Mexico weekly ledger., 1880-01-22

saw in its educational, social, polly
cal and religious institutions tire b /
ter fruits of the repetition school. II
who travels in Palestine, if his visi ]
be clear and his heart warm, leav {
ut with prayer that God may i {
move His curse, and give unto th
enslaved people 10 eat of the fruit
the tree of thought that is planted
the midst of the garden of freedt
and civilization. /
In all of the Oriental nations 81
repetition system prevails, and inl1
the eyes of discovery are blind,
the freedom of thought is abrida,
and progress is bound hand and fet.
China, devoted to her models, as |
we'll rs to her idols, is tiecaying slo-
ly, but surely. She despises huaan
progress in theory and in fact, md
lays her richest gifts upon the .star
OF the past. Her superstitions aud
her civilization look backward for
everything, and forward for nothing.
A slave to precedent, old, decrepit,
imbecile, and bowed down with the
dead stuff of the past, she is incapa-
bic Of adapting herself to a new con-
stitution either of morality or reli-
gion, and .ler death as u nation is in
evitably near. Thus the dead ciyiIi-
zations of antiquity, and the dying
civilizations of modern times. furnish
abundant demonstration Of the deadly
influence of the repetition school.
America is to-day a living, grow
ing Republic because she refused to
repeat; because IN the boldness OF in
quiry, she parted her moorings from
the lifeless opinions of the past, and
launched out upon the ocean of hu-
man thought and achievement be-
cause she reveres truth more than
authority; because she has learned to
think. She looks not chaos-ward.
but keeps her eye steadily millennium
ward. The thinking school is the
fountain from whence her people
drink and live. Her liberal and ETH
cient system of popular education,
her spirit OF energy and inquiry, her
onward and rapid march in all things
that pertain to freedom, civil and re-
ligious, are the legitimate children OF
independent thought. Thus we see
that the civilizations that have fed on
the husks of repetition are either dead
or dying, while those that have fed
on the bread of thought are halo and
strong promis.i4alff s.4lf rand:, e. tong sFq Tree is
Gus l'lssr lssr the futnr~ Only in the
known by its f. nation he nur-
Thinking sche-f can iia''oii =. ;n,ol
t,red i,,S life, and crown g, , ,ha,
stra~,~.s ,rdc' Of the aggregate mind
of the million is true of the indiyidu.
al mind. They are inscperable. Th.
individual mind must be aroused to
think unrestrained by tie drawings
ot another's Intellect, otherwise it
must degenerate into miserable |
INT iKA99fGt fGtio5u own hand has stamped up-f
IN it. as liberty is a necessary law Of
national growth, go is it of individual |
growth. BY what means then, shall |
We awaken the mind of the pupil to
thought! Shall it be by
the catechism or l,y the lecture, or
shall they not both he made minister
Ing spirits to them who shall be heirs
of thought and of knowledge? Ex-
perience in the classroom has laugh;
me that neither is 10 be ignored to
the exclusive use of the other; but
that the catccheticai system is more
powerful to awaken the dormant en-
ergies o: the pupils mind. Its ap-
plication certainly requires more skill!
and labor on the part Of the teacher,
and more effort on the part of the pu-
pil, and this is no small argument for
its superiority. The teacher who
makes the lecture system his hobby
the character of tie
material upon which he works, and
does violence to his profession. The
young mind is not Il sponge to he fill
ed, but an immortal thing To be train
ed. Truth is not always to be poured
into the mind. but the mind is to he
led out to truth. The chronological
meaning of the word indicates that
the old Romans had Il more correct
conception of education than per-
haps, any other ancient people. Bnt
even theirs is wholly inadequate.
There are some truths which the pu-
Pills resources, with any amount of
leading out, would never enable him
to grasp. The most worthy apostle
of Socrates, with the blindest devo-
tion to the catechetical method, would
not attempt by mere questioning 10
draw from the pupils mind knowl
edge of the temperature of the Gulf
Stream, the specific gravity of the
Dead Sea water, or the doctrine of
the atonement. He teaches best who
causes TO know, and who, in bring
ing the mind TO that knowledge, or
that knowledge to the mind, calls
forth its best and nohiest activities
The measure Of pupils capacity,
his mental individuality must he rec
ognized by the educator, if he would
do his best work in tin, best way.
Questions that wo.ild stimulate the
highly enuowed mind to eager search
after truth would wholly discourage
one that God has not so abundantly
blessed. Successful questioning is
no easy art, and it requires high
order of talent, as well as experimental
contact with various mental individu-
alities. Poets are born and so. are
teachers. IL --e @5.s@
The spirit Of the age is to econo-
mize labor, and this is sometimes
both legitimate and valuable in the
classroom but even teacher may
be troubled with constitutional ennui,
and may persuade himself that he is
q most excellent labor economist,
when in truth he has proved recreant
to the precious trust that God has
committed to his hands. How can q
teacher ascertain the character and
the peculiar wants of the minds un-
der his instruction, if he dispense
with the labor of catechizing each one,
and if he do not know the wants OF
each, how can he supply them9 In
the lecture this adaptiveness of trains
ing to individual obliquities is neces-
sarily ignored. If the lecture must
ho ,,S,d hxy oil Ynoanc LOT II ho f0I-