The Virginia star., 1878-05-11
Remarks of John oliver ESQ, at the Ed
ucatiOnal Convention Held I'm Char
lOttesville, August 1877. tfI


Wendell Phillips says, Education literally
IS the training OF the faculties, the drawing
forth OF the powers OF our nature.
Another writer says, " It's definition is so
broad as to include the whole life of man.
All human life appears to have its supreme
end in the conversion of man as merely ma
tural being into spiritual being from an
animal into a rational being; from being
wholly dependent upon circumstances to a
being that creates his circumstances and
moulds it so as to realize his ideal nature-his
human nature. We are to conclude by this,
that God in His inscrutible providence oper-
ates by second as we'll as by first cause, and
after He had created the human race and en-
dowed all matter with quality by which the
universal economy of nature might be contin-
ued without His immediate assistance suspend.
ed the exertions of His power, so that the
forces of attraction might be developed in an.
innate life through means of its own inward la.
tent forces. Human nature is the paradox in
which, this mystery is expressed the voca-
tion of man is to deny this mere uaturalness
in himself. This brute nature of passion, ap
ptites and desires to cruelty the flesh, and 10
adopt in himself as guiding principle the ideal
of reason. He is to Learn selEsacriice as the
mediation through which all good shall come
to him. This ideal reason which we set up
as the goal of mans education; the cause
that makes human life to be an
EDUCAT1vE AND PROGRESSIVE DEVELOP
fA@H MENT. Il II ~
We further characterize as an ideal, where
in true personality is attained; wherein one
man participates in the life OF each and every
other; wherein all live in each vast combi-
nation of organism of mutual participation
through and by means of institutions; where
in each helps ALL, and all help each. Each
particular individual hemmed in and PAM
pered by circumstance like mere materia,
thing becomes Q universal through the or
ganization of institutions. The family, civ
il society, the State, the Church; that is to say.
he takes hold of the helpful hand Of the insti
tuition and participates in the strength of the
entire community. ''By and through insti.
tutions man preserves individual experience
and aggregates II into wisdom; from this store
Of wisdom Is fed the individual gain: so that
the particular man contributes to society his
mite, and receives back the total result of
the experience of his entire race. w
God, amid.our anxieties for some coveted
inheritence, holds in reserve the Educational
development Of men to the, fullness of time
until all things pertaining to their develop
ment are made equal strength of numbers, co.
hesion of sentiment, knowledge of equal
needs, study, thought, experience, aud labor,
are the essential elements to
MANS MATERIAL GROWTH.
And while we as yet have nothing 70 transmit
to our posterity, but the record of our bond
age, and the age through whichwe have pass
ed from the period Of slavery to the dawn of
emancipation must seem as a blank when
compared with the advancement OF other peo-
pIe.y yet we must not lose sight of the fact,
that God Is just, and we have in the future all
things to labor for. syu4i a8y bpe
Let no man, however, who was slave des-
pair or despise the day in. which he lives be-
cause Of that bondage. It was q condition
not of his choice, but rather when he looks
into the history Of mankind, let him rejoice |
that he has outliyed the existence Of slavery.
and that God permits him to work for no.
blier life and brighter civilization.
Solomon has said, 9 The thing that bath
been Is that which shall be and there is no
new thing under the SUM- Everything had
q beginning but there is sa ft