The Abbeville press and banner. (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, December 26, 1919, Image 2
ESTABLISHED 1844.
The Press ancl Banner
ABBEVILLE, S. C.
H. G. CLARK, Editor.
The Press and Banner Company
Pubished Every Tuesday and Friday.
Telephone No. 10.
Entered as second-class mail matter at post office
^ in Abbeville, S. C.
*' Terms of Subscription:
One year .. $^.00
1 AA
Six months i.w
Three months .60
Payable invariably in advance. '
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 26, 1910.
REFLECTIONS ON CHRISTMAS.
Christmas again?and Santa Claus. Last week
to the young folks Christmas seemed a million miles
away. Today the tiny hands throughout the land
ere emptying their well-filled stockings and joy
reigns supreme. In spite of all our felicitations
there comes occasionally a tinge of sadness through
all the sweetness which is hard to explain. It may
be that we realize our shortcomings in the year
that is closing, it may be that we are wondering
whether everybody else is as happy as we are, anyway,
the feeling will creep out every now and
then, try as we may to prevent it. A fellow probably
wouldn't be much of a fellow if he didn't have
it; it must at least indicate that you are not all selfishness.
Isaac Erwin Avery, deceased, one time city editor
of the Charlotte Observer in the days of that
grand old seceder, James P. Caldwell, so aptly expressed
our feelings about the Christmas season
that we are going to pass what he had to say on to
you.
"One wonders what Christmas means to the
other fellow. To the children it is Paradise transplanted,
but men and women view it differently.
To some it is a time for love and charity; to others
a time for envy and discontent. To . some it brings
the jubilation that finally came to old Scrooge; to
v others it brings boredom.
"To a composite element of mankind Christmas
i3 a long space relieved from tediousness by a family
dinner that provides two helpings of rice and
gravy, not mince pie and sleepiness. Your oldest
relative once more tells the story of your most
youthful folly, and afterward you go into the parlor
and pick away at the nuts and raisins and
things that rest in a bowl and decorate the center
table. The youngest child in the house brings you
a fresh, smelly story book, to read upside down;
everybody resists ari inclination to stand up in front
of the grate and stretch; and somebody goes over
to the piano and plays "The Blue Bells of Scotland"
with the right forefinger. A man from a
distance has sent the daughter of the house some
American Beauty roses, and she busies herself by
carrying these from room to room, humming as
she walks. Out in the hall you hear children from
over the way bragging to your children about the
superiority of the gifts that were in their stockings.
When you go to bed that night you feel aa if you
hfid spent the day at the circus where they didn't
have any clowns; and, moreover, your sheets feel
chilly and dampish. Sheets always feel like that on
Christmas night, somehow or other.
"Christmas is like any other gala day or a big
reception. To find pleasure you mast have it inside
yourself. This statement might seem unnecessary
if it were not for the fact that in the mat
ter of happiness the vast majority of people are
utterly without personal resource. They must have
happiness thrown at them, or absorb bits of it here
and there; and when they are forced to subsist only
on the lights and thoughts that God has given
them they very properly perish with ennui. The
empty fool in search of amusement touches you at
N every corner.
"You see, there is such a hue and cry over Christmas,
and when the day comes it may easily bring
unsweetness?that let-down feeling of disappointment.
No one is allowed to approach Christmas
soberly or dispassionately. A few weeks beforehand
life may be in placid waters, but as the time
of celebration draws nigh the stream becomes a
swift cuiTent and then a vortex that whirls to and
fro, the universal multitude clutching holiday gifts.
When the storm ceases, if you are a woman and are
satisfied with what you've got you are a miracle;
if you are a man and can pay for what you have
given you are a blessed exception. This is Christmas
with the varnish off?Christmas described in
remembrance of home-knit socks that didn't fit;
inevitable indigestion; wet fingers that plastered
pink candy; useful donations that weren't useful;
and the same old snowbird on the same old white
card."
WHY THE HIGH SCHOOL?
Education consists essentially of two elements,
a trained mind and an accumulation of ideas. Our
public schools from the first grades through the
Viirrh cphnrVI should hp Hesifrneri nhieflv t.n train thp
mind, and while college work does this also, the
accumulation of ideas becomes a more important
work in a collegiate course. In our age of books,
periodicals and newspapers, ideas crowd in on us
from all sides, but all of this is of no avail unless
our minds are capable of digesting them and giving
proper weight and value to the information that
comes to hand. It requires systematic mental drill
to enable one to think logically, clearly and ably.
Ingenuity comes from within while the swift ac
cumulation of facts may be obtained from without.
The demand of these progressive days is for men
who can do things which others have not done, or
at least do things of their own initiative, which
they have not seen done before. Unless one has
become .a regular human machine, performing automatically
certain things, he will in the natural
course of events come in contact with new circumstances
and new problems in the routine of the
most ordinary work and it is the man who can solve
these problems intelligently that. oomes to the top
/ while the ignorant workman is left to form the
mudsills of society. A man can be a genius without
being an Edison. A thinking man will see how
to overcome obstacles that come in his way, even
though he has never seen the like before, while a
man who has not been trained to think may absolutely
fail. It is the man who does his work just a
little better than his fellows who becomes the foreman
while the really capable man becomes superintendent
or manager or president of the concern.
A few years ago a great political economist of
England said that the EngHsh industries suffered
more from lack of educated workmen than from
any other cause, and added that the large number
of unemployed in that country was due to the
fact that there was not a sufficient number
of intelligent men to act as foremen to operate the
industries. The hope of any nation is in its intelligent
masses and not in the cultured few. Great
leaders are necessary to blaze the way, but if the
nation is to be truly great the masses must be able
to follow and utilize the leaders' ideas for the interest
of the people.
i It is the function of our schools to build up the
minds of our boys and girls to make them keen of
intellect and resourceful in thought. A little advantage
in all things will aggregate far more in the
cause of prosperity than a few great inventions
even though these little things never appear in writ
ten history. But those little advantages plus great
inventions are still better. All. of this comes, and
| cones only, with the building of the mind.
The ends of the various grades form landmarks
which the chlidren endeavor to reach, and they frej
quently look forward to the end of the seventh
grade as the end of their education. Unfortunately
some parents right in our midst and whose keepers
v/t are, look forward to the fourteenth birthday as
the end of their child's education. Those who stop
before finishing the high school stop too soon. The
mind is not sufficiently drilled. The body is not
yet fully developed and if the body is allowed to
develop while the mind stands still, the child gets
into an intellectual rut out of which it will probably
never get out. Statistics show that one child
out of each one hundred first grade children finishes
colllege. We have in the first grade of the city
schools (white) one hundred and twenty-seven
children, which means that less than two of our
nrst graae pupus wui nmsh college.
Then take the present eleventh grade. Ten years
ago this grade had more than 50 pupils. Where
are they? We know that the death rate has never
been so high as to take away eighty percent of the
children. Yet the present eleventh grade has lost
eighty percent of its strength in ten years.
The high school forms the most important part
of a child's development for after these four years
of careful training, the mind has reached a
stage whure it will continue to grow even if no
higher course is ever taken. If one stops at the
end of the grades, his education is frequently forever
finished but if he "goes thru high school he
will continue to augment his education all the way
thru life.
It is no argument to say that we are better educated
than our fathers and that they were successful,
for we are not only competing with our fathers
but with a generation that is much wiser and keener
than those we are to succeed. The indications are
that educational improvement will continue and it
behooves us, if possible, to place our children in
such a position that in their declining days they will
not be cast into the scrap heap when they have to
compete with the generation that is to follow. Any
fool may be a descendant but it takes a real man to
be an ancestor.
THE EDGE BILL.
What is known as the Edge bill to facilitate the
foreign trade of the United States has passed both
houses of Congress and has gone to the President
for his signature. This measure, by an amendment
of the Federal Reserve act, provides for the
incorporation of concerns to finance the export
Dusmess ot tne United States so that impoverished
foreign customers may buy American goods and
the American producer or exporter can get actual
cash in payment for his commodities. Such corI
poration will be under the supervision of the Federal
Reserve Board, but there will be neither government
participation nor underwriting nor guarantee.
The object of this measure is commendable and
its limitations are safe. It permits private parties
to organize corporations to loan funds to foreign institutions
or customers for the purpose of purchasing
American goods on long time credit. It is not
compulsory but permissive. It aims to extend the
American banking system under the control of the
Federal Reserve Bank to all parts of the world?
provided private parties are willing to organize a
banking corporation and extend credit to foreign
customers. The measure will permit discounting
of drafts and bills of lading on long time credit,
giving foreign purchasers a long period in which
to pay their bills and at the same time permit
American producers to obtain prompt credit for
such bills. This machinery will carry foreign purchasers
without crippling American producers, it
is expected.?New York Herald.
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R. C. BROWNLL
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Is and Customers |
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