The Norfolk post. [volume] (Norfolk, Va.) 1865-1866, 1865-10-30

and to perform these duties requires but
small amount of scientific learning.
The reason our city streets are filed
with loafers, gamblers, thieves and con-
fidence men, is because we ruin our
youth by giving them too much educa-
ton. All those loafers that you see
idling around the street corners and in
the saloons are persons of education.
Their mothers washed clothes, or their
fathers delved in the earth, that they
might educate their boys-and of what
benefit has it been to them? They are
totally untitled for the heavier labors of
life; have learned no mechanical art or
useful calling, and consequently become
loafers, starvlings and beggars; and all
because they are spoiled by education
for the duties of useful members of So
ciety. OF kin to these are the half
starved medical practitioners, and brief
less barristers, that flood the world, who
would have become wealthy as shoe
makers or carpenters, or farmers. But
still the cry is educate-cram them with
neutrality-suspicious. with philosophy,
physiology, and all the other ologies.
We must educate the masses, the peo-
pie, the women, the negroes! Fifty
years ago the sturdy men and women
who went forth into the forests of the
far west to build up for themselves a
home, and for their country name, by
their industry; and to combat and over
come by their indomitable courage, the
difficulties that beset pioneer life, were
neither physically nor mentally en-
feebled or untitled for the great task by
too much education. They were the
students of nature and had been trained
in the school of experience; and their
children have been reared up in the
same school. Few opportunities had
they for acquiring 'book learning" "a
quarters schooling sufficed for the most
fortunate; and we search in vain among
them for the evil effects of want of
school-training. Many of the brightest
intellects in the land, and the most en-
lightened statesmen, perhaps, never saw
the inside Of a school-room much less of
college.
If the real ability is there, and the
subject is left free to make his choice,
he will secure his own education, despite
the obstacles that poverty or legislation
may surround him with. 1t il not, we
contend, for the interests of civilization
that all men should be literally educated,
but we admit that all should be allowed
an equal opportunity to secure liberal
education, and that opportunity they
now have. Books are cheap, and edu-
cational institutions are abundant, and
there is no law to prevent any person in
the land from becoming as learned as
Noah Webster or Professor Agassiz, and
we have no desire to thwart or control
in any manner whatever the inclina-
ton of any child of the people to satisfy
his thirst for knowledge, but would
rather encourage the ambitious aspira.
tons of all who earnestly seek after the
priceless jewel, either for its own sake
or for the benefits to be derived from its
possession; but we would leave it entire
ly to their own choice. We would not
| force knowledge into an unwilling mind,
in the manner we compel child to
swallow nauseating drugs. If the in
clination to learn is good and the capac-
ity equal to it, we would leave the will
free, and place no barrier in the way of
the vaulting mind; but we would not
compel the boy that wishes to be good
carpenter to become bad lawyer, a
worse physician, or fool in the pulpit
If the radical ideas of education be
persisted in, we shall soon have world
filled with confirmed infidels, skeptical
christians, and all sorts of learned idiots,
full of the Importance of their acquired
attainments, with neither mind nor
modesty to chasten their arrogant as
sumptions acknowledge; we shall have
nothing but philosophers, and nobody
to do anything but discuss metaphysics;
for as education units man for the
manual labors and mental duties of life,
we shall be without laborers, servants,
or workmen of any kind, and turn to a
nation of loafers and beggars. Educate
the people, by all means, but educate
them to work. Teach them that it is
manly to labor--to earn their bread in
any honest calling-and that they can
not all become philosophers. Heaven
save us from the swarms of half educated
fools that will throng our cities, If we
are to Unfortunately cram knowledge
into every head in the land regardless of
inclination or capacity. A little learn
ing is not so dangerous a thing as too
much learning, Pope to the contrary,
Notwithstanding. All must not become
teachers. Let knowledge be free, and
it's benefits be alike open to all, but force
no man or boy to accept itagainst his
better judgment of what is best for him
in life. There is general cry raised
about educating the negro. We have no
objection to his learning all thathe is
capable of acquiring, but wesee no ne
cessity of forcing knowledge into his
skull. Teach him to be a good and use
full member of society, and let him take
care of his own education. He canpro-