The Marietta journal. [volume] (Marietta, Ga.) 1866-1909, 1872-10-25
Chr stlarirtta 5onrnal.
Marietta, Georgia, october 25th, 1874
MIR. GREELEY ON EDUCATION.

MR.. GREELEY ON EDUCATION.
at Kutztowu, Pennsylvania, on
Wednesday, Mr.. Greeley made two
speeches, one on education, and one
on agriculture. The following is
synopsis of the one on education, de
livered before the Normal School;
Education my young friends, has
Its legitimate objects, the develop
ment of the man or woman, intellec-
tually or mentally, and the develop
ment of the workman. When | ad-
vocate the lrosaic side of the ques-
ton of education do not mean to
disparage the other, From the days
of Plato it has been understood that
education makes the man, and his
fitness for the exigencies of the world
will come after. | have known not
less than a thousand thoroughly
educated-that is, extensively edu-
Gated men, in New York-men who
have entered German or l.uglish or
American colleges, and have been
sent forth with diplomas, who are
yet utterly unable to earn their
bread, and are to-day pacing the
stony streets in vain search tor
something to do. consider it the
re proach and shame of education that
while every robust, temperate Ignor-
anus that Iauds upon our shores with
money enough TO buy an axe Is
morally certain to earn his bread, to
become in time a thrifty citizen, his
children being heirs to all the pessi
bilities Of our condition, the educated
man is not so certain My condem,
nation of education is that it is not
com plete, it is not fully rounded. 1t
does not prepare us for the exigen-
cics of life. The German student
who has become dyspeptic over his
midnight art, who can discourse
learnedly of Kant, Of Hogel and of
Spinosa.; yet has not been taught how
to earn his bread.
When | say my daughters ought
to be scientific cooks, | do not mean
that cooking is the chief end of wo-
manhood, for some women have as
pirations to become lawyers and even
Presidents it is getting on to that
end, believe Laughter but /
mean that they should have some ac>
compllshment in perfection with
which the world is not likely to get
out OF fashion. A bad education sends
man into the world useless. EducA-
ted men, while they are capable of
better work than mere manual labor,
ought, in the absence of that better
work, to be able to do the manual
work better than the uneducated
man. If they have to dig bitches
they ought to dig them better than
the ignorant man. When old men
are asked to pay one thousand dol
lars for their sons education they say
they don't know about it. This edu-
cation is not sufficient in their sphere
of life. A farmers son ought to come
back from college qualified to show
his father how better to work his
farm. If not, if he returns with a
great deal of philosophy and mathe
mates and sciences out of the range
of the old mans apprehension, such
education is likely to be unduly dis.
paraged. We ought to expend more
money than we do now on education,
but we must make the people who
pay the money realize the good in
education. | am told that the higher
and more abstruse studies are an ex-
cellent discipline for the mind. But
why will not more solid truths, less
out of the way truths, serve as dis
cipline as well as theseg | have
been forty-si< years away from
school. never had aught but
common education. My life might
have been more useful and better
otherwise, for have travelled all over
this earth, from The Adriatic sea or
the eist, to the Pacific ocean on the
west, and every day have deplored
the want of knowledge of chemistry
and geology as | walk dumb and
blind amid the wonderful work sof
Gods creation across plains which
spoke with Gods eloquence, which
my limited education prevented me
from enjoying. | had no other time
tor schooling than in the winters OF
the first ten years of my youth. |
never saw during that time book
on chemistry or geology
knew that such books existed-and
feel now that my life would have
been more useful and more enjoyable
if | had had time and the chance to
study them. Learn all we will, we
are still imperfectly taught. Let the
little that the student may know,
then, irradiate the path just about
him. When graduates say, 81 am
educated, and therefore can not work
with my hands," they are miseduca-
ted. We are educating young peo-
ule out Of usefulness. The true man
will do the best work that to-day pre-
SCENTS to him. Labor is becoming