Sword and shield. (Clinton, Miss.) 1885-1888, 1885-07-04
TO EDUCATORS.
Subjects for Discussion at Educational
Conventions.

Conventions.
There will, doubtless, be much dis
cussion of the New Education at the
various educational conventions during
the summer The reformation con-
templated bv those who have subscrib-
ed to the new doctrine leans toward
things of practical utility. The old
sneer of the scholars at the men who
knew ''little Latin and less Greek has
lost its point, for many of the scholars
of to-day are seeking to relegate these
studies TO the rearward. So far rs
these proposed changes and substitu-
tions imply u reaction against those
educational processes which make
dreamers of students rather than men
of affairs, they are to be encouraged.
In the commercial life of to-day many
of the most successful men-men whose
abilities are so commanding that they
cannot be pushed aside-are men who
have been quite unable to acquire those
accomplishments which pass for liter
ary or social culture. Aud yet they
stand in the van of the worlds pro-
gress, the special representatives of
barely known, it may be, beyond the
immediate circle OF their associates.
1t not infrequently occurs that man
is found filling an office which involves
the direction of thousand men, and
upon whose shoulders the burden of a
great enterprise with immense out
reachings, who could not tell you the
author Of Had, and who has no sort of
interest in the Bacon-Shakspeare con-
troversy. But lie is among the men to
whom we turn when armies are to be
raised, when institutions of learning
are to be endowed, when noble charities
are to be instituted, when political
campaigns are to be fought. These
form large proportion of the men
who are directing the machinery OF the
shops, who are finding work for men
to do, who are building houses and
plowing the earth. who are opening
highways and utilizing the forces of
nature. They have acquired their
skill from personal contact with hard
necessities. They have learned the
WAYS of the world in that severe school
where the tuition is paid by years of
arduous labor, and where many sue
cumb to their tasks. They have had
no time to cultivate their spiritual ma
ture owing to the pressing exactions of
bread-winning business.
If, therefore, the advocates of the
New Education, in the fultillment of
their mission, shall strive to institute
such curricula as shall tend not only
to make a graduate self-reliant man
with mind plastic and trained to COM
prehend, but also to make him ac-
quainted with those principals which
regulate business and social relations;
to familiariZe him with the workings
of that everyday world into which he
is soon to 90; to enable him to appre-
ciate the importance of the man who
is welding sledge for livelihood; to
show him the nature of the obstacles
which he is TO encounter; to prove
to him the worthinesS of the man who
rears family, pays his taxes, and
keeps out of debt; to hold up for his
sentimental contemplation the thought
full inventor, the great merchant, and
the skilled mastcr-mechanic, rather
than the ornamental figures whose im-
ages adorn many of our public halls
and private libraries--if if the advocates
of the New Education only succeed to
this extent, they will succeed in i'm
parting to students that confidence in
their capacity which will enable them
to couragrously undertake the real
business Of life.
Would it not be well. indeed, if every
college should provide a lecture-chair
to be frequently filled, in the course of
the eollcge-term. by men identified
with that commercial life into which
so many of the students will surely
drift, and from whom the youth could
take counsel? Would not such course
of lectures from bankers, mechanics,
farmers, and executive officers of great
corporations. prove most valuable in
revealing to tho Young mind. present
ly to emerge from their clOisters some
thing of the true world that lies before
them? Would not the pertinent Sug-
gestions of such men prove happily
complementary to the usual studies.
which, in theory, are supposed to fit
the students for association in business
with these same lecturers?-G. O.
MdttheUS.