The times. (Owosso, Mich.) 1882-1897, 1893-06-23
Baccalaureate Address.
Continued from fst page.

not the first things to seek. 1t takes men
not buildings, to make school or college.
The president of western university was
asked to define the ear-marks by which to
recognize great teacher. His reply was,
sin the first place. his department should
be his life work. The day is far past when
man trained to be minister or doctor,
or even college graduate is necessarily fit
ted to teach any department.
Because man has been trained to harness
a horse, does it follow that he is the one to
shoe himP Such reasoning is too common.
A true teacher must be an authority in his
department. He even stands for his de-
partment. He must have power enough to
be productive.
The notion of teacher as one whose sole
business is that of a pump, simply to be
pumped full from some reservoir that ne
may fill the little pitchers held up under his
nose may be true, but it is dreadfully be-
lifting. He should rather be perennial
spring, where refreshing waters are con-
stantly bubbling forth, center and source
of supply. The person who has neither
power nor inclination to work in his own de-
partment, not only demonstrates his UNFIT
ness for teaching but loses great source
of inspiration to his pupils. Imagine the
difference between two teachers before a
class; one carefully crammed with second
hand information which he is there to i'm
part: the other in the flush and fire of his
own thought and work, stepping aside a
moment, as an artist with palette and
brushes in hand, to explain the beauties of
some great picture which he is painting.
The one is taskmaster, the other an In
spiration."
DIR. Hubert, of Vermont, thinks that the
most marvellous phenomenon in our world
is life, and that life cannot be conceived to
exist without growth. The constituent ele-
ments of man do not abide in him inactive
and changeless. They are not heap or a
pile. They are organically and yitally re-
lated as means and ends to each other. Man
accomplishes nothing in the outward world
of discovery and invention that can be COM
pared with the results which he achieves
within himself. "His hands are upon his
own soul, and these leave their impress"
The same writer tells us that it needs to be
understood by every one of us that every
difficulty encountered and overcome, wheth-
er 1t be a hard problem in algebra, or a
difficult lesson in Xenophon, or a conflict
with poverty, or an assault of dependency,
adds so much to the stock of ones man.
hood. If you want to be a giant-killer in
the arena of public debate, get into the
habit of killing giants in the retirement of
the study.
In taking an inventory of a man it is a
matter of trivial moment to know whether
he graduated or not. The plain, blunt
question which the world asked yesterday,
and has been asking to-day, and will ask to-
morrow, is, "What Of the man?" How
much Is there of him, to him, in him? What
can he do? do in the fields of labor, do at
the bedside of the patient in the pulpit, and
at the bar? That is the question and it is a
fair and honest one.
We take the liberty of quoting again
beginning to be settled, and among them
this: a man may be Cincinnatus, and
abandon his pillow in the furrow, to sway
the scepter of an empire, and guide her
through the storm; he may be a porter at
the door of a London theatre, and rise to
surpass every competitor in the matchless
production of his genius; he may be a
journeyman printer in Boston, and send his
kite into the cracking skies, and compel
the lightnings of heaven to yield to his UNI
tutored philosophy; he may be blacksmith
at the forge in Worcester and become the
match of any linguist In the universities of
Europe; he may be shoemaker in Natick,
and become master spirit in the American
Senate; yea, he may be long, lank, and
lathy rail-splitter at the west, who, but
tressed by tanner of hides. lays success
fully his potent hands upon the destinies
of the American Republic in hurting back
the invading foe when the flood gates of
rebellion are burst and her winds are up.
Men are in demand-not homines, ami
mails that wear pants, but Uiri, plumed
knights, with swords upon their thighs;
scholars and specialists they may be, If back
of scholarship and speciality there is man.
hood enough to bear up under them and
put them to service. Men, repeat, are in
demand--men of independent and profound
thought of rational and determined pur.
pose and Of executive force; the world is
taking such men wherever she can find
them"
The finished product of our schools must
not be CHASTITY mutilations, bundles of arti.
fatalities, pieces Of patchwork. all covered
with the marks of the tools of awkward and
haggling teachers. The student is not a
piece of wood nor block of marble. He
is not educated because so much knowl.
edge has been acquired but because this
knowledge has put to service his latent
energies.
If could choose and have but one.
would prefer inspiration and that form OF