Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1873-05-02
a soHoonaoF NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS..

A s0aO0A OF NATURAL a IsTORY.s
Prof Agassiz's school Of Natural History
has some features which deserve attention
from all whh. are I'D enough TO think on
the subject of education. For the benefit
of the school, Mr.. John Anderson, of New
York city has given beautiful island of
100 acres known as Penikese, near new
Bedford, and four miles from the main land,
which has such Improvements as gentle
man of wealth would construct for resi-
dence. The studies and researches in this |
institution ere to be applied to one depart
ment of natural history; yet, to do justice
to this department. the school is
organized with 81 professors Divide
the labor of educators in Harvard Universe
" to the same extent, and 200 professors
would be too small force to perform the
work before them. Agassiz says that Har-
ward with its 35 or 40 professors is only a
frst-class high school; and in no proper
sense university. In this opinion he is
unquestionsbly right. We have before us
the names of the p professors in the An
derson School of Natural History, and the
duties assigned to each. J.. L. Agassiz,
Director of the Musem, and Professor OF
the Embryology of the Vertebrates. 2.
Extinct Animals Of the past ages compared
with those now living. 8. Comparative
Anatomy and Physiology of the Verte-
brates. A. Animals and Plants living in
deep waters and peculiar condi-
tiens.-a5. Embryology Of the Radiates'
From the five professorships named, the
reader can easily understand that the num-
Der may be increased to 81 without teach
ing the botany and physiology OF land
plants, or human anatomy, or the physiolo-
gy of mind or body. Nor is any attention
paid to such sciences as chemistry, geology
astronomy and mathematics. The scheol
is q specially, and as such is exceedingly
suggestive. If 1t is admitted that knoWl-
edge is cumulative and progressive, and at
the same time valuable, we have only to
assume that man is teschable being to
have the ground work Of this department
of productive labor, which must be perform
ed partly by the educator, and partly
by his pupils. Prof. Agassiz has studied
profoundly natures laws for transferring
vitality and all vital functions, from one
| generation of animals TO another. In
plants, life passes from parent to offspring
| in similar manner to that Of animals. In
both types of organized beings, like begets
like; and it Is rare indeed that the line
which separates one species from another,
is passed by producing a hybrid. Yet, if
there were no variation in form nor func-
ton, IN animals and plants, as life descends
from progenitors to progeny, there could
be no such a thing as improvement
Man might tame wild horses, camels,
cattle, sheep, goats and hogs, but
he could not improve their constitutions.
He could not make tame pig fstten earlier;
nor sheep yield more wool and mutton,
nor tame Ayrshire secrete more milk
than wild COW, But man has improved
all of his domesticated animals, his long
cultivated fruits, garden vegetables and
field staples. There is a law of possible
variation in organic life; and man himself
displays this possibility of change in the
highest degree. More can be drawn out of
him than from any other mass of animated
matter, because there is more in him that
is educible, or, that invites education.
Il is an instructive fact that the richest
gold mine found in the last fifty years eX-
lists in the human brain. In the first quar-
ter of this century men Of science were
asked by governments to invent some ex-
cuse for letting worthless sunernumerary
Irishmen and Hindoos die from starvation.
The Latin educo and its offspring education
were held to be powerless to extract any
thing good from such human brains. This
misapprehersion still exists in minds that
oppose free, liberal and universal culture of
the human intellect and conscience. If we
want the faculty that decides the question
of right and wrong to do its work properly,
this primitive faculty must be educsted.
No. man raises crop of corn, wheat, or
cotton, without cultIvsting the ground.
The human brain, uncultivated, produces
dangerous savage, How much clear
money has honest industry made out of all
the savages on this continent, beginning
with the Florida Indian war, and continu-
ing our Indian history to the war of the
Lava Beds? Our Federal army costs us
some thirty million dollars year i'll times
of general peace. Thirty million dollars
would pay for the services of pretty large
army of school teachers for fen months in
twelve. Education is needed to stop large
and demoraizing expenditures.
The brains of people who support pref
ty costly State, city and county govern
ments, and maintain Federal power at an
| expense of some three hundred and fifty
million dollars year, to keep these local
governments from cutting each others
throats, need Rme Improvements.
Natures journeymen with no education,
should do better than this. Common
sense, unedncated, is wholly in the power
of educated rascals. 1t is not practicable
to deny intellectual development to dis
honest parties. How will you protect par
ties profoundly Ignorant, but reasonably
honest, considering their mental condition?
Can the cultivated brains of few judges
in courts adequately shield the mass of cit
liens in State or nation, from the frauds
and injustice of accomplished swindlers?
As a means of self defense, every one
needs no inconsideTable amount Of useful
knowledge. This is not so much matter
of honor, as of necessity. If knowledge
is power, and that power brushes millions
by its taxes and robberles, what shall the
millions do in self defense? They can do
nothing better than to acquire knowledge
equal to that which assails them. The day
for low, mean education is passed by. It