The Albany register. [volume] (Albany, Or.) 1868-18??, 1874-12-18
BoNAMY PRICE ON EDUCA TToN.

4uO JASO4J O4 CAuOatAOA WAAOA 1O4s |
Bonamy Price propounded in his re-
cent lecture deserves criticism, favora-
BILE and unfavorable. We can heartily
indorse the distinction he drew between
education and skill. It can best be
given in his own terse words ssThe
sailor who knows how to trim a topsail
is a man of skill the clerk who knows
how to speak German in a counting
house is a man of skill the groom who
knows all about the points of horse is
a man of skill the man who acquires
special knowledge may be called skill
ed, but not educated education must
be thorough" Reviewing his points as
he made them, we come next to the
assertion that the skill which nearest
approaches education is mathematical.
This is too sweeping. For, as the speak
er afterward confessed, the main ad- |
vantage of mathematical training is to |
make a man logical. Now it may make |
him too formal in his logic, like the |
lawyer whom Prof. Price knew, who |
was always vainly trying to formulate
legal propositions as axioms. Aud if
this is the main outcome of mathemat-
les, from an educational standpoint.
we should advise the seeker for logical
training to study the text book of Mill
and the speeches of Burke rather than
the problems of Euclid. The next
point OF the lecture was the study of
science. Prof. Price well rebuked the
arrogance of modern scientists. He
made good-humored fun of Huxlev's
wild statement that man who knew
the history of certain piece of chalk
was better educated than he who had
studied Greek and Roman civilization.
Admitting the value of scientific study,
he rightly denied that it is the be-an
and end-all of ofeducation. Had he known
the story, he might have quoted the
witty Boston lady who said that she
preferred literature per Sc to science
purbhnd. He estimated in the same
just way the benefits of linguistic study
SO far as the modern languages are con-
cerned. When he treated of Greek and
Latin, however, the traditions of OK
ford proved too strong for impartial
judgment. He ignored individual
idiosyHcrasies when he said hold,
deliberately and earnestly, that as an
educational tool there is none compara-
BILE, in the slightest degree, to the
Greek and Latin languages. Different
tools are needed in order to shape diff
ferent substances, Iron, wood marble
into the most beautiful forms of which
they are capable. Mind differs from
mind far more than matter from
matter. The process that will fully de-
velop one may be comparatively power
less in regard to another. The dead
languages are valuable, as the lecturer
said, because they emba1m the thoughts
of the greatest minds the world has
produced. They are valuable. too,
because their mastery demands study,
and study is drill. But the same drill
may be got by hard study on other
themes, and the great thoughts have all
been clothed in English words, and are
within the reach of the man to whom
the original is a sealed book. Some
thing Is lost, of course, by straining
Aristotle the author through Thompson
the translator. Goethe suffers even in
the hands of Carlyle. But it is certain
1y a reasonable question whether that
part of the original which is lost in a
translation is not more than counter
balanced by the knowledge that may be
got by studying other themes during
the time usually devoted to acquiring
Greek and Latin. If a man has read
on Tfv1/-11oA - L
mastered science besides, is he not
better educated than if he knows moth
ing of the science and has read Plato in
the original Greek ? The universities
of England have made fetish of the
dead languages, and the colleges of
America have followed the fashion they
set. He is bold man who cenfronts
the idol and protests against it's power
Yet there may be reason in the protest.
When Bonamy Price spoke of the high
standing of Oxford graduates as
proof of the benefits of classical train
ing, he forget the important fact that
the raw material on which Oxford |
works is about the best in the world, |
To make his argument apply, he must |
show what Sir Robert Peel and Glad
stone would have been with different
education.
The truth of the matter seems to be
that the study of language, like that of
science or philosophy, is the best thing |
for some minds and the worst for others, |
We see no reason for giving it higher
place per Sc than any other first-class
study occupies. Let each mind Judge
for itself. When youth forbids this, it
should be the grateful task of the
teachers to discover the Individual bent
and plan courses of study accordingly. |
The ideal education is summed up in |
the saying '' Something about every
thing and everything about something" "
What the latter something IS, individual