Ottumwa weekly courier. (Ottumwa, Wapello County, Iowa) 1872-1899, 1876-09-13

! single exception or no, is a univer-
sal truth confirmed by observation
and experience. 1t is true that the
best mems sons are not always para
CONS of virtue; but we must remem-
Der that there are other and adverse |
influences at work. Not always is
the home influence. unit for good.
Domestic counsel may be conflicting |
and sometimes badly distempered.
The father may be an exemplar, the
mother virago, and cice versd. And
then there is the education received
without money and without price in
the street school. There are secret
social sins poisoning and lessening
the pure life of the plastic pupil. In
the shop and in the street, on the
play ground and in the schocl-room,
a most seductive and pernicious set
of influences are operating to mould
his character. Should we therefore
wonder that our tempted youth learn
the horrid slang, the vulgar song, and
ribald jest, especially when they are
common in the mouth of the rich and
splendid? Every boy community
has its king, selected not from the ig-
noble and vicious, but he, himself, is
the son of king. The banker, or
broker, or judge is father. To be
popular and successful, sin must
have; at least, respectable parent
age. The bloated drunkard's exam
pie is not at all contagious, but
the young man of broad cloth,
and gold ring, and pomatum,
and cigar, and dash - the very
elect would scarcely be safe
in his presence. Those who have the
education of the young, should know
something of the nature of the human
mind. l can hardly make this state
ment sufficiently intense. The sculp-
tor must know something of the
properties of the marble before he
can safely chiscl it into a thing of
symmetry and beauty. The physi-
clan upon whose skill depends life or
death, should certainly be conversant
with the anatomy of his patient and
the properties Of his medicine. or
how much more importance the
teachers work. As the potter hath
power DER the clay to make one lump
to honor and another to dishonor, so
hath the parent and teacher the same
moulding power DER the mind, and
body and character of the child. The
teachers work and the parents work
are one. The parent lays the chief
corner stone of the foundation. The
mother teaches the first language les
sons and the first object lessons. She
has little to do with the rote method,
shn lo nj ,,,afhnl Tho oanonvt
method or the unnatural declamatory
method; but in response to the ten
hundred questions, of the child 'sask-
ing, she, guided by intuition rather
than philosophy, by love rather than
the deductions of logic, adheres close
ly to the order of nature. She deals
chiefly with the perceptive faculties.
When her child enters the school,
room, he has vast fund Of informa-
ton, vast compass of language. The
average foreigner coming to our
country, would acquire, in the same
length of time, scarcely so great a
knowledge Of our language as he. If
the parent has dug down deep into
the nature of the child, if every chord
of the heart has been put in unison
tone with the principle of right and
truth if the intellect has been ten
derby nourished and with the appro-
pirate pabulum if the will has been
properly tempered and rendered SUBJ
ject to rightful authority; i'm short, if
the parent has laid the foundation as
broad as the pyramid and as firm, the
teacher, continuing the work, may
hn npc{v pofv hi nh
the Babel builders essayed to build
their tower-to Heaven.
1t not unfrequently occurs that the
home education has done fearful
violence to the nature of the child !;
for not until streams rise higher than
their source, may we look for amiable,
intelligent children in the homes of
the vicious and the ignorant. In a
home where there are no books, nor
papers, nor pictures, nor flowers, but
obsccnity, profanity and tobacco
juice, can we reasonably look for il
Illustrations of good morals, gentle
manners and budding genius? The
expectations of Simon who went to
see if figs grew on thistle, could
have been no more vain. Children
are like their parents. They look like
them, talk like them, act like them.
So much does bad boy act like his
father that he is said to be "chip off
the same block" So much does the
romping girl act like her termagant
mother that she is said to be the "blue
hens chicken" Born in him" is
collection Of words that makes COM
plete sense and very truth. 1t is true
physiologically, psychologically and
theologically. Qualities Of the mind,
like scrofula or consumption, are
transmitted from parent to progeny.
This is an appalling fact--appaling
because 1t is a fact. AS the wise
physician administers his constitu-
tional or systemic antidotes for the
hereditary faint in the blood, SO the
true teacher sets in motion counter
current of habits to initiate against
the hereditary faint in the mind.
His work is both positive and neg
alive. His positive work is to teach
a knowledge of the ''good, the beau
tiful and the true" His negative
work is to undo parental mischief.
Which is the more difficult labor is
dcbatable. Education primarily sig
mites to lead forth, to draw out. The
head must be taught to think, the
heart to feel, the body to act. Neither
mathematics nor physical science
makes boys better or worse. Ideas
of numbers and quantity do not be-
get obedience, or kindness, or purity.
Had young Washington known that
ten tens are one hundred, or that the
product of the sum and difference of
two quantities equals the difference of
their squares, or five hundred, or five
thousand such exact truths, he would
have been none the less likely to have
chopped the cherry tree, or to have
confessed, us he did, the fact of such
peccadillo, in full view of the inn
pending frown. There may be pat
riotism in history, but none in chem
istry. A recital of the expressions
experienced by our forefathers, es-
pecially when accompanied by the
eloquence of Henry, an Adams, or
-