(1497)
IGNORANCE, HUMILIATION OF
An incident in a trial for a capital offense, in Nashville, Tenn., is thus spoken of in a news item:
A splendid, clean-looking young man was under examination and Mr. Fitzhugh, of Memphis, of the prosecution, got to the point of asking him which newspapers he had read at the time of the Carmack killing. The talesman had testified that he was thirty-one years old, a farmer, and the father of three children. His answers had been bright and his face sparkled with intelligence. But he hesitated when the interrogation concerning the newspapers was put to him.
“I haven’t read any about it in the newspapers. We don’t take any newspapers in our house. I—I kain’t read and I kain’t write, but I can farm. I never got the show to go to school but two or three days in all my life.”
A blush mantled his cheeks and for an instant there was a glistening in his eyes, then, throwing back his head, he left the witness-stand and marched out of the court-room, his expression of defiance silencing the laughter of the unthinking ones in the crowd. And this was only one of more than a score of examples of illiteracy.
How many a life is thus handicapped. It is not a commendation of parenthood that the child should thus be distinguished against in this age of widespread learning. On the other hand, all honor is to be given to the man who through diligent application in after life is able to surmount the difficulty of scanty knowledge.
(1498)
IGNORANCE IS BLISS
It is sometimes best not to alarm persons in peril by revealing the danger, as is illustrated by the Rev. Asa Bullard in the following incident: