Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1873-08-07
EDUCATION AND VIRTUE.

Some things are inseparably united. As an
example, we might mention ignorance and
vice. Wherever ignorance is found in any
community to prevailing extent, there we
find vice in variety of forms. The contrary
is equally true.s An educated community is
never community notorious for crimes Of the
darkest hue 1t is not argued that what are
called educated men are never guilty of per-
petrating heinous crimes, and never engage
in acts which are subversive of the public
good. Men whose intellects are highly culti-
waited, and whose learning is very great, are
often the perpetrators of deeds which ignorant
individuals are unable to devise, much less eX-
ecute.
1t is absolutely true that education and vir-
tue accompany each other, when it is properly
understood what is included in the word edu-
cation. Man is compound being. He is
not such creature as horse or a mule, and
to treat him as such in his education is to
make serious and extremely dangerous mis-
take. The horse or mule may be taught to
obey our commands, and to have for his mas
ter a kind of attachment which resembles love,
and here his education must, by the restrc-
tions of nature, cease Mans mind, whilst it
is, strictly speaking, unity, still it is very
complex in its operation. This complexity is
denoted by words, thinking feeling and willing
1t is the same mind that thinks, feels and
wills; but thinking is neither feeling nor will
ing. Completely educated, we would be
taught to think, to feel, and to will. The two
former accomplished, the latter would follow
as matter of consequence One reason why
so many educated men so frequently violate
the law, is that their education extends no
farther than the intellect. Their hearts are
uneducated. That delicate state of the sen-
sibilities, which it is within the province of ed
ucation to produce, has been wholly neg elected.
All that was aimed at in their education was
the development of the intellect. The reason
ing powers were strengthened, and the intel
lcctual perception increased, but the heart re-
mained hard and callous. Before many crimes
can be perpetrated, the heart has to be scared
as with hot iron. No man becomes great
villain at once, and no man with properly
trained heart, or with the feeling part Of his
mind properly educated can be guilty Of helm
Gus crimes against the welfare Of society. TO
devise plan by which murder may be
committed is within the range of almost any
intellect, but it requires more than this to kill
a man. The murderer must have hard and
cruel heart.
We may safely infer that the existence Of
crime is a sure index of defective state of
education. We may also infer that the surest,
as we'll as the quickest and cheapest way to
Danish crime, is by thoroughly educating the
masses of the people. Vice is not only a dan
gerous thing, but it is also an exceedingly ex-
pensive thing 1t cost in dollars and cents
far more to punish the violators Of the law
than it does to educate the children. In what
are called civilized lands, jails court houses,
and places of punishment, cost the people
more than all their institutions of learning,
This cost is mainly incurred by the uneduca'
ted. 1t is only occasionally that we hear Of
a high.toned gentleman being sent to Jail for
some crime, or sent to the penitentiary tc
atone for some fragrant misdemeanor. The
mass of those who are sent to these places are
poor, ignorant creatures, with hearts destitute
of tender feeling.