Life, 1916-06-15 · page 16 of 48
Life — June 15, 1916 — page 16: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains four distinct satirical pieces: **"In Darkest Georgia"** mocks Mitchell County, Georgia's decision to fund jails and asylums while refusing school taxes. The satire suggests this reveals backward priorities—investing in punishment rather than education. The reference to the "three K's of the Kaiser" sarcastically equates this anti-education stance with Prussian militarism, implying such thinking is un-American and authoritarian. **"Shedders of Knowledge"** uses a barn-mud metaphor to satirize how modern education imparts facts that don't stick—they're temporary and eventually forgotten, like mud sliding off a barn wall. It questions whether retaining "vital facts" is even desirable. **The recruiting cartoon** shows a short man being rejected for military service but accepting a commission as an officer instead—a joke about military incompetence and how officer rank was sometimes awarded regardless of qualifications. **"Unusual Behavior"** is a domestic humor piece where a husband finds his wife's staying home from social activities suspicious and worrying—likely satirizing anxious masculine attitudes toward female independence.
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Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
1120 In Darkest Georgia ITCHELL County, Ga., has voted not to tax itself for the support of schools, but is quite willing to be extra taxed for jails, courts, district attorneys, judges, lunatic asylums, poor houses and constables. It believes that schools are more or less of a nuisance and that children are better off and less troublesome when at work in the factories, Naturally, this is a solar-plexus blow to education and literacy in the state, and will have an influence upon other counties and other states. Naturally, it has set many wise people thinking. Are we not, as a people, over-schooled? Are we not over-colleged? Let us return to the ways of our fathers, and retain only such culture as is afforded by the three R’s, or to the three K’s of the Kaiser—(Kinder, Kirche and Kuchen). As for college graduates, they have been known since Horace Greeley’s time to be hardly more intelligent than horned cattle. Mitchell County knows whither the Zeit Geist is leading! 'HERE are three things as bad as suicide: Too much money, not enough money and no money at all. Sui- cide damns good souls; too much money damns good taste; not enough money damns good cheer, and no money at all damns self-respect. rm ? AEIOS a oe, aanneseg ss Uroweve Recruiting Sergeant: MY MAN, “100 SHORT? “YES, BUT THAT'S AN OFFICER. » 1 DON’T MIND, I'LL BE AN OFFICER.” “LE RPE * ni | | I AM AFRAID YOU ARE TOO SHORT TO ENLIST, WHY, THERE'S A SOLDIER NO TALLER THAN ME.” ly" | 4 Hy " "Agi i REVISION OF Shedders of Knowledge OMETIMES boys throw mud at the side of a barn, ard as long as the mud remains plastic it holds to the wood fairly well; but when the sun comes out it dries and crumbles and falls off, and the next shower removes all traces of it. That side of a barn is a good deal like our minds, and the boy may be likened to the modern makes of knowledge. In these days we are pelted pretty hard by plastic facts, but few of them stick. Per- haps, after all, this is a healthy dispensa- tion of Providence which enables us to shed knowledge. Suppose we were obliged to retain all the “vital” facts that were thrown at us, What an intolerable bur- den! Unusual Behavior ERRET: You look worried, old chap. Yaotttot: Yes; I'm afraid my wife is sick. She stayed at home all yester- day afternoon. comicbooks.com