, soft, thick,
white, tender^ little, hard smooth, oblong, round, rough
and white a second time. In the third column she had
three words swelled, softened and feeds. But really
this was not so remarkable for a school wh^re a sev
en-year-old girl sewing up a gingham bean bag believed
it quite necessary for her first to 6raw a plan of the
bag, and then to calculate the perimeter of the fin
ished product. It’s all in the day’s fun at Rock Hill.
• • *
Literature and language—how many crimes against
innocents have been done in school houses in the name
of letters! Robinson Crusoe and Mother Goose are
our literary mentors at Rock Hill, and how we do en
joy them! We dramatize everything, of course, and
Robinson Crusoe is so long that we make ourselves an
island under the mulberry tree in the yard and the
teacher reads from the big V>k and some of us chil
dren read from the simplified hook, and then ail •*?
act Robinson Crusoe, u's great fun! It takes us
more than five weeks and whenever we get tired in
the garden or just after we have had dinner we come
out to th island and play Robinson. And we some
times eat there, too, for the boys make fire with
sticks like Robinson did, and we cook our meat over
the coals—hold it over the fire stuck on a sharp stick.
Just like he did on the island. And before long all of
us can read and we all take turns reading the part we
are going to act.
• * •
And cook! And eat! We eat the things we grow
in our own gardens. Of course, we grow more than
we can eat at school, so we take some home and some
we sell and keep the pocket mdney for our very own.
That is the way we go to school in Rock will.
1