The Jackson standard. [volume] (Jackson C.H., Ohio) 1847-1888, 1879-05-29
The Discipline of Education.

A great deal that is said about the i'm
portance Of classical education as a disci
pline of the mind largely disregards the
operation of ordinary duties in this di
rection. We can imagine that a young
nobleman, so situated as to be above or
beyond those compulsory circumstances
that force the average man to exertion,
would without the discipline of college
education fall into very loose and idle
mental habits. College training is with
him the only thing that will govern him
to control his desires, to concentrate his
attention, and to bring his mind under
the control of his will. Without the OBJ
legations and stimulus of college life he
would be likely to develop into a very
slothful and self findulgent maturity with
little command over his faculties and lit
tie inclination to exercise them. It is
this fact, we apprehend, that lies at the
root of nearly all the utterances we hear
on the subject-utterances that are for
the most part traditional that are bor-
rowed from the higher ranks of English
life and which are derived from obser
vations purely special and local in their
character. They apply with equal force
to a small proportion of our own people,
it being evident that young men of
wealth would sink into marked inferior
ty if educational discipline did
not extend we'll into their manhood. But
we are convinced that the requirements
of the schools, the mental training which
comes of a study of the ancient languages
and the higher mathematics, are far from
being SO completely disciplinary as the
ordinary experiences of the professions
and trades. The lawyer in his practice
soon gains the power of concentration,
i c., oop,~ollol 10
under the control of his WILL his disci
pline being more thorough. more exact
ing, more sustained, than any that can
be invented by college systems. The
daily experience of the physicien is like
wise efficient in bringing all the func
tions OF the mind into subordiuation and
under control 1t is only by sustained
effort and severe concentration that the
man of letters can succeed; the pain ter
and the poet are helpless if their intel
lectual powers are not fully at their com
mand. 1t will be said here that the ex-
act purpose of college discipline is to pre-
pare men for these exactipg duties. But
IN our observation training at college
bears so small proportion to that which
comes with the competitions of life that
it is scarcely traceable. We have always
found that men whose necessities force
them to bend their energies to work are
the men who hold themselves well in
hand, and that other men usually have
little power of application; that is, the
classification does not distinguish be-
tween educated and uneducated men,
but between working and non working
men. In the list of men who have at
tanned success or contributed notably to
the worlds advance, it will not be found
that those who have exhibited remarka-
BILE mental power and intellectual self
comm mand are specially on the eide of the
university class Three of the most con
suiruous men in English philosophy and
erbert Spencer, Huxley, and
Tyndall-have developed their remarka-
BILE powers from the impulses of their
na tur gifts and not by the aid OF college
dis plne or classical guiding. Perhaps
II cir labors would have been easier I'm
der thorough preparatory course-this
IS not easy to gainsay-but the fact re-
mains that in the pursuit of their sever. J