The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-01-06

tion of Independence, and that there Is q
standard Of cultivation and learning to which
they have not at present even nearly ap-
preached. They are suffering from very natu-
raj delusions of mental perspective, which
n AXE their own continent and epoch loom in
tie vastest proportions, and they are speoi ,lly
in need of such oorrectives to their vision as
can be supplied at school.
But we cannot 1atter ourselves that the
moral 80 obvious in their case has no applioa-
tion to us. There is, it is true, a large and
growing class of Englishmen which reoog-
nIzes more or less dimly the fact that there
are other countries beyond the British Chan
mel, and there are some foreign civilizations
which are not quite unworthy Of notice.
There is also class, though not 80 rapidly
increasing, which is aware that few books
were written and few things done, before
the nineteenth century which may be studied
with some show of profit. Still, the measure
of the Philadel phian school teachers only en-
bodies sentiment analogous to the common
English sentiment that Junius" or the
writer's of the Spectator would be second-rate
soribblers at the present day, and
that there is more good writing in
the daily press than would have
fitted out a frst-rate author of the
past. The answer which is generally made to
this, and to the often-quoted comparison bs-
tween the Times and Thucydides or between
rather fails to allow for the half-truth con
tanned In those assertions. The obstinate de-
tenders of the old classical system are apt to
dwell too extensively upon the advantages of
the training which it confers upon the mind,
without insisting upon the substantial value
Of the knowledge impaired. They accept the
position of their antagonists, and admit that a
youth who has been trained for many years
in classics or mathematics is then to forget all
about it, and take to some purely utilitarian
study. They argue that they have put 80
fine polish upon his intellectual powers that
he is to be able to take up with effect any
study no pleases. Now, it is only natural that
their opponents should feel a difficulty in be-
lieviDg that a man who is to devote his whole
| faculties to certain pursuits is the better for
having previously sharpened them on
something which is to be entirely laid
aside. IT, after sharpening your razor to
| the utmost, it is only to be used for
cutting blocks, one can hardly resist suspi-
con that the sharpening has been more or less
thrown away. Neither can it be denied that
our present educational system is liable to
| some extent to this blame, and that in some
interpretations at least of its merits the theory
seems to be involved that study which is
useful in after-ite is necessarily useless as a
means OF training. II classical training, for
example, were founded on more intelligent
method, and such superstitons as that of ex-
cessive verse-making were ettectually laid, the
answer to the Philadelphian heretics would be
much palmer, because they would more easily
recognize the utility of study which should
be no longer ostentatiously unsuitable to any
one but schoolboys. They might perhaps be
induced to recognize the advantage which a
man derives from having some acquaintance
with the world in large sense, and from hav-
ing, as it were, an intellectual anchorage be-
yond the very unstable aud shifting sands of
provincial journalism. But to meet effsctualy
the prejudces of which this is ludicrous in
stance some modification in the views of ex-
treme purists is required and it would be we'll
that they should provide themselves with
arguments plain even to the capacity of per
sons who believe in Philadephian newspapers.