The Wheeling daily register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1864-1878, 1877-08-18
The Education of southern Youth

The Education of southern Youth
Editors OF the Register.
How to give to their sons the highest
advantages of education with the least
personal risk, the least sacrifice OF feel
ing, and the smallest possible expense, Is,
and ought TO be, ono OF the foremost
questions with the heads of families
throughout the So nth.
Fully awakened to the Importance OF
education, Southern men are striving
largely TO overcome the disadvantages
with which they were lett trammeed by
the war and ave making every sacrifice
in order TO tit their children for hap
pier and more prosperous career than
seems possible now Tor themselves.
In order that these efforts should meet
with the highest results, 1t Is essential
that they should be made in more
iudicous way than seems 10 Ine TO have
been heretofore pursued.
What is most needed, l have become
satisfied by long experience and close
observation, is System-a fixed system OF
education with a definite aim. The course
too often pursued by parents Is to send
their soDs for some years, first to one
school and then TO another at their own
! convenience, or even at the pleasure OF
their boys, thus rendering necessary dis
ciplne very difficult, ssi the hands OF
teachers are tied by the knowledge That
the very existence Of their school Is
largely dependent on pleasing their
students, VINO must often be pleased by
what is tar IRON conducive to their true.
interests. They theL decide on some one
OF the colleges or universities OF the
country where the boys 90 halt
prepared, where they struggle for
wear or two with difficulties
and then leave with smstterng Of
information which they are likely soon
to forget. That this is no fancy sketch
| can refer not only 10 my own eXPerl
eace at the head of one OF the most sue
cessful of our Southern schools, but to the
repeated expressions OF the Presidents OF
such colleges AS Harvard, Princeton and
others, and to the earnest,appeals Of the
professors of the University of Virginia,
They all utter the same cry, "Send us
boys VINO are prepared for rs, boys fitted
to pursne our course and to profit by our
Instructions
Few persons who have not given the
subject their earnest consideration are
aware how dependent education must be
for success upon system. Each school
worthy the name has Its
own system. Others may be equally
good, but they are different. The stan
dard of education hos been pushed so far
by our colleges, and by different methods
that a boy, unless properly guarded and
Systematically trained, cannot profit by
H. A boy who is TO receive collegiate
education should be sent at fourteen or
fifteen TO some good school in the faculty
of which his parents have confidence. II
Harvard or Yale is his destination the
school selected should be one where the
course of study of those universities Is
anticipated-if the University of Virgin
ia is his chOIce-one of the high schools
in Virginia, modelled faithfully after
that institution, and there be continued
until, in the opinion of his instructors,
he Is fitted TO enter with credit upon his
college course. 1t a fatal mistake Tor
boy to go unprepsred TO u great unlver-
sty; the standard cannot be kept back
for him, and it is very nearly impossible
for him to catch up with 1t there
bad not meant 10 write so much, but
the interest of the subject, TO me Nj at.
.orbing one has carried me beyond my
limits. A book might be appropriately
written and prOhtably read upon this
branch of the great subject OF education.
| cannot close this article, perhaps Al
ready too long, without endeavoring 10
call the attention OF parents through the
Whole South, from Maryland and West
Virginia to reX,s to the impOrtance-l
mad almost said the duty-Ot building up
by iudiciOus patronage the great Uni.
versIty of the SOuth-thst noble lustltu
ton planted by Jefferson in the bosom OF
the old State which has done and sui
fered SO much for the public veal during
the century just closed. | would not
cast stone al the sister colleges of the
North or detract one iots from their
well-earned and time.honored prosperity
| glory rs an American in Harvard,
Princeton and Yale, and IL younger and
no less deserving institutions OF learning,
and would speed them on their noble
and useful career. But while we have
in our Southern country, in our very
midst, university, the acknowledged
peer of any other, although the oldest
and highest in the land-a university
conducted by men unsurpassed in schol-
arship, in moral character and refine
ment of demesnor, with y system of
study conceded to be the most perfect
ever framed; whore our boys can be
trained to the highest attainments Of
/ mind and manners which nsture will
/ permit, it seems to me unwise, /: not IN
worthy. to Jet /, langulsh for want OF
patronage while We send oLr boys TO the
distant and over-erowdeI colleges of the
/ North.
/ The University of Virginia has been
sustained tor many yesrs by a band of
faithful and self-sscrlfciug men who
have upheld her reputation and advanced
her standard of education even TO the
I-c,, Sba - IN tho minds nj oil wbn