The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1880-12-10
Morals and Mathematics.


II is each year becoming more evident
that the churches all combined cannot
make their schools and labors keep pace
with the advance of population; and
that, unless the State shall introduce the
morals OF all humanity rs it reaches from
the Nile to the Oregon, millions of the
children of this country will never know
by heart n single moral sentence, either
from any human or any divine lips.
The modern Gamaliel should teach
ethics. Ethics is the science of human
duty. Arithmetic tells man how to
count his money, ethics how he should
acquire it, whether by honesty or fraud.
Geography is map of the world, ethics
is beautiful map of duty. This ethics
is not Christianity, it is not even relig
ion, but it is the sister of religion. be.
cause the path OF duty is in full harmony
as to quality and direction with the path
of God. And in our times this ethics
has greatly widened out, and has been
fiinging out words of praise III directions
whittier it once looked with ignorance OF
indifference. Ethics now teaches the
actual beauty OF simplicity of dress and
style, and the dignity of all labor, sc
that all young persons issuing from
public school-house should go forth fully
persuaded that work in shop or on
farm is not only permissible, but is both
a duty and happiness. A school which
breeds an intellectual vanity, and makes
ali the girls and boys of town or city
long TO be poets, or historians, or law
yers, or orators, or statesmen and mil
lionaires is very narrow and false; but
broad, and just, and true is the public
institution which so sets forth the ethics
of labor that all industry at the desk, OF
in the shop, or behind the plow will
seem like the acceptance of call from
God and humanity. 1t must be reck-
Oned misfortune if as soon as poor lad
or poor girl is taught at public expense
to read and write, the lad must purchase
a cane or hire n buggy for a Saturday az
ternoon, or the grl must aspire to
some snowy jewelry and must learn the
glitter of the life long before she learns
its import. That our public schools do
to some degree build up an intellectual
vanity more rapidly than they build up
wisdom must be admitted. Such an
evil will continue until the councils
which govern courses of instruction
shall conclude that no lessons in arith-
metic or geography can ever compare
with the simple lessons IN human life.
What the State wants is not the vanity
of its multitude, nor is it their poetry
nor their fine clothes, and gay plumage,
and jewelry, but their wise and attract
i've lives and if this be the need of the
nation, then the school-house should
make every young heart that enters its
doors commit to memory all the pre-
cious maxims of duty that lie like pearls
all along the way from Zoroaster to Ben
jamin Franklin. The free schools are
founded upon the assumption that the
heart of a child is easily nodded into
goodly shape. 1t is assumed that if
taught to read it will read good books
and will encounter and love those vast
truths which have become imbedded i'll
the literature of the world. Thus all
our school buildings are based upon the
assumption that the eyes which pore
over the alphabet and readers in the
hearts young days will sooner or later
shed tears OF appreciation over the Iii
vne lesson OF labor and duty and char
ity and temperance which will sparkle
before them upon the open pages of let
ters. To the majority of children the
moral works and possibilities of society
must be pointed out with care, and
memories at first unwilling must be
loaded by force persuasive and kind
with the undeniable propositions OF eth
les. An Auerbach and a Carlyle and a
Franklin may easily discern the best
paths through this world, but there are
not enough of these quick souls to make
up a nation, not even n village. The
multitude of youths must be patiently
taught morals, just rs they are taught
the mu objectionable, and must be
aided toward the feeling that society de-
ponds more for its happiness upon the
truths OF character ana being than it de-
peLds upon arithmetic. -Prof. DdUid
StCing.
VavnOut GRAVEYARD Iitarntura