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&\xt- -fflmnklin Ifrxtz* nnb <l\xt Jii^Jblanits ^intattmn VOL. I. XVI Number 46 Published every Thursday by The Franklin Press At Franklin, North Carolina ? > Telephone No. 24 Entered at Post Office, Franklin, N. C., as second class matter. WEIMAR JONES.... Editor BOB S. SLOAN .Business Manager SUBSCRIPTION RATES: One Year ' $2.00 Six Months $1.25 Three Months .75 Single Copy.... .06 Obituary notices cards of thanks, tribute* of reaped,. by Individuals, lodge*, churches, organizations or societies, witt be regarded as advertising and inserted at regolar classified advertising rates. Suck notices will be marked adr." in compli ance, with the postal requirements. What Is Education All About? j.. (I<etter From a Dad to his College Freshman Daughter) Dear Daughter: This letter is an attempt to put on paper some of the things I believe most parents feel when their daughters (and sons, too) firrt <ro away to college. Probably nothing 1 shall say vv'll be new, and some of it may seem a bit trite. I believe, though, it has the virtue of being true ? and I am sure vou already have begun to discover that the truth rarely is brand new. t have intentionally delayed writing this until now, to give you time to become accustomed to college. By now you undoubtedly ar ? beginning to - feel at home. By now, too, I hope you are begin ning to ask yourself a question : "Why am I in college?" You are there, for course, in part because you thought your parents wanted you to go to college; in part, too, because going to college is considered the thing to do. But if those are your only reasons, then the money spent on your education will be largely wasted; far more important, your time will be. If you are like most young people ? and many adults ? you surely have begun to ask yourself .such questions as . . . "What good is a college education? To what practical use can I ever put physics and history and English literature? What is the purpose of all this? In short, how will spending four years in col lege help me to earn a living when I finish college?" The answer, of course, is that it won't. And I think the rest of the answer is that it never was in tended to. It is a mistake, it seems to me. to try to find a connection between a so-called liberal arts education and financial income in later years There is a connection, a very direct and important one, between purely vocational education and :a n ing a living. Furthermore, each of us shou'd be n'i'c to ?arn his own living, and any of us would he fool ish to try to do it today without specialized train ing in how to do a specific kind of work. ,, Why, then, non-vocational training? If it won't help to earn a living, isn't it rather an impractical waste of money and time? The answer obviously would be yes, except for one thing? life isn't always and solely a practical matter. If all of our thoughts and all of our actions were confined to the strictly practical, with never a moment for a sunset or a .song or a book ? if life were exclusively practical, I think most of us would commit suicide. Fortunately life is more than just earning a liv ing ; life is made to be lived. How can a college education help you to make a life? It can by giving you some understanding of life and of the world you live in. And there must be understanding before there can be the deep appre ciation and enjoyment that make for a satisfying life* Four years in college, if you use the time wisely, will give you some insight into the complexities of this modern world, and enough knowledge of peo ple to enable you to get along with your fellows ; and it will at least start you on the road to an und esstanding and appreciation of all the beautiful and fine things in the world and in life ? an understand ing broad enough, I hope, to make vou tolerant ? >? not of ignorance and ugliness and injustice, but of the many people you will find who are ignorant and ugly and unjust, but who, underneath, are much like you and me. * * * Then there is another side to the picture. <None of us, even if we wished, can liVe alone. We must live with our fellows, and each of us owes some thing to fhem and to the society of which we are a part. We owe something, too, to the past, and to the future. Consider our material blessings and, even more important to our happiness, our freedoms ? these thing* mott American* take for granted. But stop and think ! They did not just happen ; and you and I have done little either to win or,to deserve them. Each of them was paid for, somewhere in the past, with the thought -and the sweat and the determina tion and the tears and the ^jlood of those indomi table men and women of the past who built for us nearly all we have today. How can we even begin to repay that debt to the" past unless we contribute something to the future. And how can we contribute to the future ? and this is especially applicable under a democratic form of government ? unless we are good citizens today? And how can we be good citizens unless we have some understanding of the complex world in which this relatively young democracy of ours is fighting for its life? In the light of those questions, what inadequate citizens we would be indeed, if our education were, designed to enable us to earn a living for ourselves and our families ? and to do nothing more ! ' * * * Now to come back- to those specific questions about physics and history and literature. Unless you major in it, the physics you will get in college will never have any financial value to you. But the whole world has been revolutionized by the splitting of the atom, and that process is based on physics. How, then, can any one begin to under , stand what Is happening in this atomic age with- / out a grasp of at least the basic law.s of physics? And history. Why is it worth while to know what happened to men long since dead and gone? The answer, I think, is that the only possible way to understand today, and to meet its problems, is through a knowledge of yesterday ? which was to day's parent. How can you understand anything at all about Soviet Russia without some knowledge of the hundreds of years of Russian slavery under the czars? Or how can you understand, and try to pre serve, American freedoms unless you .know some thing about the American Bill of Rights, and why it was written? Literature? Nowhere can you become better ac quainted with the workings of human nature than in great literature! And while we could not have split the atom without physics, we cannot under stand why that achievement was translated into a bomb without an understanding of people. But again, life isn't all practicalities. And litera ture has its place if it had no practical value what- . ever. Many times in your life you are Ukely to feel lonely and friendless; given a taste for good litera ture, and you need never be alone or without friends. * * * Master these subjects you study! That mastery will be worth while all your life. But find time, too, to know the folk you live with, to try to understand them and thus come to like them, and to learn to get along with them by the old system of give and take. To become educated, you must develop your mind, yes. But that is not enough. Nobody is so lop sided as the person who is all intellect ; and nothing is so unattractive as a woman who is hard ... a brain in skirts. A real education develops a mind that is keen, honest, searching; along with that, it develops a warm, wholesome, likeable, understanding human being. Understanding, and the tolerance it creates, are the world's greatest needs today. And I hope you will not think me too old-fashioned wh6n I suggest that they are doubly important in a woman; that understanding and sympathy are the first requisites for tlte biggest job any woman ever undertakes, the creation of a home for her husband and children. Devotedly, Dad. 4 Still Think So No criticism, direct or implied, was intended in last week's editorial to which Mayor R. M. Dillard refers in his letter on this page. On the contrary, The Press feels that the present town administra tion is doing a good job, and has said ,so on more than one occasion. We simply offered a suggestion. Commenting on the cutting of a big shade tree near the courthouse, we suggested that the town adopt the policy of planting a young tree when it is necessary to cut an old one. We thought that was a good idea. We still think so. Our American Civilization All of us talking about progress; each of us meaning something different.. Shouting about majority rule; forgetting that majorities can be tyrants, too. + North Carolinians battling for years" for anti stream pollution legislation; those same Tar Heels fueling very virtuous when they get a law on the books as toothless as a new-born babe. Carl P. Cabe, machinist -opera tor at The Press, is shown above at his Intertype. On - this complicated machine he sets the type for all reading matter, most of advertisements and the headlines, besides the general ran of Job and book work. Mr. Cabe, who has a wide range of experience with typesetting machinery, keeps this one in such condition that it rarely fives serious trouble. Newspaper Shop Talk Mostly About Us One of the marvels of any newspaper Is the typesetting machine. Even after decades spent around these remarkable machines, newspaper folic still find them fascinating to watch. It is to one of these machines that a news story, after a re porter has written it and an ed itor has edited it and written a head for It, goes next. There the operator turns the words into type, not of single letters but of lines ? hence the name, Lin-o-Type. (The Intertype The Press uses is a variation of the Linotype.) Made up of thousands of parts, this machine was one of the most complex known to man when It was Invented in 1885 by Ottmar Mergenthaler, a nat uralized American of German birth. Even today, in this ma chine age, it remains tine of the most intricate of devices. In the old days, type had to be set by .hand, one letter at a time. Then, after the paper was printed, all this type had to be distributed ? that is, returned to its cases, ready for use again. The typesetting machine was the first step in revolutionizing the printing industry toward the speed in production it has at tained. A modern typesetting machine is equipped with several maga Continued On Pace Five ? t ? Letters MAIN STREET TREES Dear Mr. Editor: Your brief editorial under the title of "A Simple Solution" was very timely and one that should interest all citizens of our little town. When the maples mentioned were ordereji removed by your Board of aldermen, it was not done to satisfy the wishes of any group, notr wfis it done without due consideration to the beautifying of that part of Main street from which they were taken. The trees west of the courthouse, which have already been removed, were just ready to fall. As a matter of fact, one of these trees was pushed down by the workmen who were em ployed to remove them. The maples now standing on that side of Main street have been so crowded by the concrete sidewalk and curbing that their roots are now almost atop the gorund. The sidewalk, as you will observe, has been pushed up and broken In many places. These trees In their present condition have become dangerous not only to pedestrians but to driven or parked automobiles as well. A landscape architect is to be consulted to determine the best method of the beautlficatlon of the space (In front- of the new Nantahala Power and Light company building) from which other trees are to be removed. Due to the crowded conditions caused by the sidewalk and curbing, it would seem impracti cable to undertake to replace these trees with other shade trees. There Is not sufficient space to support the roots. These old trees have been a source of beauty and have been Continued On Page Five ? ? Others' Opinions PRAISE WITH CAUSE Utilities commissions often find much to criticize in the operation of private power companies? sometimes with cause, sometimes not. Reversing this .role, the State Utilities commis sion finds much to praise In approving an application of the Nantahala Power and' light company of Franklin for authority to build a new hydro-electric plant on the east fork of the Tuckasegee River. "This company," says the commission, "has followed a policy of expanding its facilities steadily to keep ahead *of the grow ing power needs of the citizens of the area which It serves. . . . By using the latest In construction methods, Nantahala has been able to develop water power economically so that farmers and townspeople, Industries and commercial users have all the power they need. In the extension of lines to rural people, Nan tahala leads the state. More than 95 per cent of the rural homes In their territory have electricity, and It Is planned by the end of 1952 that every home In the territory will have electricity available." Nantahala's record Is praised with good cause. It is a record In which the people of the counties west of Asheville take more than a little pride. Where a private utility serves Its people by anticipating their needs, there need be no fear of? and no need for? the competition of public power. More than lnclden : .. i . n i Business Making News ? By BOB SLOAN" The other Say an Incident occurred which brought to my mind a problem which Franklin and the people out In the coun try. In surrounding communities face. -""s One day last week the lire alarm sounded and the Frank lin Fire department (which I think is a credit to thi town and one of the best in a town this size In the state) respond ed. The ftre was out. in the country. The Franklin fire de partment went to this fire, quite rightly without asking questions as to the regulations. But whiter they were out there they had with them all of the town of Franklin's fire fighting equip ment. We wonder if it is good * business for a town the size of I Franklin (population 1975) with 1 a tax valuation of $2,505,590.00, * to be left without fire protec tion. i If the town of Franklin (as it has always in the past) is going to provide fire protection for adjoining communities at the same time leaving its own property unprotected that's risky business. We have a sug estion to make which we be lieve would help this situation. To insure that there Is fire fighting equipment available at all times another fire truck Is needed. We suggest that since this equipment at times would be used outside the city limits that the county share part of the expense of purchasing an additional truclt for the Frank lin fire department. We be lieve that this would be good business and fair business. ? * * We mote with pride that the Nantahala Power and Light company has been cited by the State Utilities Commission tor Its outstanding work In the de velopment of rural electric serv ice in the mountain counties lt-^ serves. Included in the citation was the statement "that Nan tahala has brought light and power to more than 95% of the rural homes in its territory and plans to have the perfect 100% by the end of 1952". We feel sure that under the present (Turn to Back Page 1st Section) Do You Remember? (Looking backward through the files of The Press) 50 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK Charley Reese now wears the town marshal's badge, having been selected to succeed Jule Jacobs. Too many people have gone into the church under the Im pression that "salvation Is tree", thinking It meant they would not be duty bound to help pay the preacher. Franklin's "cussing club" seems to be doing a prosperous busi ness If cuss words are any In dication. It has quite a number of active members. It's just about the seaspn now that the great meteoric shower is expected to be ripe. All who wish can sit up tonight and to morrow night and star-gaze, provided clouds are not In the way. ? h 25 YEARS AGO At the football game last Thursday Major S. A. Harris found a fifty -cent piece. N He foolishly spoke of his good luck and within 15 minutes there were, by actual count, 16 men and one boy who claimed to have lost the coin. Mr. Van B. Shepherd and family, of Gastonla, have been vtsiting friends and relative* In Macon this week. Mr. Shepherd is a native of this county and has numerous friends here who are always glad to welcome him home. 10 YEARS AGO Last week the Clark's Chapel school organized a literary so ciety In each room, naming them "The Busy Bees", and "The Willing Workers". Sanders Department store Is now established in the new building adjoining the Bank of Franklin. The senior class of Highland* High school attended the Ander son county fair In Anderaon, 8. C., last Friday, under the chap eronage of Mayor and Mrt W. H. Cobb.
The Franklin Press and the Highlands Maconian (Franklin, N.C.)
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Nov. 15, 1951, edition 1
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