Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 11.djvu/741

Rh "Parents that are content to purchase the labeled casket without the jewels; parents that are in many cases deceived themselves, and in other cases willing to deceive. Some reason thus: 'I have children, my children must be graduates, it is respectable.' Crœsus speaks, or intimates unmistakably, and it is done. There must be radical reform here. Common, old-fashioned honesty demands it. It must not be. The vital interests of our country cry aloud against it.

"We must steer aloof from making these pinchbeck and galvanized scholars. This will be very pleasant to the eyes of all honest, earnest, and competent teachers. We are all presidents and professors these days; but we have an uncontrollable fancy for those noble old words, 'teacher' and 'school.' "

The social importance of coeducation is shown thus:

The moment we consider that the young ladies wear "green-calico dresses and white aprons" for a school-uniform, we cannot doubt the impressiveness of these interviews. Further on we find that prizes are given at Neophogen for "neatness," "grace," "true modesty," and "etiquette;" and the names of the "fortunate winners" are appended. The catalogue closes with two pages of "opinions of the press." A single specimen will do to illustrate these:

These extracts sufficiently indicate the remarkable character of Neophogen. Who, after reading them, can longer doubt that the South is in earnest in this great matter of education? Let the boastful educators of New England bow their heads, and humbly confess that they can never hope to parallel such schools as the Mars Hill Academy and Neophogen College!



HERE has ever been, and probably for another century there will continue to be, an "irrepressible conflict" between those whose conceptions of Nature are limited by sensation—who recognize no existence but matter and motion, who trace all that exists to material causes alone—and a very different class of thinkers, who trace 