The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1886-07-08

appointed Minister Plenipotentiary by
President Jackson, he went with dis
tiDguished lady from Europe, who was
visiting this country, to the White House
for the purpose of introducing her to the
President. Knowing the President well,
Mr.. Buchanan went up to his private
room where he found President Jackson
in his dressing gown with slippers on,
unshaven and smoking a corncob pipe.
he communicated to the President the
object of his visit, and fearing that Old
Hickory might appear in the costume he
found him, Mr.. Buchanan, who was
model Of etiquette and STYLE. ventured to
ask if the President would not make
some change in his attire, whereupon,
General Jackson knocking the ashes out
of his pipe and looking straight at Mr..
Buchanan, replied, Buchanan, / want
to give you little piece of advice which
I hope you will remember. knew q
man once who made his fortune by at.
tending to his own business. Tell the
lady that I will see her presently. Pres
emily he entered the room in full dress
attire and saluted his fair visitor with
such kingly grace that as she left she re-
marked to Mr.. Buchanan: "your Re.
publican President is the royal model of
gentleman" Education has taught
the nations of the earth that their for.
tunes and prosperity depends upon at.
tending to their own business instead of
meddling with that of other nations, and
the diffusion of knowledge presents this
truth 80 clearly to the masses of the en-.
lightened nations of the earth that an
immense pressure is brought to bear upon
the government to require the preserva-
tion of peace, and The government which
ventures war and is defeated, as Louis
Napoleon was in the Franco. .Prussian
war, is apt to share the fate of Napoleon,
and go down to ruin for disregarding the
moral sentiment of the age.
Thus it will be seen that the general
advantages to the world from the diffuson
of education are great indeed, and the
blessings which flow from them would be
sufficient to demand the encouragement
of liberal education for its citizens by
the government, but the question may
also be argued upon the narrower plane
of profit and loss. The ability to make
money, which the educated man possess
es, is more than double that which the
uneducated man has. Therefore, every
citizen which the government can have
educated is made more than twice as
valuable as he would be without educa-
tion. But the force for good which an
educated man possesses is not expended
within himself or limited to his own &C.
tions. EDUCATION is more than the words
of text book. It is an acquisition
which gives to its possessor brain power.
That power exerts itself upon the ayoca-
ton in which its owner may be engaged.
His methods become the object of obser-
yation, and those around him profit from
his knowledge. Much of education
may be acquired by absorption, and
methods which are thu result of educa.
ton are often taken up in practical
way by men who could not explain them,
and yet they serve them most excellent
purpose. For this reason q single edu-
Gated man who moves into community
will often work revolution in its habits
and methods. Not only is the practical
education absorbed BY the people who
have not the advantages of collegiate
education, but the great majority of in
ventions which prove of the highest
value come from educated msn, and the
benefits which they confer are enjoyed by
all classes of citizens. Education is the
work of lifetime. It can never be
complete, and the man lives to little pur.
pose who never learns anything after he
gets his diploma. The expression, that
a graduate has finished his education,
although sanctioned by use, is gross
misnomer. None save the idiot, who can
only learn the simplest matters in life,
can finish their education. Men some
times stop their education, but it is no
more finished by that than this building
would be finished if the workmen had
stopped its erection before they placed
the roof upon it. Mr. Webster says that
finished means polished to the highest
degree of excellence, complete, perfect
and cites as use of the term a finished
poem, finished education, but no one
ever knew man who had perfect, or
complete education, or one that was pol
ished to the highest degree of excellence.
A poem would not be styled finished
which stopped in the midst of sentence,
nor can an education be finished while
there is more to be learned. AL! educa-
lion should combine the practical with
The theoretical to make it most valuable,
and it should be especially directed TO The
nyocation in which the man expects to
Engage in life. Of course the fuller the
course of instrction which any man can
pursue the better equipped he will be for
life.
The great want of the present day, in
my opinion, is a system OF thorough
chronological school. Our farmers, for
instance, send their boys to college and
expect them to graduate and return to
the farm, but by far the majority OF them
disappoint these expectations BY going
into some other business. The planter
is disappointed, and in many instances
concludes that there is some inherent au-
tipathy between agriculture and educa'
tion. Such conclusion does not follow.
lie has given his son all education which
fits him for the counting house, or pro-
fassional life, or for mining, or for the
work of teaching. The boy has received
rlo agricultural education and he leaves
college knowing more about dozen
other occupations than he does about
agriculture, and he naturally drifts into
some business that he knows something
about. When a physician wishes to
make his son doctor, he sends him to
college as long as he thinks best, and
then graduates him from medical col
lege. If he stopped that boy when he
left the literary college he would not be
apt to become physician; but after ne
takes the medical course he is better
qualified 10 pratice medicine than to
engage iu auy other avocation, and the
result is, that nine times out OF ten ne
follows the profession for which he was
educated. So the lawyer, the civil en-