Pomeroy weekly telegraph. [volume] (Pomeroy, Meigs County, Ohio) 1860-1866, 1860-10-26
EDUCATIONAL REFORM.

EDUCATIONAL REFORM.
Mr.. L. A Hine. the advocate of Land
and Educational Reform, who recently
lectured in Pomeroy, takes the following
positions in respect to the latter branch
of his theme
l. Our existing system of high school
and collegiate education is seriously de-
fective in being a monopoly, and there
fore productive of inequality. There
should be no more inequality than God
designed.
2. It is also open to serious criticism
because it educates with reference to pro-
fessional or genteez life, and not for man
ual occupations. One should be as well
educated for a farmer or mechanic as for
a lawyer or gentleman.
3. In the third place, the existing
system is the main support of misera-
BILE aristocracy that scorns and degrades
manual labor Those who have enjoyed
the sentimental gentility of the Academy
or College regard it as prodigious let
ting down of personal dignity to go to
work
4. It is also seriously defective in not
teaching the first duties of life. They
profess it as their object, to prepare
young ladies and gentlemen ''for the du-
ties of life;" but in nine cases out of
ten their graduates despise these duties
and hold them as menial occupations, fit
only for the poor, whom they seem to
regard as predestined by the Creator to
support and wait on the educated gen
tility!
5. Again; the present system does
more damage in the destruction of health
than good in the mental culture. It
slaughters large proportion of its stu
dents, and weakens nearly all Of them.
1t aims not to provide the world with
model men and women, but with profess
sional gentlemen and sentimental do
nothing ladies, fit only to fill home
stead with sorrow, because fashionable
life destroys their health.
6. In the sixth place, the present sys
tenn does not seek to correct physical
and mental defects-a service to human
ity which should be the sole object of
Education But if one is defective in
body or mind his defects are increased
by the College,
To overcome these abuses is the OBJ
iect of Educational Reform. Our Aca-
1emical and Collegiate system must be
reconstructed and thoroughly organized
in harmony with mans physical and
mental constitution. 1t must provide
for physical health as we'll as for mental
development. It must make deformed
body symmetrical, and give balance to
an inharmonious mind; and not be guilty
of the monstrous wrong of deforming
symmetrical bodies and increasing the
disorders of unbalanced minds. 1t must
provide work for each student at least
four hours per day, in which the Presi-
dent and Faculty shall participate. Il
must pay especial attention to physiol-
ogy, health and practical morals. II
must save the expense of education, and
thus, by preserving health, make educa-
tion so cheap that the poorest can have
all the advantages of the richest. Il
must graduate every male student famil-
lar with Agriculture, Horticulture, fruit
culture and trade; and every female
student must go out familiar with all the
duties of her sphere, as, also, with Hor
ticulture and floral culture And espe-
cially must it send them out with good
health and love for practical life, ever
if nothing else shall be done for them
Thus would Education be made tc
promote equality, justice, wisdom and
happiness. 1t would cease to be mo
nopoly-would build up the middle
class-and while it should abolish the
aristocracy, it would elevate the poo1
and free the bond from ignorance, dissi
patton, vice, poverty and crime.
Let each county purchase Il large
farm, put up the buildings, shops, &c.
and rely upon their home institution
that will save them the expense of edu
cation abroad, raise the value of ,theil
land, improve agriculture and society.
There is much in his lectures worthy
of attention; and whether all his idea:
are capable of practical application OIL
not, in the present state of society, many
of his suggestions are of such a nature
that all may benefit by them,