Rensselaer Republican, Volume 23, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 July 1891 — How Much Do You Know? [ARTICLE]

How Much Do You Know?

“General ignorance questions," as they are called, being now in favor with those who are intrusted with the duty of educating our boys, says the London News, the private schoolmaster has taken the trouble to suggest a string of appropriate tests of knowledge of familiar things. The chief of these are: Why does an apple fall to the ground? What is a jury and how are jurors elected? Explain as you can the action of the electric telegraph. What keeps the earth in position? How would you spend a present of £5 in books? Why do most leaves turn color in autumn? What is the difference between tradition and history; art and science, parable and allegory, murder and homicide, simulation and dissimulation, bill and act? Name some of the planets that move round the sun. Why does marble appear cold-" er to the touch than wood? How many senses have we? The author of this little plot does not conceal the fact that he looks forward to eliciting some “amusingly original answers. ’ Big boys, he thinks, might also be tried with those old-fashioned “posers”: “What would happen if any irresistable body came into coiitact with an immovable post?” and “How is it that big rivers always ‘make for’ and flow through large towns? j The judicious schoolmaster will possibly deem it fair to postpone these diversions till the holidays are over. At Chico, Cal., the other day, a cat caught a sparrow and was going with it into a store when half a dozen other sparrows came to. the rescue and maae such a vigorous onslaught upon kit that he was glad to drop his prey and flee to the shelter of the store. Floors of rubber, claimed to be as durable as asphalt and cheaper, an being tried in Germany.