The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1872-07-01

ls direct violation OF all existing treaties be-
tween them and the government. They have
done everything that lay in their power to
fulfil their share Of the obligations Of the
treaties, and it is but right that they should
demand the same from our government
Treachery towards them now, when honestly
striving to become useful and peaceable men,
bers of society, is no less inhuman than the
policy of annihilating the entire race by fire
and sword. We can hardly blame the vindic-
tiveness of the savages on the Plains when we
consider that their civilized brethren are out
ragged and prosecuted in similar manner in
ment. President Grant should look into this
matter seriously. for upon it great results de-
pend.
Our Am crican College commandments
The skyrocket Educational system.
With the last week in June our American
colleges and universities go through that
annual display which is oddly called the
commencement" II Is the period which
marks the ending of the collegiate career for
q certain number Of young men who graduate.
With an elaborate diploma, printed on thick
parchment and neatly tied up with bright-ool-
ored ribbon, a certain modicum of classics,
science, theology and calisthenios, high hopes
and rosy well-wishings, the gentlemen of the
class of 70 betake themselves to their homes,
whence they will soon be called to put their
faculties to class Of work totally different
from the curriculum of their Alma Mater. 1t
is rather our desire to look at the adaptability
Of the course of studies to the future Of the
young men than to make any t a,;;ssG;1isition
on the imitation and unreality which are
CLOSED over amid the wild fever of commence
ments. With even the most solid of our higher
educational establishments there is tendency to
fanfaronade at this sending-off period, which
seems conceived on the rocket principle
namely, that the up-rush of the spark-finging
education must have its report high in the air,
followed by shower of ephemeral stars-a
pyrotechnic eye-catching effect, which, out of
respect for the short-ived asteroids themselves
and the respectable old dons who manage the
fireworks, we refrain from calling clap-trap 1t
is concession to smiling mammas delighted
sisters and admiring cousins, from whose
bright-eyed pleasure it is not in our hearts to
detract an iota. 1t makes one forget the fate
OF the rocket stick that goes plunging into the
darkness But the rocket stick will turn up
again somewhere, and its value, or the reverse,
as a staff through life will become apparent
sooner than the young A. B. imagines as he
packs his trunk.
This brings us, currenae calamo to our sub
ject of the fitness Of the education which the
children OF the comparatively well-to-do re-
ceive in these institutions. At the outset we
may say that in an alarmingly large proportion
of cases it is the essence of uselessness We
do not believe that knowledge is burden in
any branch, and record our acceptance of the
axiom that knowledge is power to meet the
objections Of sensitive gownsmen, who look on
all attempted restrictions of the educational
course as heresy to human advancement.
Neither do we believe that system of educa-
ton can be projected which will be so perfect
in its details-morally, physically and men,
tally-as to form specific for every youth whose
parents can pay for the process We are re-
minded Of Rousseau's cynical retort to o gen.
tleman who introduced his son to the humani-
tartan, saying that the boy had been reared on
the plan laid down by the author in ''Emil''-
$50 much the worse for your son and yourself. -
The perfection of the system, we opine, de-
ponds less on its propensity to drawing rigid
lines inside which all students must progress
or fail utterly than on the possession of O GER
toin IF
fostering the bents of talent which are sure to
display themselves, and developing them Wig
orously, even at the expense of some of the
branches which are alphabetically called
those of ''polite education" Boys are trained
in these institutions good deal too much
on the plan of fitting them for college profess
sorships which might be very well if even
that was thoroughly DONE We might at least
count on a reserve of dons who could Jump
into the breach of ignorance, Xenophon in
hand; but we know that such remote con-
tingency as their being wanted for that occu-
patton would find ninety-fve in hundred
sadly in want Of lexicon. How this idea of
don manufacture obtained is easily ascer-
tanned 1t dates from the far-off time when
learning had only that object, when the polish
of the universities shone out isolated amid the
dense masses of ignorance around them. The
self-conceit which then made the college boun-
Diary the limits of a perfect microcosm has not
been lost even in our day, and there is moth
ing SO humanity natural as q benign professors
idea of inducing all his class to shape them
selves mentally after himself. The innocent
professor will possibly not discover his mis-
take even when he finds that he is personally
the most unfit man in the world to get along
outside of the college campus.
Our heads of colleges are especially fond of