The Waynesburg Republican. [volume] (Waynesburg, Pa.) 1867-18??, 1868-02-26
original
For the REPUBLICAN.
ADDRESS TO THE TEACHERS, INsTI.
TUTE, OF CUMBERLAND TOWNSHIP,
GREENECO., PA.

Teachers, Ladies and ,fentlemen -
In the presentation of some thoughts
for your consideration, allow me tC
say, that others than Teachers of com.
mon schools may readily be included
within the pale of our remarks, and
yet it will not be proper to enter the
multifarious avenues of thought, in
cluded in the ecclcsiaslic realms OF
sacred truth.
But assuming without argument,
that the more thorough the education,
moral and scientific, in early life, the
more likely are its aims to be pure,
noble and elevated, and its chances Of
success vastly more enhanced. As
faithful teachers, you, perhaps, ,,requirc
no promptings from outsiders to pro-
perly discharge your duties, for hav-
ing mentally prepared yourselves for
this important sphere in life, you enter
the list of literary savants with
degree Of hopefulness, and yet you
may at times feel grateful for encour-
agement in carrying out your well
formed plans Of youthful cultivation.
The importance of your vocation,
all admit, it is evidenced by these
institutions that dot our land in all
most every hamlet, Institutions reared
for the purpose of terminating scien-
tifc thought. The school-house, like
a well kept lighthouse, points to the
channel of knowledge in the sea Of
human thought, they are visible
from every hilltop, standing as finger
posts, or mile stones, telling the route
along the dusty highway of science,
While Colleges and higher institu-
tions of learning open the gateway to
the oriental fields of scientific light.
We are fast becoming a literary
people, The late war gave an impc-
tus to newspaper literature, which is
now being rapidly fixed and improv-
ed upon. Very many persons who
never looked upon a map of the
country previously, were induced to
study its contour and become fami-
liar with its Geography, and thus re-
ceived new and definite ideas of its
magnitude, while a more comprehen-
sivo grasp was given to the public
mind. And it now becomes the Teache 3
province, to improve on the enlarged
views of mankind, to carry out in
detail those practical ideas evolved by
the intense thought of the last eight
years. Yours, however, is a higher and
nobler sphere than the marshalling of
hosts on the battlefield for scientific
slaughter. Your missien takes hold of
the latent powers of 4 nations life
while slumbering in unconscious
strength. Grasping the tree when but
a twig, it trims to model ofbeauty,
making it useful as we'll as ornamen-
tai.
Mind, in its infancy, has been COM
pared to sheet of blank white paper,
ready to receive impressions. But
suppose we change the figure slightly,
and say that it is as sheet of photo
graphic paper, albumenized, ready to
receive images of beauty. The mega
tive is arranged so as to allow the
light, (nature's great photographer to
pass freely through it. So sensitive is
the albumen thus chemically prepared,
to the faintest ray of light impinging
its surface, that the minutest lines Of
ofbeauty are traced in all their deli
cacy by the pencil etchings of rosy
fingered light, and images of beauty
are retained in miniature to cheer the
sight. Now applying the figure to
mental science we find the mind of
youth so sensitive as to he suscep-
tiblc ofthe fiintest impressions. Our
textbooks are the negatives, upon
which are traced images Of condensed
thought, and through which the light
Of science is made to pass. Now the
teacher, acting as the center of that
solar system, is supposed to eliminate
those lines of thought by the effal-
,gence Of mind, so thoroughly that
images Of beauty, of power Of endur-
ancc, be traced indelibly upon the
mind Of fyouth.
But, to my mind, no figure conveys
q stronger impression than that Of the |
pottcr's or modeller's clay. After
passing through the proper manipu-
lations IL comes to the artists hand in |
q very plastic state, B pliable man Of
unwrourht material, to which the true