The Sunday morning news. [volume] (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1886-1891, 1891-06-21
The Graduation Essay.

Inc GRADUATION Essay.
This Is the season of graduation es-
says and many problems which puzzle
old heads are solved by young ones.
It is very much the fashion to ridicule
the youngsters for the confidence with
which they sound and fathom--to
their own satisfaction-the deepest
mysteries of life; but the criticisms
of age are usually as faulty as the
conclusions Of youth. At any rate,
the common iests are not fitted to
bring on the educational reform, the
need of which is felt after the careful
review OF these commencement es-
says.
Youth is the season of inquiry.
Prejudice and prenatal tendency
harden with age. If the student
thinks he knows everything when he
knows little, it is the fault Of the in
structor. In his efforts to make the
pupils draw conclusions, he forgets
that his own pet convictions can
be at best no more than express
SONS OF relative probability. He
would do a greater service if he
would make his boys and girls realize
that not even the best formulated
natural law is certain truth; that
only the ignorant bel ieve anything
absolutely; and that fixed opinions
are enemies to success in every de-
partment of thought, even If it is no
higher than that which is associated
with the simplest trade.
Many man looks back with sor-
row npon the time that was spent in
making him believe things that
weren't so, and in sitting his DISPOSE
ton to question. More. perhaps,
were SO powerfully affected by this
process that they have never since
been able to realize how damaging it
was. But nobody ever heard
of a teacher who objected to
the fact that positive conclusions
were drawn in graduation essay.
The only criticisms that are made
come when the pupil contradicts the
teachers ide as about total abstinence,
or the praeticability Of perpetual
motion, or somel other subject on
which the teacher happens to be
crank The pupil has been taught that
his conclusions are wrong; not that
he erred in deciding at all.
It is a mistake to treat the gradua
ton efforts as if they were no more
than an evidence of the propensity of
the young to jump at conclusions.
They are more important as showing
a fault in the general educational
system of the country-a mistaken
positivism on the part of teachers.
In the exercises of the Hasbrouck
Institute, just concluded. there was
some evidence of this error. We have
already spoken of the excellence of
the essays, warmly and honestly, SO
that we feel privileged to introduce
this criticism Everybody who at
tended tae interesting exercises to
which we refer must have no.
ticed how much more success
fni the purely imaginative essays
were. But those who have atten-
lively observed the processes of
human mind must have felt that the
convictions expressed in the argu-
mentative papers, even though they
were of high moral value. would be
less strongly operative in after life,
because they had been instilled with
out an accompanying knowledge of
the ground they have to rest upon, so
that the first doubt must be a revela-
ton for which the doubter has not
been prepared in the years when it is
easy to be taught.
THE Homeopathic doctors of the
country had pleasant and educa-
rionally profitable time at Atlantic
City last week. We were sorry to OBJ