Image provided by: University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries, Lincoln, NE
About The Omaha morning bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 1922-1927 | View Entire Issue (June 15, 1924)
REBELLIOUS AMERICAN YOUTH KEEP NATION ALIVE I — Educators Censor All Liberalism Wells Says School System Seeks to Feed Revolution ary Ideas to Students by Orthodox Channels. Butler “U. S. Confucius” By H. fi. Wells Author o( "The Outline of History.” I.ondon, June 14.—A sure way to madden American* i* to make com parison* between the education of the United State* and western Europe. Even If the comparison 1* flattering. It leaves them mad. Apparently the belief of the auperlor education of the American citizens is becoming as sa cred a* belief in the American con stitution. Doubt Is prohibited. Visi tors to the United States may present ly have to sign a form about it. Hitherto, I have avoided or at least skirted this sensitive point. I propose to continue to skirt It. There has been one exception. I touched upon a sore place a little while ago. My mail from America came for some weeks bristling with hostility. I gave an account of elementary school teaching of England. I added casual ly that on the whole the American rural school Is worse than the Eng lish. To the best of my knowledge and belief it 1*. In many part* of the United State*, elementary education i* far below the western Europe level and the illiter acy is shocking. I was not thinking so much of the new district* In habited by fresh immigrants, but of the old, native-born American regions, like Kentucky. American* Self-Satisfied The United States is abnormally slack about Its elementary education. But Americans are in a state of Ir ritable self-satisfaction about their schools. They are refusing, almost violently, to know that their general education has not kept pace with their enormous Increase In wealth and material civilization. Morally, if not legally, I am as much a citizen of the United States as of the British em pire. Mentally, the American and British worlds are two hemispheres of one brain and I cannot think of them functioning independently. It is Just as much my business to discuss this American slackness as it Is to re prove the frightful negligence* of the British In respect of Indian educa tion. There ha* been a little, tiff between the undergraduate* and authorltien at Harvard and I find it extremely suggestive. The brighter Harvard undergraduates want to hear about radicalism and communism at first hand from people like Debs and Foster. The authorities are suppress ing these youthful aspirations. They want the young men who will pres ently sway American affairs to lie fed their knowledge of radical and revolutionary ideas by orthodox, respectable persons who have pre digested it for them, removed all its disturbing elements. Managing Versus Critical Types. There has recently been a con troversy between Bertrand Russell and President Dowell about the rela tive mental freedom of American and British universities. As Ber trand Russell was turned down for pacificism for Cambridge during the war he started in that controversy with a handicap. It seems to me that such disputes are bound to be Inef fectual. The real conflict is not be tween American and European con ditions, but between two types of men. It is a conflict that rages throughout the entire world. , Everywhere one finds the manag ing. directive, limiting type of mind with a craving to get on governing bodies. Everywhere we find also a less abundant supply of critical, skeptical, creative, restless minds, producing innovations, stimulating ideas, with an equai*tendency to get thrown out of the organizations and government bodies. They are the seed, the ferment, the living factor in the human mind. In Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler America has produced a perfect specimen of the former class, Just as in the late William James, In James Harvey Robinson, she has produced excellent samples of the second. It is loudly boasted In British In tellectual circles that Britain could not have produced Dr. Nichols* Mur ray Butler, but *o far a* I am able to.Judge, there 1* ** much Nicholas * Murray Butlerlstn in Britain a* In America, as much large, empty, ac tive, Influential pretentiousness Butler American Confucius. For the peculiar evil of the govern ing body type 1s its failure to under stand. it* lack of finality. It haa no sense of the unknown. It want* to fix knowledge in If* own imsge, to make it subsidiary, to apportion It, departmentalize the work of gifted, disturbing men. It seeks to set up the classics, to perpetuate existing Institutions, to Inaugurate ancestor worship. Dr. Nicholas Murray But ler is to be the American Confucius, to stereotype this perfect world of 1324, the last of the foundera Coming generations will learn that at this point the world congealed. The thing thia dominating type dreads aupremely Is a revolutionary suggestion, the poselhlllty of the young getting away with new ideas. It* educational Ideal ie in blinker#, an obedient youth looking neither to right nor left, but pursuing on* right path. But the sustaining factor of life is death. Happily, founder* die, their codes and constitution* their clsseical utterances pas* away. Even the in spired address and deliverances of Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler, *o beautifully printed, will eom* day thrive), pass and be no more heeded. Disrespect for Elder* Hopeful The most fundamental fact about youth Is its disrespect for it* elder* »nd th* past. That la what It Is for. The generation that wanted to re Honor Graduate at Tech High Has Supported Himself and Mother Leader in School Activities, President of Debating So ciety; Worked in Store Evenings. Sam Zacharta is an example of what a boy can do w hen he has de termination. This 17-year-old Tech nical High graduate, living in a mod est home at 1428 North Twentieth street, was almost at the top of the graduating class of 167. He finished his four year course of Tech High in a group of 17 honor students and has been the mainstay of his mother. On five days of the week 8am worked In a downtown store from 3 to 6 p. m. anti studied at home until 11 or 12 at night. On Sat urdays he has worked all day in this store and from 7 p. m. Saturday until 3:30 a. m. Sunday he was employed by another concern. He values time and money. During the summer he expects to work in a store during regular business hours and next fall, he plans to enter Creighton university law school. During the last two years at Tech High he was a member of the Web ster Debating society and during his senior year he w-as president of that society. He was president of the speakers’ bureau of the scho'ol two years ago, served on the welfare coun cil and was treasurer of the senior class. He was on the honor roll six out of 12 school quarters. He was speaker for his school at the father and son banquet given by the local lodge of Elks during the spring. Last Monday night at the senior class annual banquet at the University club he was one of three speakers from his class. He spoke on "Road Conditions," working out the thought that students at Tech High during their four years travel various roads. "If we have bettered our road con ditions during our four years at Tech nical High, it has been due to con sistent effort." he said. "Many were Sant Zacliarla. the difficulties of our freshman year, when we had no roads to traverse, for all was wilderness. We struggled as did the pilgrims of old, for a foothold In the soil of a new land, Technical High, then known as Commerce High. “in our sophomore year we had less to fear from Indians, for we be came used to having these ‘pests’ around. Home of the trails we trod may be forgotten, some may become main-traveled highways, and others may remain narrow pathways to beau tiful memories of the days when as pioneers we first made them.” His favorite poem is Robert W. Service’s "The StufT That Counts.” It begins: “The test of a man is the fight he makes, The grit that he dally shows; The way he stands on his feet and takes Fate's numerous bumps and blows. A coward can smile when there's naught to fear. When nothing his progress bars, But It takes a man to stand and cheer While some other fellow stars.” 200 Invited to Woodrough Reception; Liquor and Oratory Aplenty Promised Federal Judge Woodrough will be. given a huge reception Monday morn ing in his court room In the federal building. The reception will be In the nature of a get together affair. United States District Attorney Kln sler, who has had charge of inviting the guests, announces that more fhan 200 invitations have been handed out. Both men and women are invited. There will be. speeches by able ora tors as well as by many of the gueRts. Sh-sh, and there Is to be r “flock of liquor,” Yep, liquor; whisky, beer and wine, and a little heroin and co caine. This reception is going to he a real one for the guests, who will remem ber the occasion for some time to come. Many will spend Christmaa and New Year's away from Omaha. The reception for Judge AVoodrough will really be to hear pleas of liquor and dope violators and to pass sen tence on those that rare to plead guilty. Evidence W'i^l be on hand to be used against them. Western Women Have No Scruples Against Night Train Traveling Western women are more sophisti cated l£an their eastern sisters, when it comes to traveling, according to local railroad passenger men. Out of the east recently came a report that women prefer to travel during th« day, and thus avoid the perplexities of sleeping on Pullman cars. The fact that they probabiy desire to watch the scenery is ad vanced ns another reason. But out in the west, where Pull man dressing rooms are Just as sinail as in the east and where scenery is fully as Inspiring, no such condition exists, according to George Blerman, assistant general pasrenger agenst of the T'nlon Pacific system. "It may be that very old women and very little girls try to do all their traveling by day,” said Blerman. "But I think statistics will prove that Omaha women as a whole make no particular effoit avoid traveling at night. "There are probably several rea peat the preceding generation would not be birth; it , would be life stutter ing. One thing youth does most need, /Want and fight to get as Its su preme, instinctive duty is and always will be every sort of destructive criti cism of existing authorities, existing order and of established institutions Young America at Harvard probably has no Illusions about Debs or Foster. It calls them, I am reasonably cer tain. “Old Debs,” "Old Foster." But it means to hear them; It will hear them. ifhe college authorities had bet ter help (t to hear without any at tempts whatever to jam the message Debs and Foster have to deliver against the old system young Harvard has been born to alter. Schooh Are Paradoxical Schools and universities are surely the moat paradoxical things In the whole preposterous speclscle of hu man life. They exist to prepare youth for a world of enormous changes. Their chief activity seems to be, at Oxford and Cambridge, quite as touch ns at Harvard and Yale, to get youth apart from th# world, to conceal the forces of change from Its curious. Intelligent eyee. The youth of the universities In particular should he the living eggn of the good new things of the days to come. The efforts of governing bodies everywhere seem to be directed chiefly at getting them hard boiled. My congratulations to Corliss Ba mont for having so far escaped this culinary process. Nowadays there are Corliss Iamonti from China to Peru. Matter and forms change, hut the spirit la the same. In Moscow they have to fight aa hard aa anywhere else, there It Is to escape being made Into hard boiled communists. By vir tue of the rebellious vitality In our youth this world of mankind lives on and does not die and freeze Into a monument to tla founders. (Copyright. 1SJ4 ) sons for this. AYcstcrn v omen travel longer distances, and o'ten ars two or three nights on a train. They feel os much at home on the train as they would in a hotel, and on these I long Journeys they fee so much scenery that their regret over rnles ing a few hundred mllea of It is prob ably lr*s poignant than If th»y did not travel such long distances.” L. Biendorf, manager of the con solidated ticket office, agrees with Bierman. He says It is seldom that women insist on taking day trains, even for short distances. "They Are Wearing.” Red leather trimmed a well tailored navy twill suit. At>vBHTisr,srK>T. Pyorrhea Lurks Below the Gums Don't be deceived by any pleasant tasting preparation that is heralded aa a pyorrhea medicine and which seems to aootha tha gums tempor arily. Sore, spongy, receding gums are not the beginning of pyorrhea; they are an effect. Pyorrhea begins from pus, which forms In the tooth sock ets, not from sore sums. To treat pyorrhea properly, you much have an antiseptic which haa the curative qualities necessary to heal the painful gums, but which also has the power to penetrate to the alveolar cavltt-s where the disease develops. The remedy which doee thle Is "PYROS" (for pyorrhea). "PYROS" properly ueed In small quantities dally, will keep healthy mouths healthy and will relieve the severest case of pyorrhea. Ask your druggist for "PYROS." rf he does not have It send this Ad and 25 cents In stamps to tha Rhea Chemical Go., 1271 Curtis Ft, Denver, Goto., for a largo trial sire. tllVFKTIHKMKNT. Dentists’ Prescription Whitens Dark Teeth Instantly—At Home Now smokers and others whoa# teeth are dull, spotty, yellowish and stained esn quickly make their teeth flashing white and lustrous right at home, and for a small cost. This is through a prescription of two prominsnt dentists which works in a n»w and entirely safe way. Consists of a mild harmless liquid and special paste. Just apply few drops of liquid to teeth. This softens stains. Then use paste This gently removes softened stains. Park, discolored, yellowish teeth become beauti fully whits and clear—often in a few minutes. Results of first application will very likely amass you. This prescription is sold under the name Rleaehodent. Com bination. No effect on enamel. Safe to use. Get Rleaehodent. Combination, today, at all good druggists. Kiddies Hurt While Playing With Others’ Property Are Protected by Common Law, Student Thesis Reveals An "attractive nuisance.” Supposin' you are a contractor, doing a job of grading and you have a scraper on the job and some Chil ean take it to the top of the hill and start to have some fun coasting down on your scraper and one of the kiddles falls under the wheels and gets badly Injured. Are you respon sible for the Injury? "You're "dawgone tootin'’ you are. You may not think so. but you are. If you don’t believe it, look up the case of Jorgenson against Crane tWash.) 150 Pac. 419. Certainly you didn’t ask the kid dies to "monkey” with your scraper and you would give them the "dickens” If you had caught them at it. But that makes no different*. The scraper constituted an "n4 tractive nuisance.” a legal doctrine that protects the child of tender years when It plays with things that adults know are dangerous hut which to the immature judgment of the child are merely "attractive" or "alluring." Children Need Protection. It Is one of the anomalies of the law, for ordinarily, a trespasser who is Injured has no ground for suit. He Is supposed to keep off. But the child of, say less than 14, has not the ripe Judgment to recognize danger In many thing that are to his mind attractive. Hence the law of "at tractive nuisances.” “The first recognition given to the growing need of protection for chil dren from Injuries received from at tractive devices in spite of the ele ment of trespass was given in an Kngiish case decided in 1841,” says Stuart H. Kelley, a University of Omaha law student, in a student thesis. "In this case, s boy of 7. in com pany with another child, was playing iltout n horse and cart negligently left standing on the street. The plain tiff started to climb on the cart as his •umpnnlon led the horse forward. The hoy fellf the cart running over him and breaking his leg. It was held that the carelessness of the defend ant's servant tempted the boy to his injury and thus Imposed liability for the Injury on the defendant.” • Railroad Held Liable. A child whose foot was caught and crushed In a railroad turntable at which he was playing with other chil then in spite of warnings, was give* a judgment. If was shown that the lock on the turntable was broken. Damages were once allowed for a child of 3 which wag playing on a railroad track. It was held that the child was obeying a childish instinct to play on the track and that Its tres pan* was technical only. Among the attractive nuisance* on wh|ch suits have been based are cliffs and excavation*, dump grounds, explosives, fires and steam, ponds and other bodies of water, wells, railways, cars standing. <ars in motion, tracks] and structures In general, turntables, ■ wrecks, rubbish idles, lumber, rockt*, ordinary anil extraordinary vehicles, unusual structures or devices placed on vehicles, telephone, telegraph and power lines, guy wires, cable splicers' equipment, power lines, stringing de vices, amusement devices, decayed structures, revolving doors, fire es capes, obvious perilous machinery, precariously situated objects and walls. Discretion to .Judge, Jury. The volumes of legal decisions are full of case* of this doctrine which lie* no much outside the beaten path of the law that the judgment of judges and juries enters peculiarly Into each case. In one suit It was held that s child could not recover damages when he was injured by a wagon hox i*' tipped against a wall. Another case gave a verdict in favor of a child In jured while playing with a large whfel which was left tipped against a wall. Hastings—Negotiations are under way fur sale of the American House, formerly the Boat wick hotel, widely known landmark here. Typewriters and Adding Machines SPECIAL LOW SUMMER PRICES Any Make Fully Guaranteed Unusual Rental Rates 111 Makes Typewriter Go. 205 S. 18th St. Ph. At. 2414 I _ The human body, like the automobile, emerges from the Weak, icy days of winter much the worse for wear. It needs a “tonic” to function perfectly that we may enjoy to the fullest the balmy days of Summer. “Tonic week” is designed to familiarize you with the differ ent preparations and tonics designed to “tone upM the sys tem, purify the blood and to eliminate the waste that has accumu lated during the inactivity of winter. Every REGISTERED BY LAW DRUGGIST whose name ap- ^ pears in this advertisement will feature TONICS this week. rt will be a week of special displays, large assortments and demon strations. Your druggist will tell you honestly and sincerely, just , the “right” tonic to use to accomplish certain definite results. His knowledge, experience and advice will prove invaluable to you. Don’t drag into the hot summer weather under the handicap of winter sluggishness. Greet summer with that buoyancy of youth that comes only with radiant health. Visit your REGIS TERED DRUGGIST this week and let him advise you as to the best in tonics and health builders. X