The Columbia Democrat. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1837-1850, 1839-11-23

chine of mind--the worn out machinery
Of our ancestors--the fundamental engine,
that machine Of all mechanics--the sducd-
ton Of 0adn--is not jot improved since
the days Of King Alfred. Education at the
present day, if not absolutely pernicious
and useless is, 10 great degree purpose
less--it has the mischlevous result of occu-
pying valuable means 10 no end And At
does all this, says the Reviewer, 10 no usea
ful end, it is injurious, inasmuch as it imee4
des the application Of what would be useful.
Life and money, labor and industry, are ex-
pended in what is unproductive--they
might pc expended in productive acquisi-
ton. The machinery Of education is anti.
quated and bad and its product is nothing
or worse than nothing. We should laugh
at the man who should till his farm as
farms were TILED before the Norman con.
quest; yet we maintain both by example
and precept, the system which cultvates
mans mind as it was done when man waa
a tyrant and slave-ignorant debased We
seen to imagine that the whole Of all thas
is valuable in education consists In endea-
voring to acquire knowledge of two dead
languages Latin and Greek or rather as
we should say, in endeavoring to avoid ac-
quiring them,o or In forgetting and renouncing
them after they are acquired.
If education means anything, I'VE quote
again from the Westminster Review it is
the process by which the mind of man,
possessed with powers, but unfurnished
with ideas, is stored with knowledge, and
is enabled to apply this to the business of
human life. The business of life is, how
ever no longer what it was in the days of
Allied but the education is the same. If,
without education-if, in spite Of vicious
or an useless system, we have attained
that which we do possess, it is not too muck
to hope, that under system Of which the
means are calculated for the ends, we are
yet immeasurably behind the point which
we shall, at some future day reach.
We have no fear in asserting that the
most enlightened people will always main
tain superiority over those who are less in
formed-that they will excel them, not
only in invention, but in industry that
they will resist or conquer them in arms
that they will exceed them in moral order,
and, what is not less important, will form,
or reform, polcal state better administered
and therefore more free from abuses, and
more conductive 10 the wealth and happi-
ness of the total community, His aoere
eUery man understands his o,cn duties,
that he understands the duties of others and
those duties are his rights.
At this day every one knows that if he
would hope to succeed, he must commence
his education when he is thought to have
quilted it. He must educate himself and
thus doing, he condemns, by his practice,
the colledge system, in which he has been
brought up, though he is rarely honest G.
nough to confess his own folly, or that Of
his parents and ancestors, in maintaining
an almost useless system.
The education of those whe are really
is their own work, not only arc
all the previous time and money lost, but
hat period of life which ought to have been
occupied in acquisition has passed, never
o return, never TO be compensated by after
industry. The college monopoly has chea-
ed them with the semblance of teaching, it
las taught them what they have not learned
II if they have learned, it has taught, they
ave found, too late, that it is useless, and
must be forgotten. 1t has cheated them Of
ner wealth and their time it has cheated
S far as it could, the state which depends
n their acquisitions it is not an Alma Ma
,r, but Harpy and RObber. Twenty
mes century the world wonders at self
lught Ferguson, Rittenhouse, franklin.
' att, and Burns, or Chantrey. 1t for.
cts that all which ara taught, are equally