Woman's chronicle. (Little Rock, Ark.) 1888-1???, 1888-07-07
What Good the Reading Circle Has Done Me.

Circle Has Done Me- by Henry G. Boyle, was
read before the State Teachers association, re-
Gently held at Dardanelle, Ark.
That which tends to expand, to cultivate, to
elevate and to ennoble the human mind-to illu-
mine and polish the understanding, to give inward
beauty and luser to the soul, and thus lift to the
higher development of the grander and more
glorious attributes of man-is indeed good and de-
youtly to be wished, a thing of great concern
among the affairs of men and worthy distinguish
ed niche in the temple of learning. That such is
the mission of tn A. T. r. c. among the hosts and
legons of our rural, village and city teachers urg
ing them on to unity and progression, who will
attempt to deny?
Not length of years nor accumulated fortune but
usefulness and devotion to the elevation of human
ity to the highest plane of civilization, and domes-
tic harmony and national concord, should be the
secular measure and aim of life. This should be
the principal and dominant motive of our lives,
our -abors and our relations, be they Social rater-
nal or whateyer and whatever broadens the views,
whatever actuates the impulses of phllanthrophy,
whatever leads to the awakening of the finer feel
ings of our nature and arouses the sleeping
energies of the soul to the great, the universal
cause.-the emancipation of fellow beings from the
dismal thralldom of ignorance, thus making them
free, whole and happy-is indeed worthy of pro-
found thought; a theme which might we'll engage
the magnanimous mind of a Socrates, the power
full pen of Bacon or the burning eloquence of a
Webster.
seTo err is human" and oft accounted PERM
cious vice, but truth is an attribute of the eternal
a sublime virtue Errors, like straws, float upon
the current of our lives from infancy to age but
truth, like shining gold down in some hidden cave
like cleaning pearls beneath the seas, or like
dazzling diamonds in the deep Andeans streams,
flowing from lofty snowclad peaks-les far under
the surface and those who seek truth, gold or
pearls or diamonds, must 90 deep down below.
In our contracted view of life we grow selfish
and care for that alone which will rebound to our
own honor or subserve our own interests, and a
struggle for life, for preferment or for supremacy
ensues the legitimate consequence of which is
plain to every thoughtful man.
But by broader culture, higher ideals and with
nobler aspirations men become disposed to philan-
throphy and in the generous operations OF the
soul the pernicous error of seishness is eliminated
and replaced by benevoence, distilled in the
alembc of human sympathy to illumne and lead
us on in the ways of truth and good will to men.
In this direction is the line of action prescribed
by the Reading Circle Course" and to the lofty
heights of success guards the way to where broad
vistas and glorious prospects arise to the mental
vision among the shades of the teachers ideal
dream in the near and coming day.
The object of this institution is too well known
to be repeated here, but | cannot refrain from
averting to it in measure. As to the teacher,
its first aim is to prepare him for his work and
thus increase his sphere of usefulness; to inspire
him to devotion and emulation, 1t sets before him
high type of professional success, as an ideal,
in the biography of the indomtabe Page" Such
spirit, though its author long since passed from
among the haunts of men to lie down in his last
resting place. cannot fail to reach to the distant
followers in the paths of education.
In this department we are brought to consider
education in its higher end, and then in its unver-
VI +o &c al and