Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1885-04-10
WHAT is
oome interesting Thoughts on the Subject
by Prentice Milford.

Nv IcHGASo 4AulAOTus
An old adage reads: Study not for
amusement. but for Improvement"
This conception originated at a period
when all amusement was deemed as
vereing more or less on the sinful bv
our New England ancestors, and life
was considered as relatively perfected
when all recreation had been slammed
out of it.
Why might not the adage read {:
..study both for amusement and i'm
provement, and let all attempt at study
cease as soon as it becomes irksome
and a drudgery."
Have you ever been a teacher? And.
if so, can you from the inmost depth
of conscience and truth say that any
profit results to the child forced to
plod ovcr any study which it does not
like and which you find it impossible
to make it like?
True, after hours. possibly DAYS, of
such application called ..study," it's
memoir may hold a few words or
sentences Of whose real meaning it's
mind may have no real notion. After
a two months vacation and the child
resumes it's studies, how often have
these correct answers" utterly an
ished from its memory,
May not the training or cultivation
of memory be mistaken for training of
mind, whereof memory seems but an
adiunctp On the basis that through
the generalization or straining of one
department the rest are neglected and
injured, and the balance between all
destroyed, may not this ~over-cultiva-
ton OF memory prove destructive to
What is the end in view? Do YOU
desire your son to leave school or col
lege a walking encyclopedia of facts
and figures, very learned, indeed an
infallible authority in the family parlor,
yet unable, despite the volumes of mem
orial knowledge within him, to earn
over ten dollars a week as the literary
hack in some ~stereotyped department.
Of a school book publishing firm?
Or would you rather see him pos
sessed even of fewer facts and more
constructive ability-ability to make
his knowledge useful in building up a
business; ability to select what knowl-
edge he needs for that business and
skill to apply it; in brief, ability to
build his own bridges when he needs
them, rather than ever to be dependent
on others to build them?
One sea captain, being shipwrecked
on an uninhahited coast, may from the
planks and timbers of his shattered
vessel construct a craft capable of car
rying passengers and crew to a safe
.., Now ,,o,%,o ,oo oo.A... =
like situation and without constructive
ability, is helpless. The first has the
mind trained to learn and cope with
new situations and emergencies. The
second is trained only to walk over the
bridge built for him by others.
Should not education largely involve
a capacity to love to learn new things,
and skill in the art of learning all
things, and this at any time of life?
With such learning, its power ever in
creasing by exercise, men and women
would, having more confidence in them
selves, cease less to fear failures or mu-
tations in business, and would also be
less the slaves of circumstance or posi-
ton.
Some men and women are younger
at sixty than others are at thirty. The
first mentioned are ever learning. ever
seeking, exploring, investigating. Moth
ing, where opportunity offers, is too
great for them to attempt graphing
with; nothing is deemed so small as to
be unworthy an effort. Study becomes
their chief amusement. By ''study" is
not implied an incessant porting over
books. Place them on shipboard and
they commence ''picking up" whatever
belongs to maritime life or science; in
the artists studio their ''dabbling," as
some may contemptuously style it,
grants them fresh interestand appreci-
alton in art; at the theater, an aspira-
ton for the stage, though never real
lied, still leads them to study, from the
'front.'" the actors methods even as
they do those of the artist, enabling to
see and therefore enjoy in the perform
ance far more than the ordinary play
goer.
So wherever they 60 they find some
new interest, and each new interest is
a new life.
They love to learn, and find pleasure
IN the act and effort of learning.
Another and much larger class are
through with all their learning, and a
large portion of active amusement by
the age of twenty-five. They "settle
down. into a routine, set their faces
r%esolutely against learning anything
new, relegate all the more active recre-
alton to the young, become plodders
from house to Office and Office to house,
get stiff in the physical joints at forty
and rusty in the mental one at the
same age, and are to all intents and
purposes ''old men" at fifty, whose talk
Is mainly of the weather. who are about
as entertaining in company as the
clock, and who are more endured than
liked.
These can find no pleasure in the
effort OF learning. Every step in such
effort is irksome to them and becomes
more so as they advance in years.
Half the stimulus and vitality Of
youth comes because that is the season
1or learning new things. Boyhood is a
period of investigation, exploration and
study in games and sports. The world
Is new to the boy, because there are 50