ABRAHAM LINCOLN's LETTER TO THE SON’s HEADMASTER

Some Remain, Some Forget

A letter written by Abraham Lincoln to the Headmaster of a school in which his son was studying. It contains an advice, which is still relevant today for executives, workers, teachers, parents and students and you out there.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN's LETTER TO THE SON’s HEADMASTER

A WORD TO SOCIETY

"He will have to learn, I know, that all men are not just and are not true. But teach him if you can the wonder of books. But also give him quiet time to ponder the eternal mystery of birds in the sky, bees in the sun and flowers on a green hillside.

In school, teach him it is far more honorable to fall than to cheat.....

Teach to have faith in his own ideas, even if everyone tells him he is wrong.

Teach him to be gentle with gentle people and tough with the tough.

Try to give my son the strength not to follow the crowd when everyone getting on the bandwagon...

Teach him to listen to all men; but teach him also to filter all he hears on a screen of truth, and take only the good that comes through.

Teach him, if you can how to laugh when he is sad... Teach him there is no shame in tears.

Teach him to scoff at cynics and to be beware of too much sweetness. Teach him to sell his brawn and brain to highest bidders, but never to put a price on his heart and soul. Teach him to close his ears to a howling mob.. and stand and fight if thinks he is right.

Treat him gently, but do not cuddle him, because only the test of fire makes fine steel. Let him have the courage to be impatient.. Let him have the patience to be brave. Teach him always to have sublime faith in himself, because then he will have faith in humankind.

This is a big order, but see what you can do. . He is such a fine little fellow my son!

- Abraham Lincoln"

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Letter to George Latham

Abraham Lincoln wrote this now classic letter of encouragement to a close friend of his son Robert. Both boys had been raised in Springfield, Illinois, attended Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire, and were Harvard hopefuls. Several months later, both would travel with the president-elect on his inaugural journey. Robert eventually graduated from Harvard, while George studied at Yale for two years.
The letter reveals Lincoln's concern for a boy whose father died several years before, as well as his own passion for education and determination to persevere. At first glance, the pain referred to seems overstated, but probably not to a man who carved out his own education and lacked the finances to attend prep school or college.

Springfield, Ills. July 22, 1860

My dear George

I have scarcely felt greater pain in my life than on learning yesterday from Bob's letter, that you failed to enter Harvard University. And yet there is very little in it, if you will allow no feeling of discouragement to seize, and prey upon you. It is a certain truth, that you can enter, and graduate in, Harvard University; and having made the attempt, you must succeed in it. "Must" is the word.

I know not how to aid you, save in the assurance of one of mature age, and much severe experience, that you can not fail, if you resolutely determine, that you will not.

The President of the institution, can scarcely be other than a kind man; and doubtless he would grant you an interview, and point out the readiest way to remove, or overcome, the obstacles which have thwarted you.

In your temporary failure there is no evidence that you may not yet be a better scholar, and a more successful man in the great struggle of life, than many others, who have entered college more easily.

Again I say let no feeling of discouragement prey upon you, and in the end you are sure to succeed.

With more than a common interest I subscribe myself Very truly your friend,

A. Lincoln.

Marriage Software

Dear friend, its been long since my last posting, well am back this time with news from around us and the world. After reading and browsing all this while, i came across so many short stories that might entice you just as it did to me. go through this one and let enjoy the show, do have a nice day. THIS FROM AWAH ANNE.

Marriage Software

This is what a guy wrote to our systems analyst (Marriage Software Division):

Dear Systems Analyst,

I am desperate for some help! I recently upgraded my program from Girlfriend 7.0 to Wife 1.0 and found that the new program began unexpected Child Processing and also took up a lot of space and valuable resources.

This wasn't mentioned in the product brochure. In addition Wife 1.0 installs itself into all other programs and launches during systems initialization and then it monitors all other system activities.

An application such as ‘Boys Night’ out 2.5’ and ‘Golf 5.3’ no longer run, and crashes the system whenever selected. Attempting to operate selected 'Saturday Rugby 6.3' always fails and 'Saturday Shopping 7.1' runs instead. I cannot seem to keep Wife 1.0 in the background whilst attempting to run any of my favorite applications. Be it online or offline.

I am thinking of going back to 'Girlfriend 7.0', but uninstall doesn't work on this program. Can you please help?

.... AND THIS IS WHAT OUR ANALYST SAID:

Dear Customer,

This is a very common problem resulting from a basic misunderstanding of the functions of the Wife 1.0 program. Many customers upgrade from Girlfriend 7.0 to Wife 1.0 thinking that Wife 1.0 is merely a UTILITY AND ENTERTAINMENT PROGRAM. Actually, Wife 1.0 is an OPERATING SYSTEM designed by its Creator to run everything on your current platform.

You are unlikely to be able to purge Wife 1.0 and still convert back to Girlfriend 7.0, as Wife 1.0 was not designed to do this and it is impossible to uninstall, delete or purge the program files from the System once it is installed.

Some people have tried to install Girlfriend 8.0 or Wife 2.0 but have ended up with even more problems. (See manual under Alimony/Child Support and Solicitors' Fees).

Having Wife 1.0 installed, I recommend you keep it Installed and deal with the difficulties as best as you can. When any faults or problems occur, whatever you think has caused them, you must run the.........
C:\ APOLOGIZE\ FORGIVE ME.EXE Program and avoid attempting to use the *Esc-Key for it will freeze the entire system.

It may be necessary to run C:\ APOLOGIZE\ FORGIVE ME.EXE a number of times, and eventually hope that the operating system will return to normal.

Wife 1.0, although a very high maintenance programme, can be very rewarding. To get the most out of it, consider buying additional Software such as 'Flowers 2.0' and 'Chocolates 5.0' or 'HUGS\ KISSES 600.0' or 'TENDERNESS\ UNDERSTANDING 1000.0' or even Eating Out Without the Kids 7.2.1' (if Child processing has already started).

DO NOT under any circumstances install 'Secretary 2.1 ' (Short Skirt Version) or 'One Nightstand 3.2' (Any Mood Version), as this is not a supported Application for Wife 1.0 and the system will almost certainly CRASH.

BEST WISHES!
Yours,

Systems Analyst.

M’muock! Loosing her Cultural Identity

M’muock! Who are we?

The M’muock clan happens to be found in Lebialem Division of the South west region of Cameroon. What cultural identity are we? Some people call the M’muock people; ba-ngwa, some call them Dschang people, and while others call them bamuock, But who are we then?

It is rather an embarrassing situation when many of us can’t project the cultural identity of our mother land. Why is M’muock not known when you tell some one you are from M’muock? The reasons are so many and depend on the individuals:

- To some people they are shy to tell where they are from,
- Some are not patient enough to explain details about who M’muock people are,
- Some quickly accept the fact that they are either Dschang people or ba-nwa people to cu the long story short.
- Many others insist about their cultural background to project who M’muock is.

The obvious question here is; are the M’muock people the Bamuock, or Dschang or Ba-ngwa? In attempting to answer this question, we have to flash back to where the origin of M’muock is.
It should be noted, the M’muock clan is made up of 4 separate villages, representing the sons of one man who separated to occupy different territories.
M’muock has her origin from the Menoua Division of the West Region of Cameroon and while in Menoua they were called bamuock and this can still be proven today as their former settlement in the Menoua is up to date called E’fem-M’muock (meaning the old settlement of M’muock people). If the M’muock people were not known as the Bamuock, this old settlement till date would not still be called E’fem-M’muock; this is thus a proof that M’muock people existed. The fact that this old settlement of the M’muock people is still today called “Efem M’muock” implies, the M’muock people left this area not too long ago and also they must have inhabited this area for along time and equally M’muock was known as part of the people of Menoua as autonomous, so M’muock will remain M’muock and should not be given any other entity as to say Nwa or Dschang.

To some extent the cultural identity of the M’muock man is far more related to the culture of the Dschang people of the Menoua Division and the Bangang people of the Bamboutos Division all of the West Region of Cameroon:- You will observe some of these cultural relationship from traditional naming, dancing, dressing, days of the week and the dialect. The main problem of the M’muock loosing her cultural identity was because of their minority in number where ever they find themselves as such they tend to get associated to neighboring majority tribe and to get integrated to the society where they happen to live in. Wherever few M’muock people find themselves and happen to have majority of ba-nwa, they will integrate themselves to be called ba-nwa, or Dschang incase it is Dschang who are the majority. In towns like Bamenda where the M’muock people are the majority, they are known as Bamuock. We are loosing our cultural identity because of minority.

However we can regain our identity if we want to; we can always insist we are Bamuock, not Ba-nwa or Dschang, the fact that we have some similarities in the dialect with either the Dschang, Nwa or the Bamboutos people does not make us to be called them; if similarities in the dialect, dressing, traditional dances, traditional naming was a pre-requisite to grouping people together as a tribe, then the Nkwen, Mankon, Bafut, Mendankwe, Mundume all in the North west regions should be grouped as one tribe. I have often insisted on my cultural identity as a bamuock in hospitals and in school until many now know there are people called Bamuock.
There are many disadvantages when your cultural identity is hidden (not projected), because the majority and renown people will always seized the advantage to have those things which are supposed to be yours.

Many people just think that everyone who comes from the Lebialem division is a Ba-nwa man, but we have to make people to wipe away this ideology. One of my tutor in the days of my secondary education who was from the M’muock area use to tell some of the ba-nwa students who discriminated the M’muock people calling them all sort of names, he told them that M’muock is not Nwa and will never be so. He told them the difference is clear from the differences in appellations. He cited just few differences of appellations; for example, Ba-nwa will say “Abeh” to mean fufu, but bamuock will say “Apah”, ba-nwa will say “Fou’ah” to mean come but bamuock will say “sei’eh”, ba-nwa will say Mbei’eh” to mean a knife but bamuock will say “poeuh”. He went further to ask them to tell him whether there was any similarities in the naming of tradition days.

- If we do not have any traditional days which are common, is it possible to plan any meeting following only traditional days for a bamuock and ba-nwa? The fact that political divisions in Cameroon rolled us to Lebialem does not mean we have to surrender our cultural identity to Nwa. We have to thank those who at one time in Yaoundé (M’muock Union of Student) initiated this cultural identification through a publication titled “M’muock dieing in the hands of Nweh”

What are the customs and traditions of the M’muock people?

We shall examine some of the similarities in the cultures of the ba-ngwa, Dschang and bamuock to see where M’muock people will actually fit in.

On the table below, we shall have the comparison of some appellations in Ba-nwa, Dschang and M’muock.

Appellations M’muock Dschang Nwa
Come Sei-eh Shie-eh Fou-eh
Good Morning O’zail’eh Ozei Ale’leh
Dance Jenghe Jenghe Bin’e
Give me Ye’ha Ya’ha Fie’ghe
Market Eshi’a Es’a Esa
Knife Pough Pough Mbei
Stone Toh Toh Aroe’le
Cocyams Macaba Macabe Ekou;eh
Fufu Apah Akw’ah Abei
Water Nchie Ntse Ntse
Banana Akendei Akandienghe Lebeu
Sweat Potatoes Mefoh Mefoh Atonghe
Slope Lekou’oh Lekou’oh Nkwen’eh
Moon Sang Sang Faw teo
Week Nghab Nghab Le’tei
Clothes Njei Njei Ndro
Oil B’wot B’vet B’vet


Appellation M’muock Dschang Nwa



Days of the week
1. Ngangha Ngang Alena
2. Mboughwa Mboughwa Amina
3. Mboughlou Mboughlou AFagha
4. Njeugong Metta Angong
5. Mboughkeo mboughkeo Asei
6. Njielekeo Mbouchu Alung
7. Fa-ah Fa-ah Ankoa
8. Telang Njielah Anzoua
From the tables, this will greatly tell us that Bamuock was part of Dschang, and political division that came to Cameroon can not separate such people or put them as subjects.

The common names (names of persons) also vary so much, and there are only very few names that may be common for the M’muock-Nwa and even so the pronunciations or spelling may never be the same. It should be noted that most of the M’muock names are equally Dschang names as well as Bangang names. Also with the M’muock and Dschang, the first born child is always named by the mother, and in most cases it should be the woman’s father, but with the Nwa the name of the first born is named by the father.

The traditional dances also show a great disparity for the M’muock-Nwa than it shows for M’muock-Dschang. This makes it very difficult to identify the M’muock and the Nwa as one. For some tribes, they have a kind of dance that can be used to identify them, and this can only be use a tool for identification if it should cut across.

M’muock people have been subject under Nwa for long so we have to stand up in Unisom to identify our customs and traditions and to maintain them.

“M’muock Man is the one to bring back the lost cultural identity, and to do this we must stand firm to defend our identity and refuse any subjection.

Send comments to
mmuockngie@yahoogroups.com