Pioneer life in the Benton Co. WA area
Faith In Youth Is Only Hope/Wastefulness Is Denounced
By BURTON 0. LUM
Tri-City Pioneer
Tri-City Herald, Sunday, 19 August 1962
The high-school graduates soon will begin their annual exodus to their chosen schools of higher learning. The high-school graduates have completed their grade and high-school studies. They must now start to map out future courses that will prepare them for their chosen careers. These present day high-school graduates have been handicapped by the poor English used in the tv Western programs and the idiotic jargons of some of the food sponsored shows.
One of the main goals of higher education should be to train the collegiate mind so that it can clearly express to others the results of its thinking. Without adequacy of expression, knowledge cannot be properly given or received; therefore, it would seem, that regardless of the special courses studied, ample English should be taken by all.
The wasting of natural resources in the early days was appalling. Lush ranges were over stocked. Beautiful stands of timber were wastefully logged and harvested without plans of future reforestation.
If fir lumber was wanted, huge spruce trees were felled so that the timber could be easily logged. This wastefulness was not done by the early settlers. It was done primarily by the huge nonresident railway-corporation landowners in their rape of the West. Lo! The poor Indian had lived a happy life here for hundreds of years without destroying or diminishing his natural resources. What has the wastefulness of these natural resources to do with the high-school graduate that will soon be going to college? It is just one of the many problems they will be called upon to solve in the future. The present generation cannot be too proud of its stewardship of the past and present affairs of our country. We are not turning over any Garden of Eden to the coming generation. We have been sloshing around from one emergency to another with such frequency that the poor old Ship of State may need repairs to its tiller to keep it on its course. Maybe the coming generation will give more thought to the affairs of our own country and world and less for the moon and other satellites. This old United States is yet the grandest place in the universe in which to live. I still have faith in the young at heart. Give them the opportunities to prepare themselves to solve our failures. They have my confidence that they will succeed. Children are the gift of the Almighty. They should be considered as a blessing and an asset of love and not a habit of care. How can a father and a mother, a husband and a wife, allow trivial heats of temper to scorch the hearts of their offspring and melt the happiness of their home? Is not man created above the beast of field and birds of the air? Yet, the dove never ceases cooing for its lost mate. The swan is constant to its dead companion. Sincerity and faithfulness of birds and animals could be an admirable example to man himself. The strength of any country is measured by the serenity of family ties. As our young graduates leave their home nest, many for the first time, let us hope that the instructions of the loving parents have been thorough and complete. Let us wish them a bon voyage and a happy landing. May we see them all soon on the first vacation home.
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