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Monday, February 12, 2007 9:26 PM CST
On education, technology and politics
By MARY JANE COARTNEY
Mona opened the Velcro flap and out came the smallest lap top I had ever seen. Then followed a stylus that made me think of a slate pencil that my parents used when they started school.
Slates were common in the late 1890s, and even the early 1900s. About that time schools were using pencil tablets.
All the desks in the schoolhouses had inkwells that would hold a bottle of ink. There were stories of how little girls got the ends of their hair braids stuck in the ink bottles by the little imp sitting behind.
I never had hair long enough to braid and no one used the inkwells at our school, just bottles of Carter’s ink when we practiced writing in the Palmer Method writing packet.
Slates were just a novelty. We might get a new slate as a Christmas gift. It was a big pain when a scratchy slate pencil made a scratch on a slate. Many of us remember the Big Chief writing tablets with the Indian head on the front, or the nice smooth yellow paper of the Golden Rod writing tablets.
Since this is presidents birthday time, I thought of how we were told that Abraham Lincoln was said to lie on his stomach in front of the fireplace. He wrote his letters with a bit of charcoal on the wooden shovel. Then he would scratch off the surface to have a new page to write on.
We never heard how often they had to make a new wooden shovel. We do know that those pioneer children had a yearning for learning.
Education was considered a waste of time for girls by most rural people. All of my ancestors loved to read. Even my grandma, who said she only got as far as the third grade, loved to read. Her handwriting and spelling were good.
If you happen to find one of those old McGuffy readers or some other ancient school book, you will find them far advanced compared to the cute colored books used by today’s third-graders.
I have an old QQ notebook, popular from 1900 to 1935 or 1940. Wayne’s grandmother had used it to copy some songs and poems that she wanted to save. The ink hasn’t faded. Her penmanship is so much better than my scrawl, but I have written quite a few more pages than she ever did.
Some members of our family started buying computers at least 30 years ago. Now the great-grandchildren learn to use computers. Even the kids at day care learn to use them.
I have a problem trying to watch the news on TV and read the captions racing across the bottom of the screen at the same time. I also have a problem trying to listen as fast as some of the reporters talk.
Education is so important. It is my belief that each child should be taught English in these United States as a first language. We all need to have a second language, but we should be like other countries and let the country’s mother tongue be first. The directions for anything we buy now come in at least two, and usually three, languages. I can handle that.
One of our country’s most valuable treasures is the beautiful handwritten document -- the Declaration of Independence. When I think of all the suffering our ancestors went through as they made their journey to these shores to become Americans!
Other countries refuse to use a hyphenated name. My idea of politically correct is to be proud to be American. So many are still dying to reach our borders or our shores while unscrupulous people are robbing them as they try to reach safety.
We are still called the “land of the free and the home of the brave.” Yet, daily a bit more of that freedom is being stripped away.
As we celebrate the birthday of our first president, George Washington, who “could not tell a lie,” some people delight in calling others liars, with no respect for the dignity of our country.
George Washington has about been lost in the shuffle, and few people have respect for Honest Abe as they strive to get the most money to finance their political campaigns.
Somehow I feel that there are loads of honest people who want to fight for the right. They just hate to dodge the mud-slinging that goes with the campaigning. As for the winners -- they have it made with retirement benefits and the pay for after-dinner speeches.
Mary Jane Coartney of rural Ashmore is a writer and poet. She has lived in Coles County for 93 years.
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