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The School And Tlie Town
By OVID WILLIAMS PIERCE
>
Editor'* Note: Quite a few Bden
ton people have made a kreat deal
of comment about tlf address
mad* hy Ovid William* Pierce at
the Sheoard-Pruden Memorial Li
brary Thursday Jn connection with
the observance of National Library
Week. A number of requests have
been made for its publication, so
that the speech appears below.
I shall begin what I have to
say with the admission that
many of the words which follow
were written almost a year ago
for an occasion entirely unlike
the present one. I was asked to
return for graduation*.exercises
to the stage upon which’l myself
»had once stood.
Actually, it was later when I
reread what I had said that I
realized how much of it had been
spoken, not to the young people,
but to their elders, our„own gen
eration, whose values "they had
no choice but 'to accept;
I am aware that there is an
element of arrogance in the act
®f standing before one’s con
temporaries and of (JreOTming to
say that in these directions do
values lie. But herhtfls, now,
there may be some measure of
justification because of my as
sociation with schools^
In any case, the frecent and;
astonishing concern for the re-,
sponsibility of the schools herei
in our country—rather, we should j
say, the concern for our failure
of responsibility—would seem to ,
warrant a repetition of some of 1
these words. We are alarmed,
now because for the first time
that I know of in my life people
who ordinarily have no/.immedi- ]
ate concern with - 1 * educational
processes are beginning to see
for themselves the consequences
attendant upon any compromise
in standards.
There is no Question that
events beyond the boundaries of
our country have brought to this
sudden and alarming focus the
inherent failures we. now see.
But the thing that Sefems most I
regrettable is the fact that, as a
nation, we had to' 16arn of our
selves from the outside. 1 Are all
our convictions and standards so
ill defined that we must have a
rival nation describe' 'them for
us? Are we to arrive at our
concept of excellence by word
from alien land?
I do believe that if the cur
rent agitation about the schools
is attributable solely to fear, and
not, in part at least, to -our own
independent perception -of values,
to our own dedication to knowl
edge itself, then the agitation
might as well not have been.
It will not have cured the deep
er ill.
What it tried to demonstrate
on the earlier occasion was that
the young people had been done
a disservice. AIL of us—parents,
teachers, society had conspired
to perpetuate their immaturity
by assuring that sdcur.ty and
achievement were within their
reach and that they were and
should be theirs merely by vir
,tue of demand. AH experience
shows that nothing has ever
been so won. Ultimately noth
ing is ours except that which we
create —either by labor, or by
courage, or by love.
But why is it today that every
where we are told*, otherwise?
Has every century held before
its youth the myth that it need
not give all that it has? Emer
son tried a hundred years ago to
destroy the fiction that we do
not live in a moral world and
that the immutable laws of com
pensation by a capricious act of
God mav be suspended in our
favor. The immutable laws of
nature, he saw, had never been
suspended in anybody’s behalf,
nor would they ever be. What
man hoped, he said, was by some
magic to separate cause and ef
fect.
Yet, in a sense, this is what is
still being attempted by our
society.
The moral climate of our time
is to shun the long way. In the
make-believe radio and television
we see in a moment’s time for
tune# made and lost. Thousands
and thousands are sustained by
your government for services of
value and of none. Since World
"War 11, we have raised a gen
eration of students on monthly
checks.
Most of our national advertis
ing has cheapened our concept
of manners, attainment and art
by reducing them to the level of
easv lessons, bv, claiming that,
with the purchase of this nos
trum, this may be
Even with the national maga
zines and nress, the tendency
now is to dilute, to Water down
for wider and wider consumption
bv standardized minds. Ficton
itself must subscribe to an ap-/
proved formula, else publishers
guarantee no sale.
We live in a time of shortcuts,
digests, and synopses—which it
self is indication that there is
little time to read. ’
In addition, oublishers must
compete now with, the druggists
in offering you prescriptions for
success; for success in mind and
body, for .success here and in the
hereafter, too. The list of books
i« less appalling than the size of
their sales. *
Finally, even our schools have
succumbed. Coronal* the, curri
cula in both the hlgff schools and
ecl'eces of todav with thos“ of
twenty-five years ago. Here
again we 'have contrived to save
youth the labor to read, the labor
to think. We no tonrer empha
size humanities. We teach teeh
niones. Schedules are filled
wifli games, dances and songs.
Courses reouiring Mental • exer
tion—honest and sustained ef
fort—-have been dropped one hy
, This is not I heliew, a mere
Question of an annual prophecy
of doom. T should lik“ to Con
sider it. rather, a® a plea for a
not of this state, ‘that he had
been in correspondence with a
vice president of one of the
large industrial companies of
Aferica. In the exchange of let
ters, the dean was told that if
the colleges allowed further com
promise in substance and stand
ards, industry of this country
would be compelled to take over
the training of its own person
nel—compelled by the default of
our schools.
Hereupon, we reach a conclu
sion which I believe can be con
fidently claimed: that educa
tion cannot be the function of
the schools solely. The schools
cannot work against parents,
press and state. If it is the prov
ince of the college to provide
historical perspective for the
student, and to restate for him
the value of humanistic thought,
what chance does that restate
ment have when the student
does not hear of it again beyond
the college wall? How can the
colleges convincingly sustain
those values not even regarded
by a materialist society to be
important? One of the anomalies
of our time is the insistence on
maintaining an artificial area of
standards against the very back
ground in which the same
standards are not even credited.
The student coming from the
world outside cannot quite be
lieve that an historical view of
man has any importance for him.
He must see its relevance to his
own need before he will accept
it. Society has already dem
onstrated for him a need of an
other sort. Perhaps this is the]
reason that the coUege seems
unreal to the town, and that
each seems unreal to the other.
Does it not now appear prob
able that an agreement must be
reached concerning what the two
must seek?
Ours has been caUed a ma- *
terialistic age. We need go no
further than ourselves to dis
cover its name. What men do
we honor? What actions and
deeds do we applaud? What in
our secret hearts are our idols?
Then, we wiU begin to know
where our values lie.
At least, let us recognize the
fact that the school can go no
further than the will of the
people allows, that the school
can leave with opr children no
value which we do not honor
ourselves.
This brings us to a point
which must come to each of us
with a sense of shock: that our
basic heritage both religious
and cultural has never been,
and is not now, guaranteed. The
very preservation of Western
European society which we pre
sume to be etemaUy ours by ac
cident of birth has had to be
actively defended and fought for
from its inception until this mid
20th century. Even our right of
assembly here has come at the
price of all our wars.
Perhaps the gravest injustice
we can do is to fail to realize
that the forces against civilized
tradition are everywhere active
and everywhere real. Does it
not follow, then, that the burden
which lies upon society is not
to percieve from what source
only to defend itself, but first,
its opposition will come?
One of the most pathetic fig
ures in the whole area of human
endeavor is that figure engag
ing all his good will, energy and
time against the trivial and in
consequential, thinking all the
while that - he is engaging the
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• WH4BICEY, 84 MOOf. 64* GRAIN NEUTRAL SRMMT3
THE CHOWAN HERALD, EDENTON. NORTH CAROLINA, THURSDAY, MARCH 27, I9S«.
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BELL FOR A BELLE— Ring
ing the bell for the fashion
house of Dior is the “Trapeze
Line,” introduced and first
shown in Paris by Yves St.
Laureht. This offering from
the collection features a stif
fened bell skirt and jacket with
standaway collar. Black mohair
braid edges skirt and jacket,
and ensemble is topped with a
natural straw hat in
i black velvet.
i
real foe. Quoting Emerson again,
his is the inability to distinguish
between the sound of a pop-gun
and the crack of doom. Too fre
quently we see as a threat to
| civilized tradition that which
I threatens only a part of the
whole. All too often we con
strue opposition to our narrow
partisan interest as opposition to
God’s total scheme. So we call
the enemy of mankind that
which is in fact enemy to in
dividual greed.
I Here, then, in part, is the
function of our schools. Here is
the never-ending obligation on
our part to maintain those areas
in our midst in which effort is!
unceasingly made to define real!
values, to distinguish between!
the true and the sham, and to
guarantee, without fear, everlast. I
ing freedom of pursuit.
And here, it seems, is, in part,,
a statement of the obligation
which youth cannot deny with
out doing itself irreparable harm,
the obligation which it has as
sumed by virtue of its years of
school. In comparison with the
unnumbered hordes of the earth,
these few of our schools are an
infinitely small group who have
been given a history of the time
of man. Their responsibility the
Greeks stated. And just to the
extent that youth refuses, to that
same extent does it fail to rea
lize a part of itself, to that ex
tent does it diminish society.
Its obligation is in proportion to
happiness, is measurable not in
its understanding. Its attainment,
comparison with that of others,
but according to the degree that
it develops its total being.
For the first years of our
lives, our own hearth, town, and
state are geographically all the
world. Our mbst personal de
sires and needs are in our minds
the world’s pains. As for the in
habitants of this earth, they are
ofily our parents and friends, the
people we hail in passing every
day. What we know of church
and state, our convictions and
prejudices, is that which we have
inherited. It is a part of the
emotional climate into which we
| are born.
Then as youth we begin to
reach out —to discover land be
yond land, range beyond farther
range, to catch glimpses of other
men, other times, to hear of sor
row and pain as yet to us un
known, to discover masses of the
earth’s people living under
strange gods, of systems of gov
ernment even older than our
own, of cultures which flourish
ed long before our land had a
name.
What is it then in reaching
out that we do finally learn?
That as an individual,- as a state,
as a religion, we are merely
part of an immense design. Can
we any longer feel with author
ity that ours is the only way?
That our corner of land is the
center of the universe and that
all others live in our shadow
because they to us are unknown?
Is it not the real function of the
schools to prepare for this dis
covery of the world beyond?
When we go out from home,
the farther we go, the more ob
vious our limitations .become,
the greater the perspective we
achieve upon the place of our
birth, even the people we love.
Distance and perspective are not
always kind. Often with discov
eries about ourselves and home,
loneliness descends. For re
assurance that we are not lost,
1 that home is a fair land, we need
!to repudiate all that is strange,
ito ridicule and reject that which
does not confirm what we al
ready believe to be true. Every
where we must look for some
image of ourselves.
Again, nothing less than the
acquired wisdom of man, pro
tected in our schools and li
braries, can hold for our youth
the long and lasting view. In
these libraries from the great
metropolitan facades of marble
and stone to the dark, crowded
little rooms of remote villages,
sometimes unclaimed, some
times unknown, does lie in trust
what man has saved.
If we do go out in distrust of
the foreign, in fear of quest, it
is probably better that we do not
go at all.
Os course, this does not mean
that home is not fair, that known
ways are not sound.
It means that such a spirit—
blind adherence to that which
gives temporary comfort and
importance —is not the way of
growth.
So, perhaps, the final words
which were spoken to a graduat
ing class may have some relev
ance for us all.
Let us not 1 ' reject all that is
alien nor discredit all that we
cannot understand. If we go out
with the intention of reducing
the world to our scale, we will
defeat our education before it
, begins.
Youth's growth, its maturity,
will come when it has the cour
age to stretch its understanding
to areas where it has never be
fore reached.
A novelist of this state once
remarked, during World War II
that as she followed the ac
counts of the young men who
had gone out into the far places
of the world in battle from the
little country towns that she
knew, that time and again she
saw them extending themselves
to proportions hitherto un
dreamed.
In the years ahead let us not
deny ourselves so much of life
by making all things, all men,
ail ideas, into our own image.
Let us have the courage, rather,
to reach out, to expand our mind
and hearts to leave behind some
thing created so that men may
know that we have not dimin
ished, but added to, the life of
our time.
, wmmi^ aoa
Weekly Devotional
Column
By JAMES MacKENZIE
—— l
"Behold, the King cometh 1
unto thee ..." (Malt 21:5:
words spoken by Jesus on
Palm Sunday).
Behold thy King. If you are
a child of God, your King is Je
sus .Christ, King pf Kings and
Lord of Lords. Behold Him, con
sider Him, for He is unique i*
history.
Some years ago two agnostics,
one a lecturer, the other an au
thor, were traveling together, and
the lecturer suggested the author
write a novel about Jesus, depict- •
ing Him as a man, and nothing |
more. The lecturer was Robert \
G. Ingersoll, the author, Lew
Wallace, agreed, and began work
on a novel, Ben Hur. But as he
considered Christ he found him
self face to face with a Person
unique in history and was final
ly compelled to confess, with the 1
centurion. “Truly this was the
Son of God.”
Consider His eternity. Other
kings are mortal, He is immor
tal. Where is Caesar? Char
elmagne? Henry the Fourth?
Dead! And the very stones that j
marked their graves have crum-i
bled into dust. But our Kingj
lives forever! Long before the!
world was created, He .lived; and 1
long after the last page of his- j
tory has been written, He will
live. There never was a time He I
FOR SALE!
KNOWN AS 306 S. OAKUM ST.
5 Room House
Lot 58 feet by 126 feet
John W. Graham
Attorney
AMERICA’S FAVORITE
FAMILY WAGON...PLYMOUTH
,agaaa»
Plymouth carries more ... does more ... provides more family fun than any other wagon in the
low-price 3 because it’s BIGGEST IN THE LO]\ -PRICE 3. You can’t buy bigger at any price!
Maybe you’re a station wagon family right now. More
Americans are each day! But do you know all the really
astonishing facts about the Plymouth wagon . . . how much
more it gives you than other wagons, at a low budget price?
Size alone is only part of it! The Plymouth wagon is
big as wagons in the high-price field that cost $5500 and
more ... but, in addition to extra size, this glamorous beauty
offers a wagonload of other features that are exclusively
Plymouth in the low-price 3!
You simply can’t get ’em anywhere else in the field.
And once you try them ~. learn how little the years-ahead
Plymouth wagon costs ... you’ll never settle for less ! Why
should yon? Your Plymouth dealer has the money-saving
story, and he’s waiting for your visit.
They don't come any bigger. station wagons
CHOWAN MOTOR COMPANY, Inc.
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wasn’t; there will never be a time
He won’t be. He was, and is,
alive forever!
Consider His possessions. Oth
er kjngs can place a value on
what they possess, but not so Je
sus. The world is His, for He
made it; He own s the cattle on a
thousand hills, the wealth in ev
ery mine, the sun, moon, and
stars. French kings of old prid
| ed themselves on having so many
palaces; St. Cloud, Tuileries,
Versailles, palais Royale, Luxem
bourg; but our King has the
whole earth for His palace. The
mountains are His picture gallery,
the oceans His fountains, the sun
His chandelier, the forests His
parks, and you and I His servants.
Consider His power. Other j
kings can gauge their power; so
many men, so many ships, soj
many weapons. But who can
place a limit on the power of,
Christ? He has but to speak and !
it is done. Vain it is for kings
of earth to set themselves against
Him (Psalm 2). They are power
ful, But He is all-powerful.
Consider His compassion, His
availability. Other kings look
upon their subjects as stepping
stones to their own selfish ad
vancement, but not our King.
He came to minister, not to be
ministered unto; to serve, not to
be served. Other kings burden
their servants down, but not our
King. His yoke is easy, and His j
burden is light (Matthew 11:28-'
30). Other kings are difficult to j
approach, but our King invites'
us, indeed, urges us, to come at j
any moment with any problem or (
need. Other kings demand court |
dress and etiquette, but our King
extends as hearty a welcome to
the beggar in rags as to the rich
man in silk.
Is He not a wonderful King?
'ls He your King? Just now, even
as you read these words, confess
to Him your sins, accept (Him as
your Saviour, and crown Him
King of your life.
ASC Now Seeking
Tobacco Workers
Raleigh The State ASC of
fice in Raleigh has announced
plans to recruit 100 men who will
be trained as tobacco variety
identification specialists. Accord
ing to Tilman R. Walker, Chair
man of the Agricultural Stabili
zation and Conservation State
Committee, these temporary em
ployees will begin work between j
the first and the 15th of June and j
the period of work will last from !
§M§ l| I I 1 Plus tax and you*
11 JHI S# 11# RETREAOABLE TIRI
look for tho tign of WLtir'e& M
WORRY-FREE DRIVING
easy-on-your-budget k $6.95 down
deferred pay plan jjr $2.00 .weekly
SCOTT & ACKISS RECAPPING CO.’)
West Eden Street I. demon, X. C. ;
PHON’ES: Edenton 26SS—Elizabeth Citv 7513
5 big reasons why your wagon should be a Plymouth:
1 BIGGEST OF THE LOW-PRICE THREE: Big as
) wagons costing thousands of dollars more. You
can't buy bigger at any price! 122" wheelbase.
O HOLDS SO MUCH MORE THAN THE "OTHER
™ TWO": Over 7 cu. ft. more passenger and cargo
Space. Extra “secret luggage” compartment in
6-passenger models.
0 REAR-FACING 3rd SEAT: Folds flush into the
floor; you don’t have to store it outside when it’s
not in use. Eaay to enter.
A DISAPPEARING REAR WINDOW: Rolls down into
■ tailgate. Doesn’t get in the way. Only Plymouth
has it in the low-price field.
STORSION-AIRE RIDE-AT NO EXTRA COST: Only
on Plymouth in the low-price 3. Big-car luxury.
No si desway on turn* or noae-dive on stops.
!—SECTION TWO
PAGE THREE
75 to 90 days. These men, while
serving as employees of the State
ASC, will visit fields throughout
the State on which flue-cured to
bacco is planted to determine if
the tobacco being grown has
characteristics similar to the “dis
count varieties”, Coker 139, Coker
140, or Dixie Bright 244.
Mr. Walker requests that quali
fied persons obtain Application
I Forms (SF 57) from their local
: post office and file this applica
tion with the State ASC Office,
State College Station, Raleigh.
He emphasized, however, that
persons filing must meet certain
qualification standards and the
fact that they meet these stand
ards must be borne out by infor
mation on the Form 57, applica
tion blank.