Fayette County herald. [volume] (Washington [Washington Court House], Fayette County, O. [Ohio]) 1860-1???, 1871-10-12

ALN liiS JlSllSS CViIiNtlS III COHusC6 Will
vital and present issues are spreadin Q
before us every day the pages of ouf
nation S history, and their own bio
graphical record-they are solving the
problems of ethics and religion in our
very faces-they are confronting us
with evidences of the Divine wisdom ;
they are preaching to US the transitori-
ness of earthly hopes, and the suscep
tibility of mortal promises and expec~
tatiOns. They are bidding us beware
of the rocks upon which they have
made shipwreck, and urging Us, when
we censure their course, to set them a
nobler example. They tell us of the
different effects of various modes of
discipline; they show that different
temperaments and character must be
guided and restrained by diverer
courses of treatment. In fine, these
are scores of phenomena connected
with human nature that he who shuts
| himself into the seclusion of his libra
ry must forever ignore. While lessons
of infinite value may be learned from
our own better experience, he can be
hardly esteemed prudent who resolves
always to prove for himself, and shrGg
his incredulous shoulders at the expe
rience of others
TX. Education enables q man to
distinguish logic from sophistry He
is not good logician who can make
the worst appear the better. To argue
with equal facility and accumen on
either side of q question involving
moral issues, either displays a man of
consumate duplicity, or one whose
habits of thought have obliterated
moral distinctions. It is not educa-
ton that blinds man, 1t is no eulogium
to declare concerning a teacher that
he could or would be Janus faced
The advice Of friendship and the en-
ticement of the siren must always be
on opposite sides-the false charmer
charming never so wisely, allures his
victim to his destruction Now it is
the province of education to discern
the friend from the fiatterer, the soph-
ist from him who presents syllogisms
He is not a moral man who can only
maintain his integrity, when everymo-
tive incites to honor and virtue. He
has learned this department of educa-
ton who can so weigh motives as to
discover that the baser leads ro evil.
and therefore must be discarded
With great strength of character. large
frmness, and an uncOnquerable re
solve, he decides that whatever attrac-
tions are set around sin. all the prom
ises it presents are dangerous and its
hopes illusory, while the path of the
first is the only shining light that leads
to perfect day.
X. This brings US to the last defini-
tion-Education is the discovery of
duty. Man as the creature of God and
the associates with his fellows, has a
certain series that make UP his life
just as far as those acts are in the path
that Gods providence and laws have
marked out for him, they are called
his duty; but in whatever he chooses
his own way and seeks another line of
conduct, we call him disobedient.
Now, the truly educated man Iabors
to understand the path of duty. In
his relations to society, this may be
investigated under several different
apartments, viz: his duty to kindred,
to hes neighbors, to underlings, to su-
periority, to the afflicted, to his fell
low citizens. He is religious, he learns
especially from the Word of God,
which he has promised to make the
guide of his steps. In that blessed
| Book he finds this truth-that true ed
uCation is really only begun here
that he who learns to live a believing
christian course during the days of his
probation, is thereby making prepara-
tions for promotion to the school of
Christ among the many mansions of
the Fathers house. Death is to the
christian the dar for receiving his di-
ploma-he graduates from the pfelm-
mary training of the school room, but
throughout the ages of eternity he will
be employed in making acquaintance
with the works of God and seeing the
beauty, the perfect harmony of those
ways that seemed to him here so intri
cate and abstruse. The powers of
mind, the fancy, imagination, memo
ry and sensibilities that were here so
cloyed with physical infirmities shall
| then be clothed with an immortal body
to aid in the investigation Of those re
alities that will never surfeit and never
be destroyed. To know duty is to
make preparation for this higher edu-
cation. For how shall they be permit
ted to enter that school of perfect
knowledge who have not by patient
obedience completed the preparatory
course. The examination must be
successfully passed or the scholar fails
of promotion. The sphere we fill, the
relations we sustain are so many diff
ferent branches in Life's Curriculum,
and we must graduate with honor in
all or the great Examiner will refuse
the diploma. These then, beloved
hearers, are the days for education !;
and as we have seen, he who meets
the responsibility has achieved a life
work.
We are permitted in conclusion to
say to these Earnesc Teachers, Direc-
tors and Friends, that there is help
from a power mightier than mortal
strength. You who shrink from the
performance of so great a responsi-
bility, who are ready to say--I am not
able to manage such an education-I
am afraid if l steer their little boats
that their course will not be in wis
dom's ways--I say to you, look up,
The acknowledgment of your weak
ness will not be in vain. He. who
formed the winds will put into your
: bands the means and into your hesrts
the grace to fashion Alright You may
not discern here all the good you ac-
complish for these youth will go from
your influence in a few yearS--they
will hurry off to transact business for
, themselves in the thousand marts OF
our busV world but they will take