Sturgis advertiser. (Sturgis, Dakota [S.D.]) 1887-1???, 1888-12-13

city, seIf-education be-
~ comes not only possible
II ~ Si. but easy. So much de-
| I'M 7>F2Es ponds UPON self that q
W ~ 1college course is valuable
0S7l only SO far as the student
y exerts his own personal
will power and makes himself master
of the situation. Colleges offer an OPP
portunity, but they can not make .
scholar-ca not make an orator. or
/ doctor. or statesman. The college
professor feels how powerless he ID
when the parent or guardian Of fash-
| ionable, rich, and indolent lad intro
| duces this mortal to the teacher and ex-
presses q desire to have q man made out
of the we'll dressed and well-fed mate
| rial but when an earnest, open-faced,
| perhaps poverty stricken farmer-boy
| has walked fifty miles to find group
| OF professors and collection of books,
there is Joy in the faculty from the
| president down to the humblest tutor,
because young man has come who can
make a scholar out of himself. In the
first twelve years of life q school IS
needed; in all the remainder of life
each mind must be its own school
house and keep it's own school.
There are many forms of human
| will and many standings of taste. Of
ten when the will power is great
enough to bind mind to the daily
task of student there is not taste
enough in the heart to call the will
lower into action.
One Of the advantages of self-edu-
cation lies in the fact that it permits a
| strong will to follow personal taste.
An explanation of the great success
| often OF what are called self-made
men may be found in their freedom to
follow the path of most attractiveness.
Many mind is diverted by the father
or mother, or by the dignity of q
college course and faculty, from the
channel for which nature fitted it, and
thus genius dies, not Of neglect but of
too much attention.
But the youth should move about in
the world, should open it's big books.
should perceive its pursuits and pro-
LESSONS far enough to enable him to
know what there is in it to be loved
and hated. The young man who pro-
poses to educate himself should read
and study in very broad manner for
two or three years, that he might taste
the different forms of truth, and thus
learn which was going to be the sweet
est for him. Many apreacher is in the
pulpit because his uncle was clergy
man and loaned him Dicks Theology"
and Watts World to Come" It
would have been o wonderful piece of
good fortune to this nephew if he had
| spent month or year with the uncle
Of some other boy, and had borrowed a
Blackstone or one of Scott's novels.
The good of college consists partly
in its being worlds exposition OF
mental wares. The student can see
and taste all the kinds of fruit that
grow on the tree of knowledge. Each
! professor stands for department OF
study and action. Each conspicuous
student is made eminent by some men
tai quality of mind or form of acquisi-
tion Thus the taste and drift of life
are not settled by the fact Of an uncle,
but upon the broader basis of having
seen the many paths in which genius
may tread. By the time the student
has entered his junior year, he should
begin to suspect what he is good for,
| and should begin to bestow some extra
attention upon all that would fit him
| for that pursuit. The man who spends
his junior and senior years upon simply
the college course will never astonish
or benefit society much in his manhood
life. A writer in an American review
says: "After II, a recitation is stulti-
/ fa,,a ay,fI e
that when a student has reached that
age he should be absorbed in his OWL
business, and should not file out to say
a lesson in anatomy or in calculus
when he has on his table an unfinished
essay upon same theme in politics OF
ethics.
| Whether this remark about the
seventeenth year be true or not, il
illustrates the thought that the best
part of education is conducted by sell
rather than by tutor. If man or 8
youth finds himself unable to go t.
college he need not feel that all is lost
or that half or third is lost. Self il
the all. It is that something which
rises above the school-house.
The young man who is attempting te
educate himself should for few years
follow the course of study marked out
for the regular classes, because tina
course has received the thought ant
approval of ages. It contains the great
generalities of language, science, ethics
4 and taste. Not to know some ont
great language is to be without the
means of expression and without the
means of approaching the expressed
thought and emotion of others, fol
language is not only giyer but also 1
receiver.
A Lesson for n Dnde.