The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1889-12-04
What shall we do with John?

My neighbor Jinkins is a we'll ll.to-do
farmer. His son John has just come
home with college diploma. He
graduated with honor, is good schol-
ar, and q good speaker. And now the
anxious question over at Jinkin's is.
What shall John do? or, What
shall we do with John? He is a mem
Der of the church, but he does not
think he is called to preach the gospel,
aud he has too much reverence for the
ministry to rush into it unbidden. He
has 10 specialtaste for medicine, and
the legal profession Is crowded. Poll
tics might offer an inviting field to all
ambitious young man but it is run by
machines, and he who would succeed
must begin by selling himself to u
ring. John Is too manly for that. He
might teach but, if he does, he
will have to begin in some country
school, drilling a lot of unkempt ur-
chins in A B e, and that would be
worse than chopping ccrd-wood. So
the question finds 10 satisfactory an
/swer.
Iinkins came to me for advice. Said
he: ~ am afraid that l have made a
mistake. John was bright boy and a
good boy. thought that / ought to
educate him. l have worked hard to
keep him at school and he has stud
led hard to get good education. But
now he is through, and he don't know
what to do with himself. 1t seems a
pity to put u young man who can read
Latin and Greek to running gang
PloW or a mowing-machine. But he
don't want to be lawyer, or doctor, or
teacher, and he amt called to preach.
don't see what there is for him to do.
II he Is to come back and work on the
farm, he might as well have stayed
there and not have gone to college,"
"Jinkins," said l, ''you have made
no mistake in educating John as you
have; but permit an old friend to sug-
gest that you are making two mistakes
now. The first is, it thinking that be-
cause John has gone through college,
and got diploma, he is educated 4;
and the second is, that education is
valuable only for the money it enables
q man to make. Now, my notion is,
that though Latin, Greek and mathc-
mates are valuable in education, the
knowlege of them is not all education.
Education means training for useful
ness all mans faculties: his senses,
as we'll as his memory and reason his
hands, as we'll as his head his mus
cles, as we'll as brain. The object of
education is the complete and symmet-
rtcal development of our manhood. 1t
Is therefore physical and moral, as well
as intellectual. Now, John has been
doing brain work almost exclusively
for Years. He has been among books
and under the teachers. Let him
spend a little time in bodily exercise,
in studying nature, aud in learning to
think for himself. A farm is one of
the best schools in the world. The Va
riety of work makes it an excellent
gymnasium, and the Great Teacher is
giving new lessons there with each
change of the seasons. Give John a
piece OF land to cultivate; tell him to
study 1t as he studied Euclid" Tell
him to apply in his farming what he
learned in his natural philosophy and
chemistry. Tell him to think as he
follows his plow to ponder the prob
lem of 1ife--the greatest of all prob
lens In Gods free air and sunshine.
Such thinking will make him wiser
than any textbooks or lectures. IF he
will now, standing on what his teach
ers have taught him, look above it
come into communion with God as he
has revealed himself I'M his works and
his word-he will utilize his college
culture rs he could not III office or
school-house. That culture is excel