Newspapers / The State’s Voice (Dunn, … / Dec. 15, 1934, edition 1 / Page 1
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Price $1.00 a Year DUNN, N. C., DECEMBER 15, 1934 NUMBER 23 GETTING •JJL A Continuation of the Discussion of Educational Problems Begun In the Issue of December 1. v “Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore pet wisdom, and with ail thy getting get UNDERSTANDING*—Proverbs IV, 7. This article is a continuation of the discussion of educational problems Jbegun in the laBt issue of the State’s Voice. First let us acquaint you with the re-actions of a few of our readers to the former article. Former Article Receives Acclamations. After reading the article in the issue of De cember 1, Mr. Jesse A. 'Williams, banker of Waxhaw, who had just subscribed for the Voice, said the educational article was worth the dollar he paid for a year’s subscription. Mr. Williams is a member of the school committee for his town. Dr. D. T. Smithwick, of Louisburg, a rather omnivorous reader, wrote, as follows under date of December 7: - •: ^ “I believe your article in the Statens Voice of December 1, ‘Do the Schools’ Products Function Properly’, is the most valuable article that has appeared in any paper this year.”—?-( North Caro lina paper, I assume, the Doctor means.—Editor). One of the ablest members-elect of the next General Assembly, wrote: “I read with much pleasure your article on Schools in die December 1 issue of your>paper. I hope you will'write some more about ' ’ ’ ... CapVS» for the ^Eastern as follows: - 5-.. * , " “My phief clerk, Mrs-Bateman-of one of the eastern counties, today came into iny office, and pointing to your paper praised you as much as anyone could have done—your ears should have burned. Certainly, I agreed.with all he said. I am sure he was carried away by your article on Schools.” Before proceeding, -let us thank these gentle men, representing five counties, and others, for their generous appreciation and approval. It is good to know that at least part of my fine list of “thinking men” do find the Voice worthy of close reading. I fear many, overloaded with reading matter and being the busiest of men, have failed to read not only that article but others of equal significance upon other topics. However, it is gratifying to note that Attorney Willis G. Briggs, of Raleigh, writes that he believes the Voice is more thoroughly read than most papers and that he is preserving a file of the copies. This some what allays my fears that my big guns are not being Recognized as such simply because they are not being heard. Too many people are afraid of a long article; yet it requires a whble book to discuss some questions—and some people actually read whole volumes! The Sine-Qua-Non of Education. Readers of the former article recall that it con sisted largely of an analogy between the Ford au tomobile plant and the public school system. Therein it was stated that two of the sine-qua nons of an automobile—;of any make or quality are the carbureter and the ignition system, with out which a Packard would be more worthless than a wheelbarrow, since the basic purpose of e^ery car is to transform powV produced by the combustion of gasoline into motive power. The implication was, or is, that the schools are too frequently failing to provide those essentials in its products, and that therefore young men and women are coming from thfe schools utterly un equipped to function properly, whatever the ele gance or cost of the bodies and accessories, speak ing figuratively. . . Rut it is well to give a name to the power-pro ducing essential of a human-being. \I ®b^ethe good old Anglo-Saxon word, UNDERSTAiNT) fRO. And I feel that I have good authority for thus naming the prime essential of the educated man or woman. So soon aq the carbureter uod the ignition system have functioned in hn auto mobile engine, the power that drives au^ Austin X or a Rolls Royce exists. A naked wire in the igni tion system of our Ford hindered us an hour on a recent journey. After the power is produced, and only then, do other features of the car mat ter at all. That UNDERSTANDING plays an equally basic part in any successful equipment of a' youth I affirm upon the word of Solomon him self, who says, presumably of God, “I have un derstanding; I have Strength”—or power. That r is as if an automobile should say: “I have a carbureter, pistons, and an ignition system; I can produce power/' Understanding is the generator of power, or strength; Wisdom must direct the utilization of that strength. 0 yes; the generation of the power is the sine-qua-non of an automobile, but it takes a whole lot more of mechanisms to convert that power into motive force and to direct it in producing the smoothly gliding par. Wisdom, in -the educational scheme, performs that part with respect to the power produced by Understanding. It will be worth the reader’s' time tb* turn to.^be Bible Concordance, and follow out therein, with out looking up the passages, the many suggestions as' to the functions of “wisdom” and “understand ing.” But I am concerned today chiefly with “Un derstanding,” which I declare to be the prime es sential of all-education. Wisdom cajinot function without it; yet' without Wisdom, of which' the upon-ife'Highway • of>life. -The Understanding ' man knowsffhe dangers of therrodd ; the wise man' avoids them. The child- knows how to1 walk; Wisdom jnust choose his.paths. But only the Understsftidihg can Jhear the- voice of Wisdom. The Task of the Schools, The supreme task of the schools, then, is to help the pupils get understanding—to equip them with understanding minds—and to lead them into the paths of wisdom. It is the result that counts, not the means. An understanding mind, directed by wisdom, is an achieving mind, whether its owner ever attended school a day or not. The mind without the power and the habit of understanding is a fruitless mind, whatever number of diplomas or degrees its owner may have secured. But the schools should be, and are, the chief reliance for producing understand ing minds. Occasionally a person is endowed with a natural subsoiler. He as naturally goes to the bottom of things as does a ground mole. You cannot prevent such a person from becom ing a man of a considerable degree of understand ing, but even the schools can hinder his attaining kis’potential maximum by practicing, so generally and persistently, a skimming process instead of a sub-soiling one. And that, I believe, is being done in the cases of ten-talent pupils. The plow is set for three-inch furrows instead of 12 or 18 men ones. I saw a, tractor, right out there on the street the other day, drawing a harrow frame with fonr great sub-soilers, similar to the arms of cant; hooks. There was power and inclination to plunge into the earth. A three-foot strip of the road was being pierced to its very bowels by the sub-soiling monster. I thought what such a ma chine would do for the deep red soil of Chatham county, opening up the sub-soil for aeroration and as a reservoir for moisture! But what would an eight-hundred-pound mule do with any such machine! And what folly to place one tiny four-prong rake or a garden hoe behind that mon iter tractor! Yet analogous things are being done in the schools. The youth with a fifty-H. B. mind 4s being geare4 to the very same machine as'the 1—2 H. P. mentality. The same procedure —W of both.'. The gear is set to suit the mentality ofaveragrpower. The time and talent oi-"fciie finest minds, menfahties that properly de veloped: should one day serve to sub-soil the age longeconomie and sociological hardpans that We so persistently defied even new-deal mental ities—yea, the very brain-trusts—and of the ex 9 istence of which to this very day “big business” is utterly ignorant,/having blithely-ploughed above them all its'days. On the other hand, the puny lings are losing their opportunity to take their little garden hoes and thoroughly dig and pulver ize their tiny cabbage patches. But the curriculum must Be rub by the whole aggregation, even if a third of the class muSt be dragged along by the hair of their heads and the capable find the run only a boring and futile process! So much for the “course of study” that is proving a curse, to half the students -in our schools and a bar 'to the exercise of whatever skill in developing understandings the teachers may. have. - .... . - > . Lack of. Thoroughness a Deadly Menace. To Understanding. I have incidentally in the above paragraph suggested the two necessary factors in developing the understandings of all grades of native men talities. The child with, the’ garden-hoe mental ity must he kept to his little patch till it is thor oughly sub-soiled and pulverized. The acreage' and. difficulty of the hard-pan must be gauged in accord, with the capacities of the children up to that of the fifty-talented youth,; whose tractor like mentality must he>given sufficient area, con taining roots, stumps, boulders, and whatever. ? you have, to engage biWfwJwer-s and develop them j^Jheir^hfig^sh capacities. -^©<‘Oharapio« bqier „ • or wrestler was ever trafned hy. playing “cat^” or marbles. Tq fail either in tBdrnughness.6r,.itt'. providing a sufficiently difficult task for the de veloping minds is fatal to both weaklings and giant. Potential or actual giants can become the laziest souls alive. Here you have the explana tion of the traditional failure of the high-honor man of the class—not his talents, but the habits formed by the travesty of teaching which he has undergone, have undone him? Unschooled- he might have-become a Patrick-Henry, a Lincoln, an Andrew Johnson. But the. schools have killed his initiative, lowered his aspirations, developed a habit of loafing, and benumbed his intellectual- = ity, so that he perhaps has not even delved to-the bottom of the little hard-pan that was laid out for his breaking. I have only to look in a mirror to see the image of one who came near ruin by that process. All that saved him was the little wisdom that he had acquired as a lad and the lack, of funds to finance a course of debauchery for which the loafing time provided—saved him from the worthlessness which such an educational process is capable of begetting. And, don’t forget teachers, that the saving grace of the fear of the Lord, which “is the beginning of wisdom,” is ac countable for his escaping the fate which nigh overwhelmed-him. Two hours a day of casual study and a dozen, hours of loafing on class and campus is no regimen to produce understanding minds, persistent sub-soiling, or minds trained in the ways of wisdom. Yet there was plenty of sub-soiling if he had been. directed to it and en couraged to do it. - - - . Not the Depth ot the Digging dui Water Produces the Well, I have said above that lack of thoroughness, whatever the kind of mentality, is fatal. When one digs a well it is not a well till a supply <» water wells up. When the North Greenville Bap tist Association of South Carolina built its acad emy on a high hill overlooking the village of Tigersville forty-odd years ago, diggers set to work to get a well upon that height. Down through solid rock they went many feet;.lost hope and moved to another site lower down the hill. There they dug many feet, became discour aged and quit. When I went there as principal of the . school in 1898, the two dry holes were there, but water for the school had to be lugged up that steep hill from the village wells. All the digging in one place, I have always felt quite sure, would have produced a plenteous supply of water. But .they quit, before they “understood” (Concluded at Foot of Column 1, Page 2). ixM& ' % . 1'. & -i-p-rtf'-.#* *' ’ ■**..* W§.
The State’s Voice (Dunn, N.C.)
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Dec. 15, 1934, edition 1
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