Weekly Cbemawa American
VOL. VIII. MARCH 9, 1906 No. 46.
"What should be Expected of the Indian
Pupil and What He Should be Thaught,"
By Ex-Governor J. H. Fletcher
An old fashioned preacher with little education, once
took for his text this verse: "Elisha, what dost thou
hen?' The old man didn't know the difference' be
tween the word h-e-r-e and the word, h-e-a-r.
So he began: "My bretheru 1 shall divide my subject
Into two parts; first I will consider what Elisha heard,
and secondly, what he didn't hear."
Now, if lie undertook to tell all about what he didn't
bear, he might talk from July until eternity, and then
would not be half through. In telling what the In
dian pupils should do, I find myself a good deal like
the old preacher.
There are so many things he should do that if I un
dertook to tell it all I might talk till doomsday, and
then would only be fairly started.
The first point I make Is that the pupil should al
ways respect his superiors.
Everyone dislikes the over-forward boy the boy who
c alls the teacher the "Boss" and his father the "Gov
ernor." Everyone, on the contrary, admires the boy
who loves his parents and reverences his teachers.
The boy who does not will one day board at the Re
form School or eat hardtack from the hands of the
jailer.
A good old man once asked an incorrigible where
little boys went who smoked cigarettes.
"Why behinl our stable tued to bj the safest
place, but Ma's onto that now." Insolence willmever
lend a child to the front. Good men have no use for
boys who learn their lessons in back alleys and empty
box cars.
t ho fatherof a family was going down town one
evening when he turned around to his little hopeful
and said: "Jimmey I'm going dow.i town now. Is
there anything yon wish ine to nvi.ig to you?"
'Yes, Pa; I wish you would bring me a plug of chew
ing tobacco and be back quick as you can, for 1 am just
out."
If that boy do3s not bring up in th j p :tiite,:itiary or
the gallows I shall be wonderfully mistaken.
And yet many of these little fellows are tilled with
wit and humor, the only troub.e bMug thrit they are
too ready to tise it "In what tense am I speaking?"
inquired an elderly female teacher in Portland, "when
I say lam beautiful?" "In the past tense," was the wit
ty but impudent reply.
I never find fault with a witty retort, provided It is
not impudent and disrespectful. There can be no ob
jection to such a remark as this: Little Willie was
watching a dog chasing his tail around for a few min
utes. "Papa," he inquired, "what kind of a dog is that?"
"A watch dog," replied the fnther. "Well," said Wil
lie, "from the time he takes to wind himself up, I
guess he must be a Waterbury watch."
2. The pupil should never marry until he can sup
port a wife comfortably.
It is a serious thing to take a tender young girl a
way from a good home where she has little to da.
plenty to eat and wear and the care of a loving mother.
No young man should do it until he can give her as
good a home as the one she left.
"Ah," but he says, "he can't live without her." I
heard a good deal of slosh from the same old pail, but
I don't believe it
Suppose he was put in the penitentiary for a term of
years, what would he do then? Po you suppose he
would die? Not a bit of it, if they gave him enough to
eat.
I have known people so blinded by what they call
love that they never discovored the girl they married
had a glass eye and a cork leg until it was too late to
squeal about it.
They were not in love they were in a trance. After
marriage when the poor girl sees a large wolf looking
in at the door, she gets out of the trance mighty quick,
and what she had mistaken fjr'ove? spreads its wings
and flies out of the window.
And it often happens that the girls, young boys fall
in love with, are fine girls to let other fellows marry.
A youtip man does not see much of the girl's family
while he is courting, but he will see lots of them when
he starts house-keeping.
Persons who marry young have seldom sense enough
to find out each others bad and good qualities hence
early marriages are a fruitful source of divorce.
I cannot but admire the way that the widow Jenkins
treated the uncle of Eli Perkins.
One morning he cantered his horse over the widow's
farm before breakfast, hustled into the house and said :
'Widder Jenkins, I'm a man of business. Iam worth
f 10,000 and I want you for a wif-, I give yon just three
minutes to answer."