The weekly Lancaster gazette. (Lancaster, Ohio) 1852-1855, 1854-06-29


this course in a manner highly croditable
10 themselves and to their worthy Precep-
tress.
Young Ladies, in saying that you have
completed certain course Of studies, do
not mean to say that you have finished
your education. To speak of any ones
having Finished his education implies a
misconception ofthe meaning of the term,
If by the term education were meant only
d familiarity with literature and science, it
might be remarked that there are single
branches acknowledge which could scarce
| y be mastered by the application and la
Dor of 4 lifetime. The most, therefore,
that any young person can accomplish dur
ing the few years spent atschool is to form
a slight acquaintance with the mere rudi.
ments of knowledge. A gentleman once
observed that hc did not send his son to
school so much on account Of the attain
ments which he expected him to make
while at school, as that he might learn how
to learn, SO that he mightbe ableafterwards
to pursue to advantage a course of self
improvement.
But the term Education includes much
more than the exercises of the school and a
familiarity with books The term implies
the harmonious development and the prop
er d:sciplining of all our faculties, physical,
intellectual and moral, with a view to pre-
pare us to be happy in ourselves and use
full to others. The means of education are
all the agencies and influences that tend to
form our habits, to mould our characters,
and to fit us the better to subseve the end
of our being. Ifever the time shall arrive
when our habits and characters shall have
become fixed beyond the possibility of a
further change; when We shall have ex-
plored all the works of the Creator and
unlocked all the arena of nature; when our
capacity for enjoyment will admit of no
further enlargement and we can acquire
no higher capabilities of usefulness, then,
and then only, will our education be com
plete. A certain writer has advanced the
idea, that if the present condition of the
highest orders of celestial intelligenccs be
considered in reference to what they are
destined hereafter to become, they may be
regarded as having but Just commenced
their education; and that if ue are SO happy
as to get to the better world, the period in
eternity will never arrive when boundless
career of improvement will not still be be-
fore us.
have said that the design Of education
is to prepare us TO be useful and happy. |
will add that we should seek our happiness
chiefly in the discharge of the social duties,
and inefforts to promote the we'll being of
others. Adopt therefore, as your motto,
young ladies, the words, ."Be useful. p
Drones and butterflies, doubtless, sub
serve some necessary ends in the economy
of mature; but such insects may be very
well dispensed with in the economy of hui
man society.
Some one might, perhaps, be disposed to
assert ofthe person who spends his life in
ldleness, or makes pleasure and display his
only business, that although he does NO
good in the world, yet he does not neces-
sarily do any harm. | would reply that in
the first place he is guilty of a fraud upon
society to the extent Of all the good which
he might have done, but which he has neg
lected to do; and that in the second place
einficts positive injury upon society by
the influence of his example.
| congratulate, you young ladies, not only
on account of sht advantages which you
have enjoyed for intellectual improvement,
but also on account of the instructions of a
moral bearing which it has been your fe-
licity to receive in this school-room. |
trust that these instructions will be CRATE,
fully cherished and that they may result in
an abundant harvest of every virtue and
ofevery grace that can adorR the female
character tr
Please accept from the hand of youl
Teacher, young ladies, the written testimo-
malls which she is about to present to you
of your proficiency in scholarship, and o.
your correct habits and becoming deport
meut.
conclude by giving utterance to the
prayer that wherever your lot may be cast
orin whatever sphere you may be called tc
act the kind care ofthe Father of all may
be over you, and that your days may be
many, useful and happy