Life, 1909-05-20 · page 9 of 36
Life — May 20, 1909 — page 9: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page combines educational satire with humor about schools and work. **St. Soakum's School** mocks elite boarding schools, describing three hundred "magnificent buildings" where boys learn "plain living, no luxuries" while actually smoking heavily and living lavishly—a clear satire on hypocrisy in expensive institutions that claim to build character through austerity. **The World cartoon** shows a graduate being told "I'll teach you the best of the alphabet"—satirizing how unprepared graduates are for actual employment despite their expensive education. **College Education section** critiques education as merely memorizing dead classical knowledge while ignoring modern life and contemporary social problems. **Athletic Education** mocks how sports distract students from academics. The overall theme: American education systems fail to prepare students for real life.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
we “WEREN'T WE LUCKY, SILAS, OUR VACATION DURING A RAINY SPELL? ’’ St. Soakum’s SCHOOL for boys and young men. Three hundred magnificent build- ings. No boy admitted whose father is worth less than ten millions. Athletics of every sort (twenty hours per week required) under the direction of J. Biff. Swattus. Valet and chauffeur furnished each boy. Garage attached to every suite. Plain living, no luxuries. Strict supervision: No boy is allowed to smoke more than ten boxes of cigarettes a day, and each boy must be in his room 10 GET The World: waxt a Jou, EW? Graduate: MY A.B. “Sit RIGHT DOWN “«LIFE* by 3 a. m., unless speciai permission to remain out has been granted. Liquors, with the exception of champagne, wines and ales, absolutely forbidden. Magnifi- cent catalogue in four volumes sent on request. The Rev. H. Oly Smoke, PDQ, Head Master. Slushville-on-the-Hudson. N. B—A boy is also allowed to learn something at St. Soakums, if he wishes to and receives special permission from the faculty. College Education DUCATION is the art of remember ing what the dead Greek said in Athens and forgetting what the live Greek is doing in the shoe-shining em- poriums of our large cities, of glorifying the graces of ancient Roman literature and glossing the grease of modern Roman railroad construction crews, It can tell the exact cause of the Crimean War, but not the cause of the criminal war, much less the remedy. It can tell how to conjugate irregular verbs, but not how to correct conjugal irregu- larities. It knows the inmost life of the cave-dwellers of prehistoric times, but very little of the life of the cave-dwellers of modern tenements. It knows all about the Gaul that Cxsar described, but pays no attention to the gall manifested | alastowe WHAT'S YOUR RECOMMENDATION ? ND ULL TEACH YOU TIE REST OF THE ALPHABET.’? Anxious Boatman: Now, MARY, WHAT- EVER HAPPENS, DON’T MOVE YOUR HEAD, OR WE'LL CAPSIZE! by our frenzied financial Cxsars. It knows how much graft there was in building the Appian Way, but not the first thing about the graft in removing the snow from Broadway. In short, education is so busy with the classics of the dead past that it has no time for the classes of the live pres- ent Ellis O. Jones, Athletic Education TYeAtevARD JR.: Rah, rah, rah, pa. Rah, rah, rah, ma. I'm half-back on the 'Varsity team! Yarevaro, Sr.: Yes, so I heard, and all the way back with your studies. HEN love flies out the window to hustle for a job poverty never comes near the door. comicbooks.com