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EDITORIAL PAGE The Atlanta Georgian THE HOME RARER , THE ATLANTA GEORGIAN Published Ever-v \ffern<-«>n Except Hunday p> thi; gi;i»ugian company At 20 1’ast A !:i barn Ht. Atlanta, Ga. Entered ns sr< -'m 1 ■ f 1 ■ < «t Atlanta, urider art of March 3. 1873 Subscription Prlc* -In-livci«-<i I»\ carrier. 10 tents a week By mall, $f>,00 a year Payable in Advance. Can a Man liducate Himself in Two Hours a Day? What Should He Read? Important Questions for Every Man. (Copyright, 1913.) Young boys don’t WANT education. We force it upon them. Men past thirty long for education and little effort is made to teach them. A reader writes: “Dear Sir: I am a constant reader of your valuable and in structive editorials and Have gamed considerable knowledge from them- but I beg of you a small favor which I hope you won’t re fuse, and that is. how can a man with about two hours a day to spare becon.3 intelligent and educated? What course should he pursue in the shape of books, etc., etc.? Please name books and also advise, which I would appreciate very much, “Thanking you in advance, and I hope and trust to be favored with a reply, | remain, “Sincerely yours, J. H.” The man full grown longs for knowledge, as the boy longs for exercise and excitement. A committee of the most learned and conscientious men in the country might well devote six months of careful thought to the answering of such a letter. Can a man get an education if he has two hours a day at his disposal for reading? Yes, he can, provided when the time for reading comes he has left in his body knowledge and power that will supply THE THOUGHT, without which reading is wasted. A man must THINK his way through a book, and thinking must digest reading. He may have mere TIME in which to read, but it is time and ambition pitifully wasted if he has not also the vitality and en ergy to give to the mental work. Man is capable of a limited amount of effort in any direc tion. If he uses all his force in his regular day’s work he can have little left for mental work when the time for reading comes. The curse of the world is a system that takes out of men’s bodies in physical labor all the power that they have, and leaves nothing for the mental labor which should inspire the individual and improve the race. The great gift which organized labor, limiting working hours, can bestow upon the people is STRENGTH RESERVED FOR THOUGHT WHEN THE WORK IS DONE. Merely to name a list of books, however valuable they may be, is silly and heartless, when you know that the average very good book is written in a style which makes the absorption of knowledge difficult for the untrained mind, when you know that the words used by the man of education are not the words of the uneducated man, and make his reading difficult. Good bocks, with few exceptions, can not be comfortably and intelligently read, unless a man begins reading with a good supply of information or possesses the patience and industry to look up in reference books, one after another, the historical names and scientific terms that llow so glibly from the pen of the educated man. This world needs an EDUCATION in ten volumes, or fewer, for the man past thirty. Such a series of books should present accumulated knowledge simply, and in words that everybody could understand, identifying each historical personage appear in ; in its pages, making the reading of history and science as easy as the reading of trash. A man who wants an education should first make up his m ud what education is. Having determined what it is THAT HE WANTS TO KNOW, let him, with the help of the public librarians, always kind and encouraging, get books containing the knowledge that he wants, and written as nearly as possible in a style that he can understand. Man is like a tiny insect, fastened by power of gravitation to this whirling earth twenty-five thousand miles in circum ference, flying through space at terrific speed, going around the sun as it flies, and going forward in a mysterious spiral journey with the sun,. Man should know first of all HIS PLACE IN THIS UNI VERSE; he should know something of astronomy. He should have in his mind a conception of himself as a tiny, thinking creature on a great planet eight thousand miles in diameter, heated by a sun one million times as big as this earth, and. that sun flying through space in company with other suns a million times as big as itself. The first study for the man of intelligence, industry and am bition is ASTRONOMY. Unfortunately, the man who wants knowledge is frightened by a complicated presentation of that which is really simple. However, ask the public librarian to recommend to you a simply written book on astronomy, and he will do his best. When a man knows something about this universe, the part that he and his little planet play in it, he should know how this planet has developed through millions of years since it cooled off and since, in the words of Spencer, ‘ ‘ Indefinite incoherent homo geneity was changed to definite coherent heterogeneity.” A man should know something of geology, which means the history of the earth. Again the public librarian will direct you. A man should know something about the development of life on this planet, commonly called evolution, the different forms of life as they appeared, including the great monsters of the age when the coal was forming, and all the mysterious story of life on the planet. Then man should know the history of man himself, from the earliest days, when a sharp stone was the only tool, to these days of the rolling mill and the 40,000-horsepower steamer. The history of man as a race should be studied. Unfortunate ly it is made needle ly complicated. All that a man NEEDS to know eo aid 1 out in two numbers of this newspaper and made as easy to read as this editorial. Remember that in history the important thing is not the date of a battle, or the name of a fighter, but the movements of human thought which culminated in that battle, and the social condition that developed the fighter. All that there is of man is HIS THOUGHT. The reader whose letter we answer here must constantly ask himself, WHAT DO I KNOW ABOUT THE DEVELOPMENT OF THOUGHT AND KNOWLEDGE UPON THIS EARTH? By studying the thought of men he will stimulate his own thought in the right direction, and add to his knowledge. It is better to read a little and think a great deal than to read a great deal and think but little. The only thing that helps you is the work that goes on IN SIDE YOUR OWN BRAIN. i When the Wife’s Away I HAVEN'T WRITTEN To The. wif£ s, FoR- A week / ,/ REMlWo I tVW£N’T The c/VT TPRee D/SYS Drink pie VT Y wasy, money on" Po YOU $ENt> ^ |\(| letter Holy mackerel J 1 left The. W/ATeR Running- in “The Bh>Th vTuB GEE WHIT J 1 DIDN’T Lock The Back’ T>oCRe 1! , ' r OPEN Harvard kock. ■ A Look S WHEN GfLT Th-AT - I H A V, E Pt OoTe To "s IT IN" P> fAM£ T.'—. vd I Th ~TH £ Bunch | 'ToNi<?H‘r ; Are Voters Using the Rights They Have? If Not, What Is the Sense of Giving Them Any More?-—Principles Should Be Above Love of Office to the ManWorthWhile in Politics. By DR. CHARLES H. PARKHURST ''J-'HERK is no patent method J of getting results. What is gained by a short cut does not remain gained and lias to be .lined over again. Nothing that is worth having can be had with out paying the cost, and the more it is worth the bigger the cost. Pricks will not take the place of methods that are serious and downright. We are thinking now of cer- tain schemes that are being pro posed for bringing the control of political life more completely in to the hands of the people. The object had in view is certainly ad mirable; for a form of govern ment professing to be democrat ic is surely false to its name if policies are determined and exe cuted by a small minority. And jet the scheme suggested— that of substituting pure democ racy for representative democ racy- hardly ought to be called fanciful, for it lias the approval ■ if many thoughtful minds, but it certainly ought not to lie called progressive, for it is retrogressive •ather, and is a return to methods in vogue many centuries ago, at which time they were thoroughly tried out and found unworkable. Idea Commends Itself. No fault, certainly, can be found with the idea of popular participa tion in what are called the initia tive and the referendum. Simply considered ns an idea, it com mends itself, For all the people to ;et together and net together in settling questions which all the p. epic understand. Is a mode of administering public interests that is absolutely ideal. But without raising the question whether wo all have the intelli gence and the experience to deal wisely with more than a limited number of the questions liable to be brought before us by initiative und referendum, there remains the equally practical question whether facts, as we already know them, are such as to warrant our supposing that the privilege of such popular action would be to any considerable extent perma nently availed of even were it granted. The only way by which we can meet that inquiry is by discover ing, if possible, to what degree people at large are making use of so much of the freedom of bal lot its is theirs already. If it should appear that to any marked degree they are careless and neg ligent in its use, there would seem to be little to encourage the be lief that the situation would be improved by enlarging the oppor tunity for its use. It would ouly be widening the area over which their indifference could extend it self. A writer in the current issue of a reputable magazine has gath ered some statistics bearing di rectly upon this aspect of the ques tion. and it will only be further ing the purpose he had in view in preparing ids article to cite here three or four of the examples which he has collected as a result of his research aud observation. He relates that at the primary elections held In New York State last fall ouly 15 per cent of the voters polled their ballot; in Little Falls only 10 per cent, in Water- town S, in Iliotl only 6. In an important election held in Ohio in 1912 less than half of the enrolled voters voted. At the last Presiden tial election six million voters re mained at home, and at the one previous seven millions. Last fall a State convention was held in Ohio with a view to draft ing amendments to the State Con stitution. Only 25 per cent of fhe citizens cast a ballot for convention delegates That is to say, only one Ohioan out of four cared enough about tho Constitution of his State to put himself to the trouble of going to the polling booth. Question of Interest. Now, if people have as little re gard as that for such suffrage privileges as they now have, what Is the sense bf giving them more for them to exercise their indif ference over? The Progressives say that citizens ought to share in determining our politics. Perhaps so, and perhaps not; certainly not till they show more interest and spirit in their use of such share as they have. Ail of which indicates that it is not a question of politi cal machinery, but of citizens and of their civic character and patriot ic interest in what relates to the public weal. Tile best locomotive in the world will carry a train and all its oecu- I pants to destruction if maaipu- I Inted by an incompetent or indif ferent engineer. Patriotism of tlie genuine type does not consist in celebrating the memory of the heroes of ’id or of eulogizing George Washington, or of becoming rhetorical and letting off fireworks on the Fourth of July, hut in mak ing our interests and effort a steady contribution to the public needs. Tile people who do nothing or who do it only half-heartedly and spasmodically are sufficient in num ber to change altogether the tone of local or State-wide administra tion. A people that does not care enough about a republic to main tain it as a republic is not fit for a republic. * * * No man will do good work in politics nor in any other relation in which he may stand with his fellows, if lie thinks more of the office which lie holds, or what ever position lie occupies, than lie does of his principles. There are comparatively few people that have a genius for martyrdom, which is equivalent to saying that there are few who. when it is a matter be tween keeping their position and keeping their ideals, will stand by their ideals. Clergymen are put to that test exactly as politicians are. There are instances, and a good many of them, probably, where preachers refrain from declaring their full religious convictions out of fear that to do so would cost them the support of an influential fraction of their congregation. I know that the former pastor of a prominent church in one of our largest cities declared frankly that he could not preach the whole truth and keep his pulpit. lie sub sequently resigned ills pastorate. Perhaps for that reason, I do not know. That is one of a host of tempta tions that ministers are liable to. There are racks and torture chambers now just as there used to !«>, only of a different sort. Kxamples of the same kind are plenty in the political field, where expediency, not principle, is the rule of action. Tlie Man Worth While. The only man in politics that is worth anything to his city. State, or nation is the one who does what he believes to lie absolutely right regardless of consequences to him self. Which means that he loves himself and his office less than he does the public interest that he is elected to serve. There may not be many of them, but what there are of them are the only ones that count in the final footing. It was said to me recently by a gentleman, than whom few have stood so conspicuously before the national public, that the only one who can be trusted to render good service in public office is the man who does not much care whether he retains the office or not. That being the case, the public does a poor thing for itself when it elevates to office men who make it evident that they are hungry for office and starving for it and go about advertising tlie ferocity of their appetite. * Ella Wheeler Wilcox Writes on Fhe Current Craze for Surgery The Knife Should Not Be Resorted To Until All Other 1 reatments Have Failed to Cure, She De clares. t Written for The Atlanta Georgian By Ella Wheeler Wilcox Copyright, 1913, by Star Company. S URGERY has reached great and wonderful proficiency in saving human life and curing deformities and overcom ing seemingly incurable obsta cles to health. Not only does surgery cure physical maladies, but frequently It reforms the mentally and mor ally unbalanced. Er. Edward F. Bowers, in a recent article, tells us how, in Philadelphia, a great surgeon, “with the human equa tion keenly developed,” is op erating from time to time upon boys who are sent to the reform school for unlawful acts. One little chap; with a pen chant for burning houses and barns (he burned quite a num ber of them before he was final ly captured),, came under the Burgeon’s notice. A trephine operation was made, a small circular button of the skull removed, and a silver plate placed over the opening and this ’ boy’s pyromania was completely eradicated. Has Grown Rapidly. Scientific surgery has grown so rapidly in the last few years that Dr. Bowers believes the sur geon and the hospital may yet be substituted for the judge and the prison In dealing with crime. But with this growth, men and women, women particularly, have lost all reason and all sense of proportion in their craze for op erations, or in their quick deci sions in favoring the knife for maladies which are not of suffi cient seriousness to render the expensive risk necessary. Surgeons are so skilled that they do not hesitate to perform a very dangerous operation, even when they know that other meth ods might prevail,, so long as the patient desires the knife. Others of national repute as men of standing often advise operations, and no doubt believe them nec essary, when they ar not. Three years ago a slight physi cal disturbance, which refused to he routed by mental methods, caused me to ask the opinion of one of these well established surgeons, who is at the head of a large hospital. He advised the knife, and when I expressed amazement that such a slight malady needed so serious a treat ment, he assured me he was daily operating upon Similar cases. AVhen I refused to be operated upon, he said he washed his hands of consequences. The consequences were a per fect restoration to health in a very brief time by the use of X and violet rays, together with persistent mental affirmations and sensible adherence to the laws of good health. An acquaint ance who passed through the operation which was suggested to me died a few months later. Heart Action Weak. A year ago a friend of mine was assured by two eminent sur geons that she must submit to a major operation within, two mouths or forfeit her life. The lady made all plans to enter a •Philadelphia hospital and sub mit to this dangerous and expen sive operation. At the last moment, however, her husband decided to ask other counsel, with the result that she abandoned her original idea, took the rays, some simple herb-treat- raent, built up her system with nutritious food and outdoor life and is now perfectly well, able to PERTINENT Indulge in athletic sports, and To live a wholly normal life with all her organs intact, as well as’ an undepleted bank account. Recently I met a lady who, through having read an article in the July Good Housekeeping Magazine, on "Hysterical Surgery,” was prevailed upon to give up tlie operation she had been told v was imperative. In less than six ' weeks the lady finds herself free of the trouble which had men aced her. At the same time I met a wom an who had been declared dying several years ago with “a nest of tumors,” and as her heart action was weak and surgeons said no operation could , be performed, she must simply await the ap proach of death. Yet the wom an Is perfectly well now and an enthusiastic beMever In natural methods, in diet, in internal and external baths, in osteopathy, in violet and X-rays. I have In my address book the names of these and other friends who are quite ready to substantiate my statements— statements made public out of an increasing desire that women cease to be self-deluded or sur gically deluded with the idea that they must be operated upon in order to regain health. A lady who was made nervous over a slight growth in the re gion of the abdomen was advised to have it removed. She was ! enjoying perfect health seeming ly, and the physicians assured her and her husband that the in cisions would soon heal and the time of her invalidism would bo less than a month. The woman ' died the third day after the op- . eration. The physicians have since said that many similar growths dis appear and are absorbed if the, woman keeps her general health ' in good condition. This I know to be a fact in instances which come pnder my observation. Tffe husband of this lady-finds him self unable to obtain any re dress for the death of his wife, because the physicians were men in high standing. Try Other Means. Appendicitis has become a fad. The operation is quite likely nec essary at times to save life. I ’ recall many sudden deaths of people in my childhood of a mal ady known then as “Inflamma tion of the intestines.” No doubt these were cases of a diseased appendix. Yet for every person whose life has been saved by the removal of that organ, I am con fident ten have needlessly died by being operated upon when other methods would have saved 1 them. I have known several se rious cases to be cured by oste opathy, many more by X-rays, and others by nature methods— cleansing the system and a strict diet. j Unless a woman is in the full grasp of a malignant malady, the knife should not be used until she has tried all other methods. A large majority of the women who go upon the surgeon’s table for breast trouble die before the expiration of two years. A large majority who pass through ma jor operations are nervous wrecks afterward. Let me beg all sensible women to avoid the operating table and the surgeon’s knife, unless ail other methods have failed. They will not fail if employed in time and persistently followed. PARAGRAPHS In that dome of Huerta— please call him Whirta and be correct—more uncommon cunning and diplomacy is lodged, It seems, than Is dreamed of by the Com moner. • * * What Senate golfers need to learn is how to get out of instead of into a hole. • • • It looks as if chilly Canada will freeze out Thaw. To preserve the Continent’s fur ther health and quietude the Powers may have to put a straitjacket on the “sick man of Europe.” * * • Hope that suffrage training school is not to include the punching bag and putting the shot. • • • Having gotten the contents, women now demand our pockets.