The Camden weekly journal. [volume] (Camden, South-Carolina) 1853-1861, 1853-04-19
Mtsfellaueous.
From the Southern School Journal.
Importance OF Education.

From the Southern School Journal
Importance OF Education.
We hope the following remarks by Mr..
TThurston late Superintendent Of Public In
struction in Maine, will be deliberately ponder.
ed. we borrow the extract from the Journal
of Education, published in that State. ~
In view of the blessings, great and innumer-
able, handed down to us by our fathers, we are
placed under the most binding obligations to
fit and prepare our children, by their education,
to transmit the same heaven born blessings un,
tarnished to future generations The elements
of physical, mental and moral wealth now in
our possession are exciting the anxious soici-
tude of every philanthropist in cbristendon';
for it requires no prophetic eye to foresee the
momentous consequences depending on the so.
luton that we shall give to the great problem
of self government. Nor does it take any un-
usual discernment to perceive the connection
between the solution of this problem and our
system Of public instruction. Hence it is that
one Of the great leading. ideas of the age, at
least as far as our country is concerned, is the
idea of universal education an education not
partial, not superficial, but thorough gh-embra-
cling the full development of the whole man,
body, mind aud snul-an education which is
the result Of all those influences that surround
the human being from infancy to mature age,
whether these influences originate with the pa.
rent or the teacher, the school house or the
church, the living voice or the written page
whether they act on the physical, mental or
mural nature, or on those mysteries existing
between the body and the mind-an education
that is good or bad, perfect or imperfect, com
plete or defective, just in proportion rs it di
reefs and developes all the powers and facul-
ties in obedience to the laws which God has
established. 1t is this idea of an education
around which cluster all the experience Of the
past. the varied phenomena Of the present, and
the most cherished anticipations for the future;
and if we as State, as component part Of
the Union, falter in the least, in urging forward
the realization of these cherished anticpatious,
we shall prove false to the memory ofthc great
and the good who have transmitted to us our
rich inheritancc-fa!sc to every dictate of en-
lishtered humanity-false to ourselves and re-
creant to our God.
Besides, an education of some kind every
one will have. 1t is not at the option of the
shall be educated or not. Every child that
grows up in society, must and will be educa
ted. Neither his own voltion, nor the respect
Of the parent or the State, can in any wise pre-
vent it. If he is not educated in the public
school, by the private teacher at the domestic
ireside, thousand genial influences that ought
to surround every child he will be educated in
the streets, in the tippling shops, in the gam
bling house, in the brothcl, the Jail or prison.
1t is the kind Of education only that is at the
option of the parent, the community, the State
And of the different kinds, there is almost an
infinite gradation-from that which makes a
brute, to that which makes man from that
which makes a demon, to that which makes
an angel. Yes that embryo being, that bun.
die Of libres almost without mental phenomena
or moral condition .that bundle of fbres which
constitutes the raw material in education, is
fearinlly and wonderfully madc--having ten
denotes and capacities pointing to the farthest
verge of good or evil, capacities of unlimited
virtue Or vice, of unbounded happiness or mis-.
ery--its animate d soul has pinion, by which
it may soar to the loftiest height or descend to
the lowest depth--a voice that may join in the
sweet symphonies of angels, or crate harsh dis
cord in the blasphemies of demons. 70 devel-
ope these powers and capacities, to direct this
soul in its upward or downward flight, to tune
this voice to harmony or discord, is the pro-
vince of education.
And whilst it is true, that every child has
tendencies and capacities capable of develop
meEt to an unlimited cxtent-whilst it is true,
that. these powers and capacities must and will
be developed for good or for evil, as they should
not be; it is equally true, that the kind Of de.
velopment will always precisely correspond to
the means used to secure the object Man,
the whole man, body, mind and soul, as far as
any human agencies are concerned, is the re-
sItant Of certain forces, the effect of chain
of causes; and the character of the result pro-
duced will always correspond to the elements
and processes used in the production. This
we regard as an axiom requiring no proof, need
ing no argument, admitting of no doubt illus.
tration could not make it more clear, reasoning
could not enforce it; the history of the human
race confirms it, and Divine revelation sane