THE FOOL-KILLER, PORES
KNOB,
N. C., MARCH, 1925
McADOO
Some future age will wonder who
Was William Gibbs, the McAdoo
Jt man of high intrinsic worth,
The greatest son-in-law n earth.
Now while I am his life reviewing,
He's always up and McAdooing.
He labors hard from sun to sun
His work is never McAdone.
He regulates our circustances,
Our buildings, industries, finances.
The wires keep up a constant buzz
To tell us what he McAdoes.
, But while with sympathetic cooings
I sing his varied McAdooings,
I wonder if he ever hid
A single thing he McAdid?
A SERMON ON SCHOOLS AND
SCHOLARS x
Sit up, children! Open your
oyes and take your thumbs out
of your mouths, and listen to old
Pearson reel off a few more
hanks of home-spun gospel.
Yes sir, I believe in schools and
education and books and all that
sort of thing. I also believe in
having sense enough to think for
yourself without some hatchet
faced and hawk-nosed ojd "per
f essor" having to stand over you
and grease your mental wheels
with second-hand slobber from
the Greek philosophers.
What in the name of Charles
W. Eliot's night-shirt is a school
supposed to be for, anyhow?
Does anybody know? I've got it
sorter mapped out in my think
ory that a school ought to be a
place where a young-un could
learn how to think for itself.
Learn a child how to learn, and
then you needn't be uneasy about
the rest of it. He will go right
oh learning in spite of every
thing if he's got ordinary sense
and ain't too blamed lazy to keep
his eyes open.
But our modern schools, so
far as I can find out, are not in
terested in learning the child
how to learn 'how to think and
reason for himself. They've got
about seventeen million tons of
old mouldy, moth-eaten and mil
dewed "facts" (and half of them
are lies at that) which they try
to cram into the Student's head
like packing meat-skins into a
soap-grease gourd. And after
they are packed in, the student
will have just about as much use
for them in real life as the devil
wrould have for a pair of skates.
Why, thunder and blazes!
You can't take three or four
hundred boys and gals and pour
them into a hopper and have
them come out all just alike,
each one knowing just the same
things that the others know, and
thinking just like all the rest.
They just won't do it. They can't
do it. And it wouldn't be right
if they could. No two young-uns
in this world are just exactly
alike to start with, and all the
schools this side of the Garden
of Eden tan' t make them alike.
Each and every child not
only in school, but in the home
and everywhere ought to be en
couraged to be an individual and
not a mere cog in a wheel. The
child's natural bent or inclination
should be discovered as early as
11 1 1 . 1 -a "H
possioie, ana ne snouia be en
couraged to develop in the direc
tion of his strongest talent. Then
he would go gladly and without
driving, and he would make a
success of it. But instead of
that, the schools try to grind out
feo many hundred professional
dummies all just alike and settle
them down to trades and prof es
sions that they hate, and you
had just about as well throw
them in the river before they are
weaned.
Now, as you probably know, I
am just a common back-woods
hill-billy who never went to
school any hardly, and I am not
supposed to know much of any
thing. I don't claimto have any
education at all. But having
been a reader and thinker for
many years, it is possible that I
have picked up a few stray ideas.
Anyhow, I ai often made to
wonder whether I would have
been much better off if I had
gone through the schools. Once
in awhile I come in contact with
people who have been to the
schools and the colleges, and I
try to talk with them in order to
learn something. But when I
have tried to talk with these
school people about the very
things that they are supposed to
know the things that any intel
ligent person ought to know I
have often been very much sur:
prised to discover that they did
not seem to know half as much
as I knew myself . I have actual
ly had to "talk down" to them,
if you know what that means.
Usually they are as blank and
dumb as a sack of oats and don't
seem to know nor care whether
Education is a brain disease or a
new kind of soap.
If I had been tq. school as much
as some folks in this country,
and still didn't know any more
than they seem to know, blame
taked if I wouldn't tie myself to
a toy balloon and sail off into the
wifderness like a cotton-weed
blossom.
A LOVE STORY
Sam Short saw Sally Sprig-
gins. Sally Spriggins saw Sam;
short. Sam seemed sorely smit
ten. Sally sorter smiled. Some
strange, sweet sensation seemed
silently set soulward. Sam signi
fied such sensation, so Sally soon
saw something serious, seemed
sure. Sam said Sally's smiles
shed sweetness. Sally said Sam's
speech sounded sorter silly.
Several Sundays saw Sam
sporting Sally. Saying some
sentimental sentence, Sam sort
er sighed. Sally sat silent.
Suddenly Sam, seeming
strangely stirred, spoke saying:
"Say, Sally, suppose sdmebody
sought spouse, should somebody
succeed ?"
Sally simply said: "Seek sire,
Sam, seek sire." So Sam sought
Sire Spriggins. Sire Spriggins
said, "Sartin."
At Madill, Oklahoma, there is
a law firm by the name of Ryder
& Hurt. How cruel ! They ought
not to Ryder if it Hurts.
AN ESSAY ON GROWTH
Herbert Spencer lemme see
what was I going to say about
Herbert Spencer ? Oh, well, it
don't matter. He hasn't got a
thing to do with this piece, no
how. What I really want to talk
about is the question of a man's
mental growthf and development
from one stage of his life to
another.
Any man who is worth a dried
apple cuss, and who tries to use
his mind at all, will certainly
grow and change in his mental
make-up as he passes on through
the years. If he does not, he is
a dwarfed and stunted creature
and an object of pity. He may
make money and bluff his way
through the world and pass off
for a success; but if his mind
gets in a rut and stays there he
has missed all the zest and tang
of living.
I am thankful that I have not
remained in a mental rut. I am
proud of the fact that I have
grown and developed and chang
ed. Since that momentous day
fifteen years ago when I started
The Fool-Killer I have seen many
sides of life and felt just about
all of the sharp corners. But
every step of the way has been
a continual unfolding a new
view and a better view of life's
landscape.
I have passed through valleys
of shadow, and I have stood on
hilltops of light. I have identifi
ed myself with different intel
lectual movements at different
times, and they were all good.
They were good in themselves,
and they were good for me at
that stage of my career. Just as
the child starts at A B C and
moves up through grade after
grade, so I studied the lessons of
life as I came to them.
But the different intellectual
movements and the lessons they
taught me were not stopping
placesthey were only mile
posts on the road. And what
traveller would quarrel with the
mile-post because he must pass
it and go on ? If it has told him
the truth it has served a useful
purpose and earned his thanks.
I started out fifteen years ago
to be a brass-faced monkey, be
cause that was all I knew how to
be. ' A few years sobered me and
opened my eyes to the serious I
i mi r j i j i T
siae oi me. men l wanted to De
come a teacher and impart to
others what I had learned. Tried
it. Discovered, to my amaze-1
ment,- that the others knew all
they cared to know and didn't
want to be taught. In short, I
became disillusioned, and that
was another mile-post. No man
knows very much until he learns
that the world is a durned fool
and cannot be taught any sense.
That's the hotel I am putting up
at tonight. Come in and take
pot-luck with me, for tomorrow
I must try the road again.
"What is real happiness?"
asks an exchange. Why, Buddy,
it's what you still wouldn't have
if you had everything you think
you want.
A ONE-SIDED CURIOSITY
Into the sweet seclusion of my
thoroughbred thinkatorium has
drifted, from Inglewood, Cali
fornia, two or three copies of
"Queen Silver's Magazine." The
editor is a girl who claims to be
only fourteen years old, and she
claims that her, name is Queen
Silver. If that is her own real
name she is lucky in having a
name that is unique and distinct
ive. It is different it stands put
and would attract attention any-
where.
But, after all, the name isn't
as, "different" as the girl. If she
is really the author of all the
stuff she prints in her magazine
she is one of the wonders of the
world for intellect. The maga
zine has 16 pages ,three columns
to the page, and it is chuck full
of the most brilliant infidelity
that I have ever seen. Even
Haldeman-Julius is a back-number
when it conies to straight-out
and clear-cut denial of God and
everything connected with a be
lief in God. She is an evolution
ist of the most pronounced type,
and she prints her picture with
a monkey in her lap to prove that
she is akin to the monkey. And
I am nearly convinced, because
she is just about as Ugly as the
monkey is.
This fourteen-year-old girl,
Queen Silver, says she travels
over the country and delivers
lectures infidel lectures, of
course before great audiences
in the cities. She prints these
lectures in her magazine, and
there is no denying that she is
brilliant and well-informed, with
a grasp and mastery of thought
that would puzzle' the philoso
phers. J
But there is evident in the work
of this brilliant child one great
lack. She is all brain. The most
careful study of her work reveals
ho sign nor symptom of a heart.
She is as cold as an iceberg and
as unlovable as a. marble statue.
With all of her learning, I don't
suppose she knows there is such
a thing as love in the world.
Kindness, gentleness and affec
tion would have no meaning for
her. That's the kind of charac
ter that grows out of infidel soil.
The greatest brain in the world
is not worth much unless there
is some heart to work with it.
And even a heart isn't worth
much unless there is some God
in it.
A SILENT NOISE
On page 176, of the Interna
tional Book Review for. February
I find this remarkable statement :
tt
The silence of Alfred Noyes
during the past three or four
years has been one of the mys
teries of the literary world." A
silent Noyes ! Did you ever hear
that sort of a noise? And did
you ever hear that one about the
oyster and the noise? Here it
is : "What sort of a noise annoys
an oyster most? A noisy noise
annoys an oyster most." Sj it
seems that Alfred Noyes is not a
noisy Noyes here of late.