Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 200, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 August 1910 — BELIEF IN “SIGNS” [ARTICLE]

BELIEF IN “SIGNS”

SOUTHERN EDITOR GIVES OUT ASTONISHING INFORMATION. Curious Superstitions Btick In the Craw of Every People—Half Students In Big University Believe In Omens. Reversing the usual order of things, a southern educator went nqfth the other day and told a Washington audience some things to convince them' that men south of Mason and Dixon’s line occasionally have ideas, and good : at that. The educator in question talked about “Suggestions on the Psychology of Superstitions,” but his speech was not nearly as heavy as its title would indicate. He was talking in plain terms, about the curious superstitions that stick In the craw of elery people, and,asked his audience why it was that even educated peoples believe in things which are utterly absurd on their face. To. prove that his question was a fair one, he told of experiments recently ‘ trieA by him in one of the southern universities. The name of the institution, we may remark in passing, we shall reserve for the present lest some may be inclined to poke fun at its learned teachers and its superstitious students. The experiments in question concerned popular “signs.” The students wrote out all the superstitions' they remembered, and wrote under them whether or not they believed in them. The reports handed in by the college boys were a revelation. Old folk-leg-ends which h%d been handed down for generations were recalled, and superstitions shat are probably as old as the world itself were remembered by these educated sons of the twentieth century. One boy, for example, expressed his firm belief that if he picked his teeth with a splipter taken from a tree that had been struck by lightning he would never have the toothache. A number believed that hair cut at the time of the new moon would grow better than at any other time, while many expressed their opinion that if they dropped the kitchen dish rag they would soon have company. Others held that the man who carried a potato in his pocket would never have rheumatism, while a large number believed that when a dog howled a death in the family was impending. There were others as grotesque and as absurd as these. The amazing thing about'the whole affair was that so many of the students believed in these superstitions. Some 875 students were examined, and. of this number 45 per cent, believed in superstitions which numbered some i,ooor Perhaps even a larger percentage of the students believed in some superstitions, or at least partly believed in them. Not half the men were free from some belief in signs and omens. These are the facts that admit of no lispute. Men believe where they should 3TJtr-irelieve, and that is all there is to t. Their fathers believed before them, and their fathers before them, as far as history is recorded, as far as tralition runs. Some of same legends were believed when Aryan ancestors watched the heavens in the steppes of Central Asia, others were believed when the_ German tribes came into Europe; the Catholic saints believed them and the Greek heroes observed :hem, the~Anglo-Saxons followed them, and the Africans in the center of the. dark continent watched them day by lay. Civilization may move on, and men may be wiser tijan their sires, hut there is something in the mind of man that makes him believe where his reason doubts and his sane mind scoffs. - —Richmond Tlmes-Dispatch.