Buchanan County bulletin. [volume] (Independence, Iowa) 1869-1891, 1878-05-03
EDUCATIONAL DEPARTMENT.
The Nature Of Culture.
VIM. ELDEN, Editor.

The Nature Of Culture.
What has long been clear to the
minds of our best educators will soon
become popular truism, viz: That as
you elevate the standard of right cul-
ture in commonwealth, you diminish
its perlls, increase its productive power,
multiply its sources of wealth, and thus
insure the highest prosperity.
1t is safe to assume that states have
right to exist. Is it not legitimate
inference from this assumption, that
they have, therefore, the right to pro-
tect themselves against the dangers
which imperil their existence? Re-
specting this latter right there cannot
be two conflicting opinions The right
must be conceded, and the more vlgi-
lantly it is criticised the safer the COM
monwealth. That ignorance is peril,
and the greatest, perhaps, to which re-
publican institutions are exposed, we
have been taught by the terrible ex-
periences of our civil war. Nay, every
day gives us intimations, if we will but
watch them, that this blind force is the
most active and powerful of any which
smite the columns of our free govern
ments. Ignorance is not only destruc-
tive in itself, of institutions like our
own, but it is doubly dangerous on ac-
count of the allies it draws to its sup
port. 1t has close affinity with large
family of vices, and hence we find
that, as a rule, the denser the
ignorance of community, the lower its
moral tone and condition. Right cul-
ture raises our nature above many of the
temptations which have power over the
uneducated. Besides on the higher
plane to which it elevates us, nobler ap-
petites and desires are awakened to
supercedc those which had sway over
the lower level of existence. A mind
thus raised, not only feels the force Of
nobler desires, but it naturally acts
from higher motives and to more wor-
thy ends.
None of the moral movements of our
time will achieve complete success un-
til supported by educational measures,
which. while they awaken higher tastes
and desires, will. at the same time, pro-
vide for their qualification. Indeed
such measures must everywhere pre-
cede and accompany moral movements,
and help lift degraded natures out of
the old spheres of temptation into bet
ter conditions where desires will be de-
veloped and new sources of enjoyment
opened to the soul The cause Of tenn
perance, for instance, which has expert
enced such varied fortunes in our land,
would find one of its best allies in meas
ures which gave to the victims of appe
tite, lifted temporarily above their old
conditions of existence by moral appeals,
some new and innocent sources of
amusement. and some agencies of cul-
ture, which, by addressing higher facul-
ties, would create new and nobler appe-
titcs and desires. Neither this cause
nor any other, of kindred nature, will
win Il lasting triumph, until educational
agencies are more generally provided
Our schools should be supplemented by
means of culture which meet the needs
of adult intellects, as the common
school answers the demands of juvenile
minds. A community which makes no
provision for the social and intellectual
needs of those who are beyond the reach
of it's common schools, Is fighting its ig-
norance and immortality with but one
hand. Both of these forces of evil will
revel in its streets at times, until other
instrumentalities are employed for their
suppression. Places of innocent amuse-
ment, the library the reading room, the
lecture hall, are public necessities, and
no community will ever effectually
menace its ignorance and vice until
these have been provided and enthus-
iastically supported They must car
ry forward the work which the common
school onl y inaugurates.
The mind is like grape vine Its
home is not on the ground but up in
the air Give the vine tree or trellis,
something upon which its tendrils
may fasten. and by these as one by
one they are sent forth, it raises it.
self continually. And as it rises, it
draws better nourishment from the free
air and produces larger and sweeter
clusters of grapes. 1t would grow upon
the fiat earth, and show great luxuriance
of stem and leaf, no doubt. But with
nothing to raise it above the ground, no
amount of rain. sunshine, or digging
about its roots, would make its fruitage
abundant or palatable 1t is thus with
our nature. Made to grow upward con-
tlnually, it needs the trellis-work of ed
ucational measures, that around them it
may throw its aspiring tendrlls and by
their support be able to overcome the
force which draws downward. Many in
some of the best communities, whom
our public schools lifted, for season,
above the ways and influences of degrad-
ed life, have soon descended to those
ways simply because no higher educa-
tional agencies have been provided.
They left school before they had leaned
to swim on the social current, and find
ing nothing within their reach to keep
them afoat, they naturally sunk back to
the mud out of which they had been
temporarily raised
Right culture does more than Danish
ignorance and weaken the power of i'm
morality. 1t increases the productive
force of community Hands that toll
are but servants of the brain. and the
amount they do is graduated to the
brains ability to direct. An ignorant
brain may prove to the hand hard
task master, but seldom an efficient one.
He who has most brain ability will
work his hands to greatest profit. So
that community which has reached the
highest point of right mental develop
ment, will exhibit signs of superior en-
terprse and thrift. SCoTICUs.
The Natural Voice.
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