New Orleans daily crescent. [volume] ([New Orleans, La.]) 1851-1866, 1866-09-06
OPENING OF THE SCHOOLS.

OEEN1NG Ut IktE SGhUUlS,
Our columns elsewhere show us that large
number Of schools, select, public and private,
pensionots, erternats, ETC., are to open during
this month and are to do the correct thing in
the way Of education for. the generation that
comes after us. We are to have institutions
for girls and boys, doctors and lawyers, and
| of every language and variety of color. Some
thing in the neighborhood Of two hundred
teachers have been examined and appointed
for the coming year, for our public schools
alone; the number of private teachers must
be almost equally great. We therefore feel
somewhat tempted at the commencement of
the scholastic year to insist upon the sim
portance of education" Sacred as it is to
young writers) provided it be of the right
kind
We are more especially tempted, as we have
before us an article giving the views of NJ
Nichelet D. Dupin and several of the most
earnest thinkers of France upon the condition
of society in that country, and who insist
that it has deteriorated during the last de-
cade, from the lack of the proper edu-
cational training. Theirs is a system which,
they contend, makes the youth of that coun-
try selfish, cynical and with no fixed principle;
which makes the women unfit for anything
but dress and eoquetry, and both sexes ILL
adapted to the duties of life or to living hap
PLY together. Young men grow up with lit
tie regard or respect for the opposite sex, and
'fenlale education is so totally neglected or
shamefully misconducted and girls enter soci-
ETY. in such shameless ignorance of what they
ought to know, that no man with any refined
feelings can enjoy their company or make
them his friends and companions"
The defects which M. Nichelet aseribes to
education in France, are common enough
nowadays everywhere, and the above quota
ton will hardly need any explanation on ap-
plication, What we want is system that
will Undue our youths with reverence for the
old fashioned models Of virtue, and which
will lead girls to become Corne1ias rather than
Candles. To learn to construe syntax and
sentences, tell the names of places upon maps
or why one set of angles is equal to another
of different sort, is, undoubtedly, great
point to be gained. But it is not all, although
we don't think that our present system con
templates the teaching Of much more The
education Of cities is too much of material
character, and no carefully nurtured boy or
girl was eyer suddenly transferred from the
country to the city without being greatly aston
ished at the worldly feeling, the absence of the
high sense Of honor or devotion to friends
which his companions otherwise far ahead of
him in intelligence are apt to manifest. We
become hardened from seeing too much ofthe
world, and have to admit that Arcadian sim
phcity is preferable to Attic salt in the early
training of the young. That is one Of the
defects Of life to be more especially guarded
against in the atmosphere of cities-that we
grow wiser without becoming better. Our
teachers therefore, that can happily remind
their pupils now and then of the principles
which bind society and keep it together-that
it won't do to steal too much or too often
that you must not cut your neighbours throat
unless for just cause, and had better let your
neighbors wife alone NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS.
who can enforce some such homely truths as
these are what we now need, even if the
pupils at the end of the year do not rattle off
at the examinations quite so pertly as they
might their facts and figures and knowledge
Of the globes. II they acquire that patience
to discipline which is the cause of the success
Of military Quotations, and which, indeed, is
necessary to successful trainings of any sort,
the most important lesson of life will have
been learned and parents will have no cause
to complain. In denouncing corporal punish
ment, which may or may not be right or
wrong, we are too apt to go to the opposite
extreme Of removing every difficulty from the
path Of childhood, forgetting that knowledge
without severe effort is not worth the acquir-
ing (; and that the success of men of genius is
as often due to the severe ordeal through
which they were compelled, by poverty or
their friends to pass, as to talent of their
own.