University of Southern Mississippi - Southerner Yearbook (Hattiesburg, MS)

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.f:f'm rx, X' X i, - A Safe ani! Swann Fliirat nf April MABEL MlxoN FORREST COUNTY R. Joe Cook, the President of the Mississippi Normal College, knowing the nature of boys and girls, suggested that we change our way of observing April Fool's day and do something original. So after discussing the matter in chapel, we decided to have the usual lessons until chapel, have a rousing time in chapel, then have a general Field Day on the athletic field and a base ball game in the afternoon between the students and the faculty. The plan met with the approval of all and every one was satisfied. April Fool's Day dawned bright and clear. All holidays do, don't they- or do they? This one did anyway. After a glorious time in chapel everybody rushed out to the athletic field. Here the various contests were held: Mr. Cook, fat and short as he is, ran a race with a student and won! We had an egg race, a potato race, a fifty yard dash for the boys and one for girls, a shoe race, a blind hurdle race, and adoughnut contest. The latter caused, perhaps, the most fun. A long string was stretched across the field. From it hung other strings with doughnuts tied to them. The object was to eat the doughnut without touching it with the hands. He who ate his doughnut first won. To see the girls try to eat the doughnuts was worth the price of any first class rnin- strel. As sure as the doughnut was Within reach, somebody jerked the string, and away it went, swinging back and forth in a most tantalizing matter. There were about fifty contestants in every event and the winner was awarded a green ribbon. After dinner everybody went over to the base ball diamond and watched the faculty beat the student bachelors all to pieces. Mr. Cook could steal bases like a veteran-he made the first score. Sheriff Harbison, who umpired the game, said that Mr. Cook ran bases with more determination and less speed than any man he ever saw. Mr. Scott asked the spectators which was left field. Mr. Boland went back to the days of town ball and crossed out his man. O, that game was great. The day was a success in every way. If you don't believe it, try it next year in your school and see what will happen. Your students will scoff at the idea of hiding the bell-and call that baby's play. And you wont be given bites of marsh- mallows covered with quinine-if you will only help your students to be original in what they do. MABEL MIXON

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lqigli Zlhrala Ihr Qlhirf iliartnr in 'ii ' illural Brurlnplnrnt J. J. MELVIN V, FORREST COUNTY HE people of Mississippi are a free, liberty-loving people. It is difficult to give us anything We do not Want, and when a majority of us decide that we WANT a thing it is hard to keep us from having it. But we all know that as a rural people We do not have all the conveniences of life that We need. Our past experience is sufficient to prove that all that is necessary for us to secure a thing is the desire for it--the determination to have or to attain to that thing. This is what makes us a FREE people. If We deny this We assert that we are bound-bound by tradition, igno- rance, indolence or selfishness. This zeal to possess or to attain to a thing, through individual effort, then, We may say is the result of an ideal. The trouble with us as a rural people is that our ideal stops short of what We really need-We are satisfied With less than the best. Now, since We have all that We desire, and have only to desire to obtain, but do not have what We need, and WILL NOT have What We do not desire, it is only for us to realize our needs and desire them in order to obtain them. And it is plain that We will never secure them until We do desire them. The ideal of more home comforts, happiness and contentment, and more com- munity conveniences and blessings is, and, from the nature of the situation, must be the forerunner of everything else that leads to better rural conditions. The material prosperity, the next thing in line needed to bring about these desirable domestic and social changes, will come as the result, and only as the result, of a spirit of dissatis- faction with conditions as they now exist, and a zeal for better thingsfinitheir places. Many rural families begin their careers with no money, but with high domestic ideals, and soon secure ample means, comforts, and advantages, and this is evidence that a great many more could do so if the ideal were present, and it is in communities Where such families as these are found that the highest social, .civic and religious attainments are found. As are the ideals of a majority of the individuals so is the community. J. J. MELVIN.

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1 A . Eurail Qiztnrg in thr Chrahrz EMILY NUNNERY f COPIAH COUNTY HE first and foremost aim of historical study is to make the world about us more intelligible. To realize this aim local history is invaluable as a starting point. Instruction in history should begin at home, broaden into wider fields and then come back home. The fundamental requisite of history teaching, making REAL the past, is best obtained through reality itself, or through material things, a wealth of which exists everywhere for the resourceful teacher. He should study the community, county and state in which he teaches and turn to account the material he finds there- people, schools, churches, industries, Indian remains, old swords, battlefields, and bones of noted persons, which are invaluable in making vivid impressions on the child's mind. By having his attention called to these things the child will, at an early age, realize the idea of CHANGE in the world. Ask him if white people have always lived here with homes, schools and churches. Other questions finally lead him back to the idea that no white man lived here at one time. Then, who did live here? How do you know? There are Indian mounds, arrowheads, bones, streams with names of Indian chiefs or tribes all around him to suggest the answer. What were the Indians like? Have simple descriptions from pictures, etc. Much construction work can be done in teaching the primitive life of the Indians. Have the child construct wigwams, bows and arrows, build indian villages, etc. Their simple industries such as modeling clay vessels, weaving mats, are both interesting and instructive. Tell stories Indians told about themselves, the many beautiful myths and legends. With primitive life as a back ground, teach the child the pioneer life of his own people. This he can comprehend easily. Few books are as yet accessible: but the teacher should give these pioneer stories in the lower grades if possible. From the beginning this work can be correlated with geography. Industrial history is a new field and one that bids fair to revolutionize our methods of teaching. Have the child make illustrative booklets showing the de- velopment of industries of his community and use them for exhibition in Field Day ggntests. Constructive work can be done in this study as in that of primitive Indian 1 e. After this preparatory work, the child easily comprehends the course in State History in higher grammar grades. He studies the development of every phase of the State's history, sees the problems that comfront the people at the present time. and realizes that he, as a citizen of to-morrow, must help to solve these problems. I Having learned to live the local past vividly, the child can carry his 'lex- perience over and live the larger past vividly. Community history therefore is ,the key to the larger past for the child, and a realization of the larger past makesiithe world around him more intelligible. EMILY NUNNERY