1214 
Tshtt RURAL. NEW-YORKER 
October 20, 1017 
Pcistoral Parson and His Country Folks 
By Rev. George B. Gilbert 
Fear of 8cnooi..—The other night as which shows how careful both teachers 
Mrs. Parson and the Ibirson sat reading 
about the parlor table, we heard a sob- 
lung upstairs and hurrying up we found 
the third boy in tears and great grief. 
Petween his sobs be kept saying “Have 
I got to go to school? Have I got to 
go to .school?” We loved him and quieted 
him and got him to sleep, and had much 
thinking for the rest of the evening. 
He had evidently got this dread of 
school from the older Poys. So often 
this last Summer I heard the boys reck¬ 
oning up when .school began and regret¬ 
ting so that the time was growing short. 
I'his dread of school had become a wor¬ 
ry to the little fellow and had gotten 
on his nerves. Why do we have schools 
that children dread and hate to go to? 
Hoes it pay—this everlasting light with 
nature to make them learn a lot of 
things in which they have no interest 
and of which the chances are they will 
never make any use? Does it pay, when, 
as Alexander says, God has given a boy 
twenty thousand muscles to move with 
iind not one to keep him still, does it pay 
for a teacher to wear herself and the 
boy out too, in trying to make him sit 
still? 
The Viewpoint. —When the Pastoral 
I’arson taught school he looked at the 
matter as these teachers do now—book 
learning was everything. Ppt how dif¬ 
ferent now! Quite often it seems as 
though those most wishing their children 
should go to college are the ones who 
never went themselves. Where we have 
iK'ver been, the imagination can build 
without limit. As the Parson looks back 
on his college course he would hesitate to 
.send or encourage any of his boys going. 
1 lo would never .send a boy to college any¬ 
way. It would have to be a case of the 
boy wanting to go himself. So much 
time the Parson spent in grinding over 
.sttidies that have never been of the 
slightest use to him I The “mental 
training” idea of these studies and dead 
languages has long isincc been exploded, 
.lust as much would Tiave been gotten 
from useful studies, and a great deal 
more from studies of some interest. 
Little ('los.sje Acai.v. —The little 
boy is now in tschool. He was seven years 
old last Spring. , Were it not for the 
strong arm of the law he would not have 
started till ho was eight. AVe have never 
sent any till they were .seven, and they 
have come right along. We hiive not tried 
to teach them a thing in the book line 
before they startetl. With good strong, 
healthy minds and bodies they will 
come along in their books a great deal 
better than when .sent so young. 
Nothing Gained. —^There is absolute¬ 
ly nothing gained by sending them to 
school so young. To our mind, a vast 
deal is generally lost. “Where i.s she 
going to .school htis year?” the Par.son 
asked as wo saw a thirteen-year-old girl 
going by the hou.se. going 
anywhere,” was the reply.' The Parson 
ha.s known this girl for years. At live in 
school she Avas a wonder. When six 
years old she wrote a three-verse poem, 
which was printed in one of the leading 
educational weeklies, ^ihe was a delight 
to the teachers and a model to the 
scholars. 
How It Ca.mk Gi t. —Pefore long, this 
girl appears with great glas.ses_ on. She 
is small of her age and thin. While 
she learns by rote, when it come to rea¬ 
soning out things she fails. tShe took 
the eighth grade over twice and' ‘then 
(luit for good. How do these youthful 
prodigies gcJihrally pan out? These 
childr'en that are all dolled up and 
trotted out alpbu every occasion to speak" 
yard.s and yaixls of iioetry? 
His Education. —Put we were talk¬ 
ing of little Clossie’s education. It is on 
in earnest. It seems to be in two parts, 
as all Gaul was divided into three; 
what he learns inside and what ho learns 
outside. The outside is rather ahead of 
the other. Adi sorts of unsiieakable 
words, vulgar and profane, have been 
brought home by thi.s little fellow. Of 
course we knew this would be so—and 
yi't it does seem too bad. Besides this, 
he is learning how to tease and jdague 
others. At school, it seems to bo to hit 
somebody or grab his hat and run and 
swipe his things tluit occupies their 
attention. It will be a long fight now 
to stamp out this miserable trait. 
Inside Education. —He is learning 
his little reading and number work 
well. He is also learning to write his 
name. We think his teacher well above 
the average and has a niee way with 
children. She seems to realize that these 
little tots cannot sit still all day, at 
least they ought not to. I think the at¬ 
mosphere of the room is happy and 
cheerful, on the whole. The Pansou hopes 
so. How terrible that so many children 
sit day after day in a vschoolroom with 
the sound of a rasping, scolding, threat¬ 
ening voice in their ears! d'lie Parson 
hopes the teachers will be honest with 
this little fellow; that they will not, like 
so many, make constant threats that 
they never.'intend to ..carry out. "We 
heard of the following case a while ago. 
and parents should be. 
He Believed Her.— A first-year little 
fellow came home from school one day, 
and rushing upstairs to his mother, 
buried his face in her lap and ci’ied as 
though his heart would break. On quiet¬ 
ing the little fello\v his mother got his 
story. The school supervisor and one of 
the school boards had been round to the 
school that day and visited each room. 
Before they entered this room the teach¬ 
er told them that if they didn’t keep 
quiet and get their lessons, these two 
men would take them and carry them off 
to another .school! After the men had 
gone .she told them they were coming 
again in the afternoon, and if they did 
not get their lessons done the men 
would take them and .shake them up I 
“Will they shake me and carry me off, 
mamma?” the little fellow kept sobbing. 
What He Learned. —What could this 
mother tell him but that these men 
would not shake him or carry him off, 
which was hut another way of .saying that 
the_ teacher lied to him, which was- the 
plain truth? And how could the little 
fellow reason otherwise than if what she 
said then was not true, why might not 
all she .said be untrue and if she lied 
to him why could he not lie to her? For 
certainly a lie is a very present help in 
time of trouble and his mother is won¬ 
dering how many times a day this 
teacher tries to frighten them by telling 
them lies! 
To Be Sneaking. —,Tust as the Par¬ 
son writes he looks out of the vindow 
and sees little Clossie coming from .school. 
George^ is .sharing the sent of his hike 
with him. How frank and honest and 
innocent he has always been I Ilut 
mother says she is watching for the 
next step in his cilucation—that of being 
sneaking. The boy who can <ait up the 
most in school without Ix'ing .seen is the 
real hero. How quickly can you 
straighten out your face and look in¬ 
nocent when the teacher turns round? 
Expert ability along this line brings ad¬ 
miring glances from both girls and 
boys. He does not yet seem to haye 
taken up this course. I’erhaiis, by some 
miracle, be won’t. 
His Picture. —Yon can see him in the 
picture, standing by the boys’ goat, just 
as he is about to start for school. All 
through the Spring’s work he and I played 
and worked together. How I miss him 
now in school, as I gather in the things: 
we planted! I suppose he is learning 
much, and things that I could (or 
would) not teach him Iiere. but I doubt 
if he’s learning faster, trying to sit still 
in his stuffy schoolroom, than he did 
while riding old Doll, bareheaded and 
barefooted, in tin' glory of God’s sunshine 
for Daddy to cultivate; or while handing 
him tools and seeds to sow, down in the 
garden by the brook. 
.. The Goat and His Horns. —:Yes, the 
goat has horns if nothing else. The 
I’arsou often threatens this fellow’.s ex¬ 
istence and declares each Fall he will 
never winter “Old Billy” again. He 
takes needed room in the ham. e\cn if ^ 
it does not take much t<> feed hirn. He 1 
The Goat and His Horns 
will draw the boys’ cart provided one 
boy goes ahead and leads him. He re¬ 
fuses to be driven, and who is to go on 
foot while the otbei*s ride is an economic 
question which the world itself has 
found it hard to solve. His chief feature 
is, as you f;ee, his horns. These attract 
much attention as he nibbles grass on the 
front lawn. The Parson has tried his 
best to arouse enthusiasm over the ap¬ 
pearance his mounted head and horns 
would make on the wall by the front 
stairway, but in vain. The boys declare 
they like Billy and Mrs. Parson says 
she loves Billy and all the Parson has ti> 
do is to feed and water him and mu.se 
to himself, as he milks old Red and old 
Black, on what a fine <‘aif he could be 
raising in the stall that Billy occupies. 
“Tone” and IIis Engine. —Yes, wi> 
filled up the silo to the brim and had a 
full acre of stalks that would not go in. 
“Tone” came to help us witli his engine. 
He is alwaA’s good-natured and happy, as 
you see him, just ready to start off’ to 
saw Avood for, this neighbor. Sometimes 
the Parson thinks he actually likes to 
have an engine , or auto stop, he knows 
.so well tb.il lie can make it run again. No 
one could guess the amount of sawing 
and silo-filling Tone has done with this 
old one-lunger Cadillac, rigged up by 
himself. Tlie barrel you see has the w.a- 
ter for cooling and is covered with a 
stri]) of canvas to keep out the bits of 
silage. He no longer uses batteries with 
The Bohemian Boy and His Engine 
her, hut removes his higli tension mag¬ 
neto from his car and uses that. 
A Genii'S. —This Bohemian boy from 
10 miles down county is a veritable 
genius. He is always doing all kinds of 
stunts with cars. No car or no electric 
starter, however intricate, seems to baf¬ 
fle him. Once he got hold of an old 
comiiound. Taking out the engine he re¬ 
placed it with an old model Ford on- 
gihe. It had a conipoimd difl’erential 
and transmission with its three speeds 
and a Ford motor old model. On one oc¬ 
casion he towed a heavy two-horse lum¬ 
ber wagon seven miles with this. t)n 
another be wa.s returning from Sayin 
Rock with his “best” girl and overtook 
his city dwelling brother in his .Tackson 
racer. Tone struck his horn a fearful 
blow and called for the road. The race 
was on, but not for long, as Tone .soon 
left the racer far behind. 
Pigs on the Farm. —After a fine din¬ 
ner of fried chicken, baked potatoes. 
The Pigs and Their Appetites 
.string beans, beets and •jnidding tlie 
I’ars<in went out to stsi the jdgs. This 
back-to-the-land woman was given up by 
(Contiiuu'd on page ll'IK.) 
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