The McCook tribune. (McCook, Neb.) 1886-1936, 1893-12-22
education.
PART /.

a new thing, says a false thing" Such
being the fate Of the new, it will not be
expected that / shall attempt the false, SO
that if any merit may be herein, it will
be in the fact that it is all old. We sell
dom say in a straightforward way what
a thing is, without saying it is something
else. 1t was an ingenious idea to call a
camel the "ship of the DESERT" but it
would hardly lead us far in the training
of that useful animal. We hear the brain
called an intellectual stomach, the mind
a mirror, and so on indefinitely. There
fore l find myself in good company. and
am inclined to follow the example of my
betters and use metaphor likewise. l
shall therefore claim that the mind is
like a plant. l have often thought, while
watching and tending plants, of which L
am very fond, what a great amount of
care was necessary to bring them to per-
fiction. How the soil must contain just
such a proportion of sand, fertilizer and
common soil, each according to its W
particular needs; how the heat and moist
ure must be in just such proportions,
some requiring great heat and moisture
and others less, and as l reflected how
their forms, sizes and colors had been
improved by knowledge of their special
wants, beyond what nature had lone for
them herself, l was naturally led into
4l-,,1te about tho f1otfc IF the human
species, and the improvements possible
by careful and judicious training. There
is a striking analogy between them, their
life and their growth. If in pruning a
tree you take off the finest branch, into
which the greater proportion of sap was
pouring, the place will heal over with a
rough knot, and the tree may live on,
although what might have been a beau
tiful, shapely, liberal shade, now becomes
only an unsightly trunk. Many a fault,
an ~unloveiy oddity, a startling eccentric
ity has come from bad pruning in the
child. A sensitive, timid child, with
high strung nerves commits a fault for
which he is ridiculed; his sensitive ma
ture is wounded, he chafes inwardly at
the injustice, the wound heals, but leaves
a blot on the character which shows
itself in some unlovely characteristic
later on. Thus many an erring life, which
we so severely blame, may be only the
result of our own blunders. Many a beau
tiful plant fades and dies in too warm an
atmosphere, others are choked with
weeds, and Others have a worm at the
root. Also many a lovely mind fades
and languishes in the overheated atnlos-
phere of city life and temptations. The
mind wants vigor and hardness to walk
untainted through. Have you not no
ticed that boys raised in the country are
often the ones whose names are greatest
in this country? Weeds are the worst
enemies of plant life, and l fear of mind
life, also; for they will grow with neglect,
but plants must have care. The little
foxes of olden-time stories, eat into child
tree, and they live, truly, but what sickly,
one-sided things they are. A few fail
ures in plant culture teach us how to
bring our favorites to perfection, but can
we say as much of mind culture? Centu-
ries have brought with them new knowl-
edge, new appliances, greater facilities
in every way, but the result is hardly
gratifying when we perceive, in the very
midst of all this, so great a number of
uneducated, undisciplined people.
Perhaps Goldsmith is right and the
new is bad. By education we do not
mean book knowledge alone, but all that
goes to make up a perfect character, a
true mind. In former days education at
school meant book knowledge only, the
home being responsible for the moral
training of the child. But that day is
past, and as in many families of this
great free land of ours the children are
the rulers, and are spoiled and petted, it
rests with us to strengthen and build up
character. Did you ever notice that a
child is happiest when busiest? 1t must
be doing, and that is our problem, to
keep the little minds busy. If they are
not busy at useful things they will be at
mischief. We often argue, and rightly,
too, 1 think, that heredity has much to
do with character, and many of us are
not slow to yield to the conviction that
if a child belongs to an ignorant, ill-bred
family. there is no good in him; but
when 1 recall a few cases of my youth
full days I am inclined to think that
sometimes we may be wrong. Many of
YOU have read Locke's Demagogue, no
doubt, and when reading it were on
scious that you had known just such
cases as the hero, who, though he be-
came wise and powerful, never became
good or honorable, and wondered if he
might not have been better trained
morally. NJ. J. CORDIAL.