The Indianapolis journal., 1890-06-16

gressmen surpass even "the heathen
Chinee;" and it is not, therefore. necessari-
of congressional candidates. But the item
was a good pointer, as there are constantly
coming before Congress problems OF gov.
ernment, law, finance, trade and social
science. These require thinkers for their
solution. 1t is one business of American
colleges to make thinkers. But all grad
uates are not so made, either because OF
detective process or defective subject.
Heaven, and EARTH" and the college
tight in vain against Ounce" In q bat
tie of ideas. error is to be preferred for an
antagonist before stupidity. If one must
Cross controversial weapons. and is
wise, he will choose the skillful
enemy rather than the brainless one. since
the force and bearing of an argument are
lost upon a fool. But ounces, by an in
scrutable Providence, are sometimes born:
and sometimes get into colleges, and the
college must bear the reproach of bearing
such children. DR.. LeguiD, noted French
man. says that over 40 per cent. of idiots
can be made capable of understanding
moral and social abstraction: and from %
to 80 per cent. may be brought so near the
standard of manhood that some or them
will defy the scrutiny of good judges when
compared with ordinary men and women.
This is not very fiattering to the average
man-to think how narrowly so many OF
US have escaped idiocyl Some deem the
mind as thing to be educated like Chinese
ladies' feet, forced to certain proportion
by mental thumb-screws; and thus Is
cramped both thinker and thought. 1t Is
utterly vain to veto thought, and 1T is argu-
ment that tells not anathema.
To theoriZe ls the highest function of
genius, and the greatest thinkers must
always be the greatest theorists. The
thinker runs some risks. Emerson says:
TO beware when the great God let's loose
man whom God has sent into this world
marked mot transferable and good for
this trip only.0 The risks the Boston
sage had in mind were to the outsider, but
]. e., the thinker himself. The chief ex-
ternal risk is that of persecution, because
of the necessity of the destruction of the
old in order to have the acceptance of the
new. Progress is the history of thought.
and were men machines there would be no
progress. Thinkers think new things, dis
cover, combine, invent, create. In the
path of all progress stands monopoly,
tyranny of customs, sectional prejudice,
love of the old paths. lust of power, with
religious or political bigotry. Every new
truth which blesses humanity is
likely to antagonize old notions and
compel q conflict with them. Even
thinker must expect the buffeting, and
ridicuie, and persecution of perverse and
blinded selfishness, and to be denounced as
dreamers and idle Missionaries, if not worse
The first saw-mill was built in England in
1868. but was soon abandoned on account
of the hostility of the hand-sawyers Now
we wonder that Alex. Hamilton could ever
have been burned In effigy on account of
his views OF goyernmept and finances and
distinction for his views of slavery. Yet,
only yesterday man was sought to be
daubed with similar disgrace and contempt
for his views of the liquor traffic. Ten
years hence this. too. will be our wonder.
The main risk to the brain within is phys
ical. Mind and matter are united in the
brain-vault. where all thought has origin.
Vital force is essential to hard brain-wOrk
is depleted vitality and broken balance.
The marked mental developments, lop-
sides, more or less awry, are commonly the
result of ill-directed thinking. Minds are
endowed with native bias, some leaning to
one field of thought. some to another. 1t is
| often the case that one thinks only in one
| direction, and about one class of objects,
| which results in that some sides of the
| mind get an unnatural growth, while 9TH
| ers suffer atropby, and an abnormal bulge of
| intellect is as common and often as marked
| as goitre is in Switzerland. Many profess
| sional men follow hard in the wake of our
| fanatics and cranks. A well-balanced part
| of our mental machinery is impossible
| where a man contracts the pedantry of
| particular profession and gives himself to
| exclusive attention to particular pursuit.
| A mathematician would go through sub
| lime poem like a sum in arithmetic. The
| impulsive Shelley became visionary and
| a fool on the subject of liberty by yielding
/ to the original bias of q nature that chafed
at restraint, and by morbidly dwelling on
the legalized tyranny of laws and ordi-
/ nances. Chicago's Anarchists are Shelley's
| descendants Ii is morbid hugglng of sim
/ gle idea, and the exaggerated sense of
/ wrong born of that contracted thinking,
| that has changed the garrets and the slums
! of many a city into hot-beds of revolution.
| Man ia a complex being, but the heart is
| the man even more than the head is The
regal gifts of character have their roots in
| the heart The intellect, however, likes to
| be at the top-is fond of hardship, and
thinking tends to nurse this predilection
! Here lies the moral risk-the independent
development of the intellect in separation
| from the man.
| Precisely. Here is the chief peril along
| the line of mental training Pride of rea-
| son SO easily comes to birth. and the brain
gets so soon, and so unconsciously, enam-
| ored of it's power and possession, and pulled
up with an intellectual cOnceit. The mind
| no sooner quaffs the cup of knowledge than
| the tendency appears to excess, and often
gets intoxicated with tho wine of intel
lectual delight, until it asserts itself In
lofty lordshIp over every other department
ing the dreary brink of atheism, 1T lifts it's
hand to heaven, and boldly says: There
| is no Godw
Take care of the body as an instrument
|
To keep the mental faculties from intel
lectual bulging the balances must be kept
between the intellectual faculties The
main aim of colleges should be to fix men
for any profession or any pursuit. The
student entering college is not capable of
choosing what studies. are best for him to
pursue. Harvard's electives are carried too
far, because they tend to a lop-sided. un-
balanced scholarship. If we are to have
men and women fitted for the higher trusts
of fatherhood and motherhood, of civic and
social life. of citizenship and statesman
ship in the home. in business In literature,
in society, in the State, the different sides
of the mind must be rounded out by q
varied curriculum arranged to stimulate
each and all of the mental powers.
After all, the chief perils of intellectual
stimulation are the moral periIs, and to
escape these In our educational processes the
balances must be kept between brain and
heart. In other words, the whole man must
be kept in view. The Bible should not be
ignored in the colleges, for to send ouI
children where tho higher moral sanctions
are denied or ignored is to make their edu-
cation a mere means of power without
any care whether it be divine or devilish.'
The laying of the cornerstone of the new
$4,000 library building of Wabash College
the gift of Mr.. Simon Yandes, of Indianap