The morning call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1878-1895, 1895-01-07
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is To be IOuQu. i luiuk poDpio III AHIOk
are vastly better off in this respect han in
England. The value of great teacher is
recognized There are not long array of
prizes set before the ambition or the Gu
pidity of parents aud their children.
There are not thousands of American
youths striving 10 gain their livelihood by
passing an examination. and so there is
good hope that real education may yet be
saved for the world by the Americans, as
soon as they learn to retard their pace and
not to run their education by steam.
The next point | commend TO their
notice is this: That good education does
not allow ignorant and perhaps idle
youths to make a selection, and only learn
what they assert or fancy is to their taste.
Have / not heard this sort of thing all my
life? WHY should he learn. Greek, when
he hates ii? Why should he read Euclid.
when he mates mathematics? | should be
disposed 10 say that is the very reason
whv he should. How can an infant be a
proper Judge of what is good for him
How can he even know what tastes he
has or has not? The famous Lord Redes-
dale when LordChancelor of England used
TO say that he never knew man succeed
at the bar who had taken to the profess
sion because he had taste for it. All the
great successes he had seen were IF men
who took to the law to support them
selves. or because they were am bilious
Most of them ha' led the work at first And
so it has been in other pro fessi0ns. When
the man is mature and trained to WORK at
whatever comes upon him then let him
choose.
But no man has learned to work till he
can work himself and with zeal at what
he dislikes. To submit to intellectual
drudgery is the first great lesson or lie.
No good career is a bed OF roses. No
serious pursuit is without tedious and
wearing labor. The man worth having ID
any walk of life is the man who will do
earnestly and cheerfully what is given
him Ia do, not the man who Will DICK ana
choose, and shirk those parts OF his task
which he finds tedious or dlfhcult.
For that reason we educators in any
university worth its salt choose what we
think every boy should know. we choose
what will force him to think accurately
and TO master perfectly many minute de-
tails. Ii he does it all without effort, he
Ia either a heaven-born genius (and these
are so few that we need not here con-
slider them), or he is one OF these faclle
intellects which are the pest and bane OF
-what-the man who could have done
ANYTHING | wonder do they exist IN
American society, men who Idle ana
sink till they spend their day sollclnng
work which they do not intend to per-
form, as a prelude to begging loan, which
they do not intend 10 repay? This. then,
is the theory of university education.
We set q course for every student TO
learn. We help them through 1t by care
full teaching. We test him PERIODICALLY by
examination, not competitive, not quality
ing, And if Oxford and Cambridge have
been departing from THIS theory ana al
lowing lads 10 spend their whole time at
one subject, they are aching criminally
and imposing on the world in that trey
send out lOp-sided intellects, knowing only
one subject, perhaps secondary one, and
calling them university men. Such manu-
facture should be stamped as counterfeit
ing honest gOOns
Let US then have a genuine university
course, and however a lad may seek dis
tinction in one branch of il, or even out
side it in voluntary subjects. let us lnslsl
that he qualities in that. SO you attain
that type of man that differs from the self
taught, or the professional, or the Dusl-
ness mantle genuine university man,
and it will be bad thing for the world II
he dies out of modern life.
What then, 1t Will be asked, are we 10
set down as the obligatory course? Is it
prone 10 alter9 Are there no changes, no
improvements to be made as the sound
ing loom of time" weaves new and richer
webs of life? God forbid. The old Tri-
vium aud Quadrivium of the middle ages
were good in their day; they are now
luSJlV 0DSUlol6. Dut SClcDC63 lcttOIe, Oni-
lOsOphy, are still and will ever remain the
great topics for an university TO teach.
We may modify and enlarge upon them.
but they are the backbone of any real
education.
l will not go into details upon the SUBJ
divisions of these everlasting subject, 1t
would require month OF talks, not one.
l only insist here upon ore thing. For
heavens sake don't put in any book or
NH II ia ncnfnl nnn't
understand me. l know perfectly well
that l should say useful for what? and
that 1t ls easy to show how useful the
most abstract and superhuman science
was to Sir I. Newton. or Lord Kilvin. or
the late Prot. Tyndall. In fact all kinds
Of knowledge are and must be useful. But
that is not the way people understand 1t.
They mean by useful what serves directly
in getting you your bread and butter. In
that sense comic sections, or photography
are not Immediately useful and shorthand
is. Yet shorthand IS worth nothing as
education, and comic sections are. The
real dignity of universities is to teach
things which are not intended to support
the INDECENT, but to enrich the wealthy.
For be IL wealthy who has leisure and a
capable intellect and the riches they will
add to his store are such as moth and rust
cannot corrupt
Let US then state the thing boldly in the
form of a paradox 1t is the glory of a
university to teach useless knowledge.
For thus alone can we keep it above the
trivial and the vulgar, and enable it TO SUBJ
serve those truer aud higher uses as are
confined and ever will be confined to the
aristocracy of intellect. Such place OF
education is not for those no are compelled
by hard necessity to earn their daily bread.
Nor is it desirable that there should be
dead level in this as in any other depart
ment of human life. Men are not born
equal, whatever the trainers of the Ameri-
can constitution may say, and there will
always be those who can provide them
selves, or are provided by Others, with ex-
ceptional advantages. One OF these is GER
talnly the training of the scholar Or the
man Of science.
l was going TO recapitulate my chief
| points, having the teachers habit of re-
! peating every point two or three times for
the sake of the Idle aud inattentive. But
such readers will have left me long ago
talking to the walls, SO far as they are con
cerDed. | was going to attract their at
tention by turning to the education OF
womea, above all to that of coeducation,
| as understand it to be the rule in Cali.
| fornia, but the hour is late and l am as
tired of talking as my audience may be oil
| listening
/Gh / NJ