The Kootenai herald. [volume] (Kootenai, Idaho) 1891-1904, 1895-07-13
ADDRESS OF PRESIDENT BUTLER
What knowledge Is OF Most WORTH"
sGhj-ct Admirably Handled.

What Knowledge Is OF Most Worth?''
SGhj-ct Admirably Handled.
At the evening session the church was
nlled. Dr. A. G. Lane of Chicago, vice
president, presided. Nicholas Butler.
president, gave his annual address
What knowledge Is of the Most
Worth2' He spoke in part as follows:
The question that 1 am asking-what
knowledge is of most worth ?-is a very
old one and the answers to it that have
been handed down through centuries are
many and various. 1t is a question that
each age must put to itself and answer
from the standpoint of its deepest and
widest knowledge. The wisest philoso-
phers nave always seen, more or less
clearly, the far-reaching character of the
question and the great Importance of the
answer. Socrates and Plato, Augustine
and Aquinas, were under no illusions as
to it; but often in later years the deeper
questions relating to educational values
nave been either lost sight of entirely or
very specifically dealt with Bacon
clothes in attractive automatic form some
very crude judgments as to the relative
worth of studies. Rousseau risks his rem
utation for sobriety of judgment in out
lining an educational program Herbert
spencer turns aside for a moment from
MS life work to apOtheosiz science in ed
ucation, although science is, by his own
denmton, only partially-unfied knowl-
edge. Whewell eXalts mathematics in Ian
Buage only less eXtravagant than that in
which Sir William Hamilton decries il
The very latest cry is that studies and
intellectual exercises are valuable in pro-
portion as they stimulate enlarged brain
areas; thus making the appreciation of
shakspere' of Beethoven, and of Leonar-
90 ia Nlncl solely function of the circu-
latiOn of the blood
But to sciOlfefs of tbfe t,rra r,l,fto....t..
and scinece can now make common an
sWer. III II be true that spirit and reason
RUE the universe, then the highest and
most enduring knowledge is of the things
or the spirit. That subtle sense of the
beautiful and the sublime which accom-
panies spiritual insight, and is part of il.
is the highest achievement of which hu-
manly IS capable. This sense is typifed.
IN various forms, in the verse of Dante
ana the prose outpourings of Thomas a
kempis, in the Sistine Madonna of Raph-
ael' and in Mozarts Requiem. To devotion
this sense in education is the task of
art and literature, to interpret it is the
work OF philosophy, and to nourish il the
function Of religion.
The ways of approach to this goal are
as many as there are human interests
Tor they are all bound together in the
bonds Of common origin and a common
purpose. The attainment of IL is true Gull
ture, as Mr.. Matthew Arnold has defined
II; the acquainting ourselves with the
best that has been known and said in the /
world, and thus with the history of the
human spirit"
one side of this truth was expressed by |
Schelling when he taught that nature is
the embryonic life of spirit, and by Froe- /
bel when he worte, 1.-THE spirit of Cod |
rests in nature, lives and reigns in nature.
Is expressed in nature, is communicated /
by nature, is developed and cultivated in
nature" The controversy as to the ed |
ucational value Of science, so far. at least
as II concerns educational standards and
Ideals is, then, an illusory one 1t is a
mimic war; with words alone as weapons.
that is fought either TO expel nature from
education or to subordinate all else in ed
ucation TO it.
We must enlarge, then, our conception
OF the humanities, for humanity is broad
or and deeper than we have hitherto sus-
pected.
This conclusion, which would welcome
science with open arms into the school
and utilize its opportunities and advan-
tages at every stage of education, does
not mean that all studies are Of equal ed