The Emporia news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1859-1881, 1873-06-27

And when education in the Amer
lean sense has accomplished its
mission, such distinctions will b'
obliterated. The humblest artisan
will have full development of hi.
intellectual powers; the profound
est scholar will have the thew:
and sinews of an athlete.
And here l may be allowed tC
say that the Importance of physi
cal culture as an element of the
higher education cannot be eXag
gerated. Is the healthy man, the
man of robust and enduring con
stitution, of elastic fiber and
nerves, of comprehensive diges
tion, who does the great work oil
life; like Scott with his massive
form, Brougham with his almost
superhuman powers of endurance,
Napoleon four hours asleep and
twenty in the saddle, Washington
with his splendid frame and phys
ical strength. He whose life is
spent in regulating the state of
his secretions, and guarding
against the whims of his liver and
the caprices of his stomach, is
destitute of one prime condition
of success. Incapable of protract-
ed mental effort, he becomes peev-
ish and irritable. The mind sym
pathizes with the tenement which
it inhabits, and shares so largely
in It's infirmities that some species
of literature undoubtedly tend to
disseminate the diseases to which
they owe their origin. Calomel
may sometimes be Il remedy for
remorse, and melancholy may fire.
ouentl'y be cured by 4 judicious
course OF tonics. The proper ed
ucation of the body is therefore
doubly valuable, as a conservative
not alone of the health, but of the
morals of man.
Nature detests uniformity asmuch
as she abhors vacuum. She makes
no two things alike. She has re-
semblances, condolences, but no
| Identities. Out of the billions of
human lives on this planet, though
all began with the fact of birth
and ended with the fact of death,
no two ever had the same expert
ence or ran the same career. Of
the millions of human faces whose
diversity is written upon a space
not larger than a clock dial, no
two can be COMPOUNDED. The
leaves of the forest differ in vein
and fiber. The sands of the sea
disclose infinite variety in angle
and outline beneath the scrutiny
of the microscope. We all have
different inclinations, aptitudes,
capacities, powers and destinies;
but these architects of the soul ap
ply the same measure to every
candidate. Everything is done by
machinery. They construct bed
of Procrustes, upon which they
place the students; if he is too
brief, they stretch him; if too long
they amputate him at one end or
the other. The result is Il tenden-
cy to uniformity. which is fatal to
originality and to individual de-
velopment.
There is Il given direction, Il line
of growth, in which every being
must develop in order to attain
that harmonious action of all the
faculties which constitutes true
manhood or womanhood. And
yet the institutions of learning in
the old world, and those which i'm
itate them in the new consume the
most important period of life--the
period when character is formed
and destiny determined, in pure
ly scholastic and literary training.
The youth whose instincts lead
them to the church, to law, medi
cine, commerce, agriculture: or
any of the practical industries of
the age, all receive the same quo
tn of Latin, Greek. mathematics
and logic, upon \ theory that it
disciplines the mind.
Were life to be spent in subtle
disputations about the Greek ac
cent, or the true rendering of an
obscure passage in Aristophanes,
this training might be profitable;
but these topics unfortunately
have small place in modern life.
The student soon fin1s, when
brought face to face with the great
contests that confront him, that
his weapons are as pOwerless as
would be the lance and mail and
helmet of a crusader against the
minnie rifle of Il Yankee skirm
Usher, or Il Roman galley against
the conical bolt Of a Rodman gun.
He is compelled to unlearn most
that has been taught him, and his
true education begins after he has
left the college walls.
believe I.apPeai to common eX-
periance when | say the great mass
of graduates under the old system
are hindered rather than helped by
their acquisitions. The LAWYER or
the editor, stepping from the COM
mencement stage into the hurry bur
Nv of Western life, is soon cOnvinc-
ed that there has been 4 great mis-
take somewhere. He may be able
to write Greek verse, construct
syllogism, quote Virgil and Tacitus,
write learned essay upon domes-
tic life in the time of Romulus, but
this does not meet the exigencies of
the situation. Something is reQuir-
ed that is wanting here. Ii he has
really acquired mental discipline he
spends few years in learning what
he should have known at first, and
then succeeds. Ii. as is frequently
the case, he loses self-reliance wheff
| l. - I, I, lan
upon a broken reed, he succumbs at
once, becomes a book canvasser or
a life insurance agent, and fades
| out of existence. 1t little matters
10 him Xenophon thence marched
two parasangs, or that Tityrus lay
beneath the shade of the wide
spreading beech tree. The boy that
worked on his fathers farm till he
was twenty-ene, and read law as he
lay on the cabin floor by the light
of the hickory fire, has beaten him
| in the race of life-has won his
causes, taken a seat on the bench,
been elected to Congress, chosen
president of the railroad, and bank
without knowing the age of Peri
cles, or how much Sappho owed.
| And still the dry nurses sit in their
classic shades, grooming US lullaby
to modern civilization the Mother
Goose's melodies that were chanted
as the cradle song of the race.
To promote education by the
most liberal appropriations Is not
more the privilege than the duty oil
every citizen OF Kansas. No in
vestment can yicld returns SO large
and sure. Every facility should be
ungrudgingly afforded for the acqui.
sition OF every form of practical
knowledge. Books, cabinets, appar.
atus, buildings, competent instruct.