The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1893-04-19
EDUCATION.

EDITORS INTELL1eENcER: Our pres
ent system of education is largely Tech
nical, ii. e.) an application of natural
science to art and industry. 1t is the
passion of our modern civilization. Il is
the passion of the schools to induct into
immediate practical use without laying
the necessary foundation Of mental disci-
pline and training. Of couiso, it is
meant to induct the mind of the pupil
into the region of knowledge. But both
the object and method of induction may
Illustrate the very design Of an education,
which is to develop the po,cers of the
mind. Induction and eduction are pre-
cisely opposite. The former ID simplif.
cation, making study easy by object les
sons and explanations. Beyond certain
stage in childhood induction becomes a
positive hindrance to the reasoning pow.
ers, generates dependence on methods
and helps; develops vivacity and pre-
cocity, and, as this last latin word means,
the mind boils and bubbles up too soon
and wastes itself in steam and smoke.
Pestalorri's scheme of object lessons and
children's entertainment attracted wide
spread attention for a time, bat it soon
went into smoke for want of results in
actual education. Froebel, of Germany,
fifty years later, improved upon Pesta-
lori little in his kindergarten meth.
DDS of cubes, balls and their motions, &C.,
but it ere long went into species of so
cial gymnastics among the children and
finally into disrepute. 1t was revived
in this country, and finally boiled out its
existence in the smoke of Calisthenics.
The truth that the idea of mixing
some form of manual employment with
study has had tenacity enough to hold
out an existence for nearly one hundred
years, and this fact shows that in some
form or other it may yet prove that 1t
has come to stay, since it has more re.
Gently taken the form of industrial
schools. It remains to be seen what
shall be achieved by those which are
about to be inaugurated in this State.
But hitherto industrial schools have not
been a success where they have been
tried, and, judging on general principles,
it would seem that they never will be.
1. They fail to lay good foundation
in general training for grasping any SUBJ
ject to which the mind may turn. The
sharper The axe the easier the cutting.
The oldest of human arts, agriculture,
calls not for tentative culture of patches
around school foundation, nor for
chemical compositions, but for a we'll
rounded education to work its diversified
operations to success. It is the grand
est business in the world, and calls for
the best school training to run it.
g. They push into corner the greatest
trainers in the world, the languages, that
are the most enduring monuments of the
human race the forms of thought that
seap through all the great spoken Ian
of the earth and modify our
modes of thinking and, of course, our.
whole civilization. We cannot learn all
But we cannot learn our
own English 30 as to love it and use it
with ease and power without learning
the Languages it has adopted and natur.
allied. Anything like respectable lit
erature is impossible without them.
Every department of science and of
learned profession is now dressed up in
lipgual nomenclature drawn from the
ancient languages. And this lingual
dress is constantly increasing until the
whole of the Greek and Latin will be
taken into our speech. Hence the Eng
lish of to day is the most important Of
studies to fit for business or pure litera-
ture. 1t is the most powerful of disci-
pliners, because it involves Interpretation,
getting at human thought, the most i'm
proving of mental disciples.
8. Mixing study and work restrains
and confines the outgoing ambitions of
any boy or girl; lowers his ideas of in
tellectual worth subordinates mental
power to the plane of the useful only, and
makes the mind the instrument and SER
want of material and present advantages.
D. E. F.