The San Saba news. [volume] (San Saba, Tex.) 1873-1966, 1883-02-10
NUMBER 81.

oil in thirty hours"
"What aid you do with tho prisoners,
Oolonel?"
They wero paroled tie next day and
permitted to 90 home. As wo were ro-
crossing tho river ut ford below
Hartayiile, Morgan ordered the cavalry
to carry tho prisoners over behind
them on horseback, US the thermome.
ter was far below freezing point, Tho
men in blue crowded around him and
exclaimed: Well. if we had caught
You we would have treated you to rope,
but We know now you are mot as bad
man as we thought
Herbert Spcncer's Theory of Education.
Probably nino-tenths OF the popular
sophistries on the subject OF education
would DO cleared away by clarifying the
conception Of this word Nature. We
hear the natural method" eulogized,
and the natural man" is appealed to
from morbid and unnatural conditions
of living. But what is the natural
method? 1t is of little value as an ar
biter, unless it means that method
which the sanest sense and the ripest
experience of man have approved. And
who is the natural man? Plainly not
tho savage, not the undevelopeG brute,
but tho mau as he was by nature to be /;
completely equipped in mindas well as
IN body; equipped, moreover, with the
highest social and political arrange
mente, including wise system OF edu-
cation. That is the truest sense, the
only rational sense for the purpose Of
such a discussion, tho natural method,
the natural order of studies, the natu-
raj course OF exercises, which the fore.
most Englishman not which the low
est Fiiian-would approve and adopt.
There is space to notice but one or
two instances in which the false con
ception of nature leads to error in this
treatise: and first is the objection to
abstract s.udies. Mr.. Spencer asserts
that since the natural activities of the
mind in early youth are concrete, there.
fore the whols education Of this period
should be concrete. Certainly, this is
the method of wild nature, and wild na.
ture never gets beyond this point. The
uneducated man remains always, in this
respect, a child, incapable of abstract
thought What We wish to do is 20 de.
yolop out Of this crude unnatural ma
ture the truly natural man, the man as
nature meant him to be, with the pow.
or and the habit of abstract conception
and reasoning. Though we follow the
order we need not follow the pace oil
wild nature. Tho sooner the boy cal
be brought to rend intellectual book
and to grasp complex subjects easily
and quietly without strain or preoocity
or hinderance to the physical develop
mont, the more Of man will he make
SO, again, Mr.. Spencer's words are of
ten quoted in support of the attractig,
doctrine tina. education shall give boy
to do that which they choose to dc
Their diet, according to this theory
would be plum cake and jam, and thei
reading would likewise DO whateve
was spiciest to the mental palate IN,
easiest OF mastication. Every paren
and teacher knows what evils woult
follow this system, from his observa
ton OF the effects Of the dime move
and of our juvenile literature in general
A young person had much better roat
Shakespeare and Mr.. Spencer. Ever,
teacher, at least, knows also how thi
theory has run into an absurd extreme
in "oral teaching" and the object les
son." A boy does not need to be fee
forever with a spoon. The time come
when he must learn to get his knowl
edge in tho way that every educated
man mustget it-from the written page
and from self-controlled, persistent
laborious thought.-E. II. Stil{ In Feb
TuqTv Atlantic. ss