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EDITORIAL PAGE THE ATLANTA GEORGIAN Every Afternoon Except Sunday „ By THE GEORGIAN COMPANY At 30 East Alabama St., Atlanta, Ga. Entered as second-class matter at postoffice at Atlanta, under act of March 3, 18,73. Subscription Price—Delivered by carrier. 10 cents a week. By mail, $5.00 a year. Payable in advance. A Man Does Not Get Old Until He Is Ninety— M R Os Course Not. Ninety Should Be the Prime of Life, A Hundred and Forty-four Will Be a Good Average Old Age in Days to Come. At a meeting of the Medico-Legal society, recently, it was stated that a man of fifty ought to have forty gojod years ahead of him. As a matter of fact, a man of fifty in the really scientific and civilized days that are to come, will have NINETY GOOD YEARS AHEAD OF HIM. There was a day—only a few generations hack—when the sec ond largest city in France had not one single man or woman past fifty .years of age. Sewerage ran through the open streets and into the wells. The graveyards were on the hills above the villages and the diseases of the dead ran down into the springs. Plague occasionally killed half of all the people. And regularly it killed them before half their natural life had passed. Now, a man at fifty is considered young—he was once gray bearded. waiting for death. In days to come, and not far off. the man of ninety will be in his primed Old age will begin long past a hundred. And death will come, in the case of the average, well-behaved man, at between 140 and 150 years of age. The exceptional man will live to two hun dred —and probably be very tiresome telling of the changes that he has seen in real estate values. An animal should live at least ten times as long as the time it takes him to reach the age of reproduction. A horse becomes a father at two years of age and lives to be at least twenty—even to forty. The animals, on an average, all live at least ten times as long as it takes them to reach the paternal age. Man becomes a father at the earliest at about fifteen. And, according to the simple rule, he ought to live to a hundred and fifty. Life will be divided up into interesting periods when it reaches its full length. Youth will last, with its imagination, hopes and romance, to about fifty. Earnest, hard work will last from fifty to a hundred. From one hundred to a hundred and twenty five years of age a man will work intellectually, getting the best results of his observations and experiences. At a hundred and twenty-five he will become self indulgent, 'take life quietly, sit up at night examining the stars, wondering where he will go next, reading the latest books, traveling around the world occasionally—perhaps once a month when the trip shall take only one day. The old man of a hundred and forty will become*really self indulgent, work very little, enjoy ten years of pleasure and intel lectual excitement —then die and begin all over again on this earth or some other. And that is not so very far off. This world moves very rapidly T <SS MARGERY SOMEBODY ivl SOMETHING ’ of Devon shire, England, has fallen In love with a Turk and run away and married him. and now she's gone to Turkey to wear a veil and anklets, and live in a harem. and learn to like sweetmeats flavored with perfume, and be a real harem heroine. How romantic—for a few weeks! The Turk is a very handsome Turk and very well educated- and. oh' he did. make such desperate love—staid he'd die If Margery Somebody Something didn't mar ry him right then and there -gave her rubies as big as pigeons' eggs and emeralds the size of thimbles, and he fairly hung her in diamonds the very w eek they were married. And then—he's so divinely jeal ous —almost died of fury when the waiter asked her w hat she would order next, and threatened to com mit murder if she allowed her own first cousin, who had been brought up in the same house with her. ever to speak to her again. Delicious, delightful, glorious fop a few min utes! But afterward" Poor little Margery Somebody Something. 1 wonder how long it will be till she will give ail the emeralds tn Turkey to see one hon est English face, and how long will it take her. 1 wonder, to hate the very sight of anklets and to wish she had nevi r been born w hen the nas> to sit on a cushion and ".11- at the antics of a r,rea«y hedl steed Canting girl, w ho maki fectly shocking cy>-s at the hand some Turk right before her very eyes ? Life in a harem? How romantic it does sound —fountains, bulbuls, black slaves, the clash of anklets, the swish of tinseled veils. Bui how stupid, how vvearingly. mad deningly stupid it must be af> r the first 24 hours No one to talk to but the hand some Turk, and he doesn’t care much to hear women talk, thanks. No papers to read, no books no friends, no traveling, nothing but sweetmeats and veils and perfume and—the Terrible Turk Mystery, seclusion, st >-rec;, how we.ll they soun'd in a book, and what a bore they always are in real life. Mysterlou people never clever people: they are just dull and very often cruel--that's all. The dark flashing eyes that are ao alluring before tnarriag< < an be come a frightful nuisance ifwr th wedding ceremony if they next r do anything but flash. And, putting Married to a Turk Bv WINIFRED BLACK everything else aside, oh, Margery Somebody Something, didn't you realize in the least the terrific ef fect of centuries of absolutely dif ferent training? Why. it's hard enough to get over the fact that your husband likes hot biscuits when you like "light bread." as he will persist in calling for it. though every one knows or should know that bread is bread and biscuit biscuit It's difficult enough to get on with a Westerner who is always finding some excuse for "shedding” his collar, if you happen to be New England born and want every stick in the wood pile as straight as a string. Hut to marry a man of different nationality different training, dif ferent ideals, even different tastes in clothes, and quite, oh. quite, dif ferent notions of the proper thing to cat for breakfast, is a much more serious matter. Oh. little Miss Margery Some body Something, my heart fairly ach» s for you this very hour, it does, indeed! What are you doing now, pray tell*’ Having paint an inch thick smeared all over your nice, fresjh English complexion to please your lord and master? That's what he is over there, you see; not just a plain husband, but a lord and mas ter. Are you begging him humbly to let you go out with a eunuch for a toddle—just a little pitiful, veiled, swaddled toddle—in a walled gar den somewhere, where .von can't rep ?. soul but the old toad who live under the' great red-flowered bush by the water gate? Is rout mother-in-law living with you in the harem, and how many favorites are there there now? None and .von reign alone? \\ ' 11, it's early yet. and y ou are. they say. very pretty; you haven't cried all the blue out of your poor eyes yet—poor thing; poor, little, foolish thing. Little Miss Margery Somebody Something, tell us, pray, what do you expect, and why in the name of common sense do you expect it? You ar, as foolish ns the man 1 know who has just married a lit tle goose of a flirt just because she has pretty hair and a dimple, and who is beginning to blame her for not knowing what he mean; when he talks about the "higher destiny of man." Marriage is no talisman turning a whole nature right straight The Atlanta Georgian HE NEVER HAD A CHANCE That Is What Nine Men Out of Ten Who Are Failures Say. Look Out That You Don’t Say It Yourself. By TAD m Mill S® ■ y - "HR I!||E . . ■ - _x=s^= :J = ; ~ = «• No. 5. Yum’s little fighter did so well that the money was coming in faster than he could spend it. It was really the first soft dough he ever had, and it went as it came, easy. He learned to play pool around the neighborhood; then later was so good that he meandered up to the Broadway pool parlors, where they played for money. He might as well be sjen up there with the big sports. Who was better known than Yum? He met a boy from his old town up there and got an earfull of news. Some of his school friends were in business and getting along fairly. T T THY do graceless good-for- V'%/ nothings seem to have a peculiar fascination for women? Why will a wife cling to some worthless, drunken reprobate of a husband with a devotion that nothing can lessen, while she will get up and leave for a trivial cause a perfectly upright and worthy man who is a good provider? Why is the black sheep invariably wother’s darling among all her children? To answer these questions we have to go back to the Garden of Eden and our first mother, who risked Paradise to- find out about wicked things she had no business knowing. The same curiosity about forbidden things is still rampant in every innocent and ignorant femi nine breast, and the man who is re puted to be wild and lawless still fires her fancy as the serpent did Eve's, be, iiusr he represents to her •he world of things whose doors are closed to her. Heaven knows that, in reality, there is nothing romantic in the drunkard, or the gambler, or the roue, or the ne'er-do-well. He's a sordid enough figure to any who look at him with clear eyes, but the imagination of foolish women make of his vices a prince's cloak to wrap him in. and turn his weaknesses and shiftlessness into high spirits. Literally no good, honest, indus trious. every-day sort of a man can compete tn a woman's favor with a scamp, and no man has s>,, potent away of wooing as he who has the story of a dark and sinister past to toll. The Better the Woman the Worse She Likes the Man To Be. \nd. curiously enough, the better the woman the worse she likes the man to be That is why saints so often miry villains. The woman who has seen much of the world, and who knows that pasts have a way of coming home to roost, and That there is nothing romantic or dashing about a man who comes staggeilng along. fuddled with drink, o; who gambles away the grocery money, picks out a good, clean, thrifty man when she wants a husband. But the unsophisticated woman, who kn >ws nothing of the realities of lift, falls a victim to thi biandi- IP. ms Ot the s, amp If he even Sa much as looks her way. DOROTHY DIX WRITES nr Some Reasons Why Women Love Scamps WEDNESDAY. MAY 29, 1912. Os course, it would be years before they’d get what he made in a week. He smiled as he heard of them. Poor hoobsl An uncle wrote Yum offering him a position in a big store with a chance to advance, hut he couldn't see it at all. Why work like a slave when you can get it by managing fighters? Huh? The game was flourishing, but there was some talk of putting a stop to it. Yum was a bit worried, hut figured boxing too popular to be stopped. He played pool and spent his evenings in pleasure. Why should he worry? (To Be Continued.) Bv DOROTHY DIX Os course, in explanation of why women seem- to have a peculiar mania for loving unworthy men, it may he said that the black sheep very often has graces and charms of personality that his white broth er lacks. It is a. truism that vice is generally more attractive than virtue, and ail of us know from per sonal experience how much more lovable certain people are who have nothing hut their faults to recom mend them than certain other peo ple who are models of all the vir tues. We have all seen some man who was a light in the church, an ex ample in the community, the very pattern of probity, and honesty, a man whose wife rode in her auto mobile, and had a fine house, and rich clothing, and everything ap parently that the heart of woman could desire, die. and leave a widow who made scarcely a pretense of regretting him. We have seen an other man die w ho had been almost an outcast in the community, and whose wife had gone shabby and poor, and toiled to support him, and he left behind him a broken hearted widow who mourned him to the day of her death. Woman's Ruling Passion Is Desire to Reform Some One. Such spectacles make us marvel at the illogic of women, and say that a man has small encourage ment to go straight, or to work his fingers to the bone supporting a wife, if he expects her to love him in proportion for what he is. or does for her. The answer is that love isn't a mater of volition, and the man w ho gives his wife sympa thy and tenderness'Sometimes gives her more than he who gives his wife sealskins and diamonds. Another reason why black sheep have a fascination for women is because the ruling passion w ith the sex is reformation. No woman can see anything, or anybody, without a consuming desire to make them over according to her own little perforated paper patterns. The man who is already walking in the straight and narrow path of fers small opportunity for the ex ercise of the pleasures of reforma tion The most his wife can hope to tin is to make him cut his hair another way. and buy .mother styl< • ollar. and let her pick out his neckties, but the drunkard, or the gambler, or the man with a past is like a free ticket to a picnic to her. She has a vision of her altering his entire manner of life, weaning him away from all of his former associates, quenching his thirst, curing the itch in his fingers for the pasteboards, blinding him to all other women, and leading him up to the higher life, during all of which proceeding she is having the time of her life. That is why, when a bad man makes a little, ignorant, unsophisticated girl his Mother Confessor, and tells her that he only needs her influence to make him another man, that it is all over except sending out the wedding cards. Still another, and the crucial reason, why women love scamps is the eternal mother love that is at the bottom of every' woman's heart, and that is its guiding impulse. Women may admire strength in a man. but weakness makes an ap peal to the very core of their being that strength never does. They may revere the man who stands alone, like a rock against the storm, who has the ability to achieve and com mand. but they take the poor dere lict of life, wind beaten, broken, helpless, in their arms, and hide his shame upon their breasts. They may glory in the triumphs of the successful rr>‘-n. but it is the failure who coir /limping home defeated for w Am they make a crown out of t.ieir tenderness and pity. Mother Loves Wayward Son Because He Needs It. Because he needs her love more than her strong, clever, healthy children, the mother loves best the one that is sickly, or deformed, or feeble-minded. Because he needs her patience and her love most, the mother loves her wayward son most. Because all others have turn ed away from him and he has no other houlf, she keeps the' light burning in the window for the prodigal, and has the warmest wel < onie for ■fairn when he comes creeping back in rags and tatters. God gave to woman this divine power of forgiveness, this fountain of love that flows the more the more it is drawn upon—this brood ing tenderness that takes in and shelters .11- the weak and tinny. And tnen may well thank God that it is so,. THE HOME PAPER A s *l< J Ella Wheeler Wilcox Writes on 'jMKiSTah The Future of the Public School —and— The Situation as It Is ®T..] m 110 W t-w* Written For The Atlanta Georgian By Ella Wheeler Wilcox Copyright, 1912, by American-Journal-Examiner. A BOY of erratic tendencies, to gether with exceptionally bright intellectual qualities, was always in trouble in his city school. He took small interest in his studies, was often late, and his report usually brought sorrow to his home. He moved into the country and entered a graded school, and be came enamored of study, went eagerly to his classes and was re ported among the leaders in all his studies. There were two explanations of this change. One was the normal, free, out of-doors life the bov lived; the other was that HE WAS ONE OF FIFTEEN IN HIS CLASSES IN STEAD OF ONE OF SIXTY, AS IN TOWN. He felt no individual responsibil ity in the throng, but in the smaller band of students he stood forth a personality, and he felt the “no blesse oblige” of the situation. A wave of dissatisfaction is sweeping over the country regard ing our school system. And eventually this will cause a change to be made. The larger understanding of mothers regarding education will result In the personal element en tering into the training of chil dren. More Teachers, Higher Pay, Fewer Scholars Needed. When women have a voice in the affairs of the nation there will be more teachers, larger salaries, fewer pupils in each department, and more attention will be given to the temperaments and varying dispositions of children bv their in-, structors. Instead of regarding the little ones who enter public schols as machines which must be taught to go according to one rule, each child will be studied as a threefold being, and his mind, body and spirit will be cared for and developed accord ing to his own peculiar needs. All this will come slowly, but it will come. Before children enter the public schools there should be a great sifting process under the direction of a national board of scientific men. The brain equipment of each child, the tendencies givfn it at birth, should be tested: then the nervous, hysterical and erratic minds ought to be placed in a school by themselves, under the care of men and women who know the la\v of mental suggestion. Quiet, loving, wholesome rules, followed day after day and month after month, would bring these children out into the light of self control and concentration. The The Little Suffragette By WILLIAM F. KIRK. SHE wouldn’t know a ballot if she saw one. She doesn’t care for Roosevelt or for Taft: She couldn't tell a "cooked'’ poll from a raw one. And never dreamed of Senatorial graft. She never prates of woman's real position. And, up to date, has never cared for strife. She hasn’t much to say about ambition— She couldn't make a speech to save her life. She’s dainty as a morning-glory petal. She's sunny as the brightest morn in May. She leaves the votes to folk of sterner metal Because she's only two years old today. If stubborn men could catch her dimpled greeting And g”t one chance her curly head to pet; They'd sanction women's ’Gting-yes, repeating! Every one loves a bab} suffragette. hurried, crow’ding, exciting meth ods of the public schools are disas trous to fully half of the unformed ' minds sent in the Intellectual mael strom which America provides un der the name of public schools. Schools Unsafe for Average American Child. For the well bom. normal mind ed, healthy bodied child, who has wise and careful guardians or pa rents to assist tn his mental guid ance. the public school forms a good basis on which to build an , education. For the average Ameri can child of excitable nerves and precocious tendencies, It is like deep surf swimming for the inex perienced and adventurous bather. The great foundation of educa tion —character—is not taught in the public schools. There is no sys tematized process of developing a child’s power of concentration; there is not time for this in the cramming process now In vogue and with the enormous pressure placed on teachers. No teacher can do justice to more than fifteen children through the school hours. In many of our public schools there are fifty and sixty children under one instruct or. This is fatal to the nervous sys tem of the teacher and deprives the '• pupils of that personal sympathy which is of such vital importance. - Luther Burbank, the famous Cal ifornia horticulturist, declares that the great object and alm of his life Is to apply to the training of chil dren those scientific Ideas which he has so successfully employed in working transformation in plant life. The Rev. Dr. James W. Lee, pastor of St. Johns Southern Meth odist church, of St. Louis, and for merly of Atlanta, went to Santa Rosa, Cal., for an interview wdth Mr. Burbank. He said to Mr. Bur bank that he had referred to his work in an address at Portland. Oreg., and had expressed the wish that he might introduce into the method, of rearing children some of the scientific ideas that he was ap plying everj' day to the improve ment of plants. Burbank Says Children Need Spiritual Influences. Dr. Lee says that Mr. Burbank replied: "That Is the great ob ject and aim of my life.” z Continuing. Mr. Burbank de clared that plants, weeds and trees were responsive to a few Influences in their environment, but that chil dren were infinitely more respon- \’ sive, and the failure to recognize the spiritual elements in the %n- w ~ - vironing conditions of children had been t£e fatal lack in dealing with them. •’