The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1890-09-03
The Educational Outlook.

The schools and colleges are now be-
ginning their new year of work. In
two or three weeks-a month at most
all these educational institutions will
be in full operation again. 1t is a sight
that compels pause, reflection, con-
gratulation-this army of young people
marching on to intellectual triumphs.
There are no two sides to the question
of the value of education. There can
not he too much training, too much
thought or too much knowledge. The
old idea that boy who is to enter
business needs only common school
education is passing away rapidly.
The genius of the country is progressive
and truth-seeking, and so long as it re-
mains such the future will be bright.
Whatever difficult social and industrial
problems present themselves, they
must give way before that genius.
The educational outlook to the mass
of students who are now beginning
work again is confined to personal
hopes, expectations and doubts. One
looks forward to a prodigious amount
of work that will end in entrance to
college next June. Another means to
do good school work, perhaps devote
himself to society interests or athletics,
and have good time all the while.
Still another goes back with no settled
purpose in mind, intending to drift
along, because his parents have sent
him and there are lots of good fellows to
associate with. Scores of different types
of boys and girls and young men and
women could be defined. A school or
college is little world, and il takes all
sorts of people to make a world, we are
told. To these young students, of
whatever age or however ambitious or
shiftless, we know of no advice so good
at this time as that of being enthusiast
tic, systematic, whole-souled in what
ever is attempted. Every one at COL
lege respects the boating man or foot
ball player who strains every nerve to
be the best he can in his boat or team.
even if he neglects his studies. The
whole discipline of work and Study is
in the way they are done rather than
what is done. The Woodworking ath-
lete will be a Woodworking student if
he finds the student instinct in him.
But there is a broader educational
outlook-the one that educators and
leaders of thought are thinking of at
this time peculiarly. The past year has
been full of happenings of great signifi-
canoe to educational progress in this
country. Columbia College has adopted
the German university system. Presi-
dent Eliot of Harvard has suggested a
shortening of the course at that insti-
tuition. Clark University at Worcester
has had a prosperous year. Johns
Hopkins weathered a financial storm.
Dartmouth College has allowed the
alumni to come closer to its admins
tration. President Gates of Rutgers
accepts the presidency of Amherst.
And the movement toward industrial
education seems clearly to have taken
deeper root all over the country, es-
pecially in the West. These facts
point to broader and better approved
methods throughout the entire system
of education in this country. The |
German system is becoming better
known, and the necessity of intelligent
direction of the public schools by the
government, to the end that boys and |
girls be taught how to work as well as
think, is becoming more apparent. The
country is not standing still. The in
terest in education is growing. Get
the development of the most practical
BILE system of education, and the dis
covery of means of applying it gener-
ally are tasks that call for the best eff |
forts of the best minds we have.