Orphans’ Friend.
Price, $1 a year.)
OXFORD, N. C., JULY 20,1883.
(VOL. IX. NO. 9.
UNEHOWN HEROES.
W©' se.e t^m and we know them
not,
^ plain^in garb and mie.i are
they^;
So lowly i^^ir thankless lot,
We heai‘ n. it what they do or say;
And yet fpr weary months' and
\ years, .
Without a murmur, ’plaint or cry,
Thootands who eat their bread in
To daily duty pass us by.
A sickly mother, wan and s'^orn,
B^ft o^cheerf Iness and light, .
Froi^onged-tor rest and joy is torn,.
I'o*^ work from early mom till
night.
To .stfeal one hour from dreary fate,
Or falt§ff in the hardest tasks,
Would make some home* disconso*
And Be"n6 peach or joy she asks.
A little child, .iaint With its fears—
A.girI,,Hnttmely. old and gray—
A man bent down by weight of
-•■•.'•years—
J^AU -bravely go their bitter way.
We
5 se^ know them
Sd'plMn in garb and mien are
they;
So loT^iAt^^ir thankless lot.
We u^r not What they do or say.
Heroes unknown—through weary
They make no sign or outward
cty,:.
But eat t leir bread with bitter
- Y- --f-”
Ana we, in silence, pass them,Py.
ANEDUdATlOi^AL DEFECT.
. sj^em ot publid
schooSMucatfon in New York
contemplfi.iea - a seven -vsears’
course, from''.enhance of
the child apon the. lowest pri-
j;Q .i|9.,graiuatip|j,^
from the higpesi. ;gyammaf
school grade. Of these seven
■' yeai^j'' three are spedf in the
• prut^y^ -and four in ,t^e. gr^tnf
‘ mar school,^ , OF department;
! the curriculuih. embracing a
' thorol^h , T^Qurse of Epglis}i
stuajliWltlj some instruction
in G-ermpn, French, drawing
’ and^ipus.ic^, A. young p.erson,
who’,! h^. gon,©: jthrougt .the
■ common school in this city is
' as well taught as the gradu-^
■ ate of any academy in the
! country, of a similar grade,
i As a matter of fact, however,
:a very insignificant propor*
hion of those who enter the
primary schools go through
; seven years, while the major-
! ity do not even take the gram
mar school course. Over one-
third, indeed, of those who
are enrolled in the lowest pri
mary grade in any one year,
drop out during that year,
' whilp^t itjie' ’^pd {hf; ‘three
year^^^ep thoGjiifa'^^rea^y
, to entpr.^tlift grapimar schopl,.
barely half of the ^umber
that ongmally entered,^ re
main. This number, as shown
- by^ tfh4* "Board of Education
reports/’ may be said to be
about 20,000. Of these, then
10,0^^j drift away ^in three
years, naving gained no more
education^ban the' etemeDta-
: ry principle of arithmetic- -
as fPr pethaps as multiplica -
tiion—writing and easy read-
ing; of fhe IQ,^Q0
continue fheir career and are
graduated into the grammar
school, only 2,900 go through
to the end. That is to say,
scarcely fifty per cent, of those
who enter the public schools
take more than a three year’s
course, while ouly twelve per
cent, avail themselves of the
opportunity to pursue their
studies for seven years.
Now, if only from the eco-- ■
nomioal pbint of vieWj this is
a serious matter. There is
no reason why the State
should pay for grades of
instruction which the public
does not -use; and it is worth ■
while asking whether the fact
that they are not used dops
not prove their uselesssness.
If the publip does not employ
them, is if ,not an evidence ,
that the public does not want
them? American, fiithers and
mothers are not blind to the
advantages of education. No
where, indeed,i8 it more high
ly esteemed, and nowhere do
parents make larger personal
sacrifices to enable their chil
dren to attend school. But,
with all this popular appreci-.l
ation, the fact remains that
the higher grades are practi-:
.cafiy unused, and that the
vast bulk of the children
leave school for business be-
foiie they get anything'but the
most rudimentary instruction.
It can only be inferred that
there is something wrong with
the system—that the children
leave because they do not get
what they want in school, and
because the stofe or trade of*
fers them the more obvipus
advantages. If the school,
for instance, qualified the hoy
for son^etbing else besides an
accountant or a scrivener, if
it took into account the me
chanical bent , of the, child*?,
mind/and’ taiiglit him to use
bis hands as well as his head,
if it opened a way to the vast
fields, of industrial employ-
'ment, which offers so wide an
opening to the young, but
for entering upon which so
few are prepared--the parent
would no.tfail to see its supe
rior advantage, the children
would not drift' out into the
world before thej^ knew how
jto cipher in long division, and
the schools would fulfil the
purpose for which they are
designed.
Under the present systom,
how,ever, thp tendency ,of the
curriculum is all in the di
rection of clerical or profes-
ional employment, and the
scholars who take the whole
coarse/,represent the survival
of the fittest for such pur
suits. M . ^
Thus, in the public schools
of Boston the question was
lately submitted: i^What is-
my school doing for me?”
Thirty-one of the composi
tions answering the question
‘^ere printed, and it is stated
that the striking fact in re
gard to them was that the
writers were all looking to
mej’cantile and professional
life for their future occupa'
tiops. Only one—and that a
girl—alluded to the possibil
ity of getting a living by trade
while an Irish boy expressed
the ingenuous hope of being
lecturer, orator, “representa-
tor,” and perhaps president of
the United States. This is of
course a laudable ambition,
but it is not an ambition which
children should be taught to
entertain; what the country
needs is hands to aid in its
material development. No
where is the supply of skilled
labor equal to the demand,
while the market for clerks is
alw-iys overfilled. Not long
since the Board of Education
of Chicago advertised for a
number of persons to take the
census of the public schools,
at $2.50 per day. Immedi
ately five hundred persons
•applied to do the work;
though, at the same tirpe, fac
tories were standing idle all
over the city, for lack of
hands, who might easily make
from $3 to $5 per day. It is
so in all our cities; the brain**
workers, trained by an injudi
cious system of public in
struction, are superabundant,
the hand-workers, to whom
the largest opportunities pres
ent themselves, are few. A
New England manufacturer
declares that it is far easier
for him to get a clerk in
his counting-room capable
of making a good translation
ot the Iliad or the .^neid
than it is to get a workman in
his factory capable of run
ning the machinery.
It is this defect of the
school sytem which parents
have come to remark, and
when a child has receiv
ed the elements of an
an education he is taken away
and put into a machine shop,
or a printing office, or a fount
dry, or very likely a store,
where he will get a special
educa'ion that will he of more
practical service tlian the
train ing afforded by the
school.
A useful treatise upon this
general subject byProt. John
Si Clark, calls attention to
the fact that “the social needs
require the expression of
thought concretely by the
work of the hand in labors,
particularly in the produc
tive employments, and ab-
slTactly by the use of lan
guage in the other employ
ments; and further, that the
activities which require its
expression by the use of the
hand in labor, are as funda*
mental to the best interests of
the organism as those which
require its expression by lan-
gu^e. ,It follows from this,*’
he goes on to say, “that the
educational training of our
youth to-day should include
a training to. express, thought
by the labor of the hand as
well as a training to express
it by language*” Institutions
where this idea is carried out
are not lacking, though it has
not yet been adopted as a
part of the public school sys
tem. It is the most prom
inent feature, for example, of
the work among the Indians
at Carlisle and of the Normal
Institute at Hampton; in Bos
ton, the students of the School
of the Mechanii*. Arts devote
nine hours every week to shop
-work; the Manual Training
School of Washington Uni
versity, St. Louis, gives a
three years’ course in the use
of tools; in Prof. Adlers
Workingmen’s School in this
city, 150 pupils, from 6 to 14
years of age, work four hours
a week in clay, wood or zinc,
while pursuing at the same
time the ordinary school
branches; the Washburn ma
chine shop at Worcester, Mass
in connection with the Tech
nical School there, sends its
manufacturers all over the
country; while classes in the
industrial arts exist in the
schools of Gloucester, Mass.,
Jamestown, N. Y., and in the
Dwight Grammar School in
Boston. In Europe the idea
has been even more exten
sively worked ‘out, and in
Norway, .Sweden, Denmark,
Austria, Germany, Holland
and France, indu.strial schools
are an established part of the
school system. In Germany
the cry is: “Education for la
bor through labor;” in Sweden
each pupil of the State
schools spends six hours per
week in the shops, besides the
twenty-six or twenty-eight
hours given to regular instruc
tion; in Finland manual in
struction is compulsory for
boys from nine to fifteen years
of age, while in Paris alone
there are 42 schools where in*-
dustrial training is combined
with elementary instruction.
If this matter receives so
much attention in countries
whose industrial resources are
so far less than our own, what
importance ought it not to as
sume here? In the United
States opportunities of every
kind await the trained hand;
only the hands are wanting to
improve them. It is a matter
for every educator—and that
includes every parent—to
consider whether the present
sytem of public instruction in
this country, handed down
from an age when everything
that appertained to manual la
bor was despised, is not ill
adapted to our time and needs;
whether we have not been
magnifying the intellect at the
expense of the hands and
whether a far more judicious
expenditure of our school
moneys cannot be made by
substituting for some of the
highest grades a rudimentary
course of industrial training.-
J^ew Yorh Observer.
a bitter sneer at clergymen.
The chaplain left the table.
The officers threatened to
send the lieutenant to “Coven
try,” if he did not apologize.
He called and asked the cliap
Iain’s pardon.
Another officer took offence ^ t
one of tlie chaplain’s sermon’s,
and wrote him a hold avowal
of skeptical opinions.
The chaplain, seeing in
theseevidences that the chron
ic indifference was giving way
to opposition, per.severed. But
opposition was all the encour
agement he received during
the year.
Not a cadet bad visited him
or even sought his acquain
tance. But one Saturday, the
only day on which the cadef.s
were allowed to visit an offi
cer, without special permis
sion, one of the most popu'ar
of the cadets knocked at the
chaplain's door. He wished
to begin a Christian life, then
and tliere, and asked for coim-
DEOAY of CHRISTIANITY.
THE Y0UN& CHAPLAIN.
One night in 1825, a ch r-
gyman was taking te;! with
John C. Calhoun, then Secre
tary of War. Suddenly, Mr.
Calhoun said to his guest :
“Will you accept the place
of Chaplain and Professor of
Ethics a t West Point? If yo u
will, I will appoint you at
once.”
The Clergyman was Charles
P. Mcllvaine, then but twen
ty-five years of age. and sub'
sequently known as the Bish
pp of Ohio. . He accepted the
appointment, because West
Point then had an unsavory
reputation. There was not a
Christian among officers and
cadets. Many of them were
skeptics, and the others were
coolly,indifferent to religion.
He was received as gentle
men receive gentlemen. But
no one showed'the least syra
pathy to him as a clergyman.
For months his preaching
seemed as words spoken in
the air. His first encourage
ment was an offensive expres
sion.
He was walking home from
church one Sunday, a few feet
in advance of several junior
officers. Tliechaplain’s preach
ing is getting hotter and hot
ter,” he heard one of them say.
In a few days, he received
another bit of encouragement
He was dining with a compa
ny at the house of an officer.
A lieutenant, a scoffer, hurled
In a day or two, another
cadet cMled on a similar er
rand; then another, and an
other* Then several officers
came. A meeting for prayer
was appointed, twice a week.
It was the first public prayer
meeting held at West Point.
Officers and cadets crowded
in, though all who came pro
fessed thereby to begin a reli
gious life. At first, it required
as much courage to enter that
room as to lead a forlorn hope.
One of the cadets was Le
onidas Polk, afterwards Bi.h-
op of I’ennessee. Intelligent,
high-toned, and commanding
in person, he was the conspic
uous cadet. Seeing that it
was his duty to make a public
confession of his faith in
Christ, he asked for baptism.
After baptizing him, the
chaplain made a brief address,
closing with a charge to be
faithful, responded
Polk, in a voice that rang
through the chapel. The
Amen'” was from the heait.
Immediately, the baptized ca'-
det become a missionary to
his comrades.
A solemnity pervaded t he
Academy duriiig tlie two re
maining years that the devoted
clergyman served as chaplain,
Half the corps became Chris
tian men. Several of them,
leaving the army, were pro
moted to the ministry. Many
of those who entered the arm}-
rose to eminence. They
adorned their profession and
the Christian religion.
This era in West Point was
created, through the divine
aid, by a young man who
simply did bis duty, patiently
and left Ihe result with GiM
— Youth's Companion,
The porpatual din about
decay of Christianity, and the
dyi''g out of the creed, which
is kept up in our periodical
literature by writers, big and
little of a certain class, has
now become a species of an
ti-religious cant which is as
senseless and quite as offen
sive to all right-minded poo
pie, as anything that ever em
anated from the narrow and
bigoted sectaries of less intel
ligent ages. It is really a re-
proacli to the current litera
ture of the time, which ought
to be the conservator of truth
and righteousness, instead of
constantly going out ot its
^vay to insult thousands of the
most intelligent people in the
land, who hold nothing more
true or more vital than the
great truths of Christianity.
Why should aucli truths b©
thu.s caricatured, misrepresen
ted and maligned? And why
should the conductors of our
reviews and magazines lend
the sanction of their great
journals to a class of writers
who insult the whole Chris-
tion people by this silly cant
of caricature and misrepresen
tation and malignity.—Interi'*
THE VIRTUE OF A CHEERFUL.
FACE.
I do not know that knowledge
amounts to anything moredefi
mte than a novel and grand sur
prise, on a sudden revolution of
the insufficiency of all we hud
called knowledge before, an in
definite sense of the grandeur
and glory of the universe. It
a lighting up of the mist by the
sun. But man cannot be said to
know, ill the highest sense, any
better than he can look serenely
and with impunity in the face of
the sun.—Moreau.
In one of the board schools,
a densely populated district
of Glasgow, on the morning im
mediately succeeding the short
vacation at the New-Yoar time,
the young lady and gentleman
teachers at the head of the “in-
iant” section were made the de
lighted recepients of a present
from their young charges. The
gifts which were entirely un
looked for, consisted of two of
those highly ornate short cakes
with appropriate sentiments in
sugar which we were all as chil
dren familiar with, and which, as
‘old fogies,’’ we do not entirely
taboo. 'I’he purchase doubtless
had been make at one of the
neighboring confectioners, and
the young donors laid their offer
ings blushingly and in childish
fashion without a word before
their teachers Both were alike
astonished, but the gentleman
managed to stammer out some
thanks. The young lady’s de
light was more lingering, and
i-'ho, blushing, inquire! what she
had done to merit such kindness.
For a time no response was
made, until at last a chubby boy
on a back bench chorused out,
■‘Cause you’re aye smiliu’, jVnsa.”
It was a (lay of smiles after that.
Teachers! does this incident con
vey any lesson to you?
J. C. Hester, Kittrells, N. C., says:
“I nsed Brown’s Iron Bitters as a tonic
for general ill-health and found them
LUTHER SHELDON,
1>UALKK IN
Mr, .T. J. C. Steel, Waikersville, \.
C., says: “My wife luvs used Brown’s
Iron Bitters and she esteeniathem vt-ry
highly.”
SASHES, DOORS, BLINDS,
MOULDINGS, BRACKETS, STAIR
RAILS, NEWELS, BUILDERS’
HARDWARE,
Paints, Oils, CHuss, Putty
AND BlIILDINti IflA'l'l^UIAl.
OP EVEKV ous^eitiprio.v.
Nob. Iti W. Side Mtii'kbl Sqr. aiul 49 Ruauoke
Avb.
NORFOLK, Va.
I«b7yl
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