The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1896-06-13

value of a thorough and symmetrical
education. He also demonstrated that
the High school is one of the most i'm
porfant. links in our system of educa-
ton. He spoke in part as follows:
DR.. MILLSPAUGH'S ADDRESS.
The pressure of daily occupations has
left me little time to prepare for the
honorable duty of the present hour
Nevertheless, as I stand here in the
presence of this great assembly, [ am
encouraged by the thought that we
have all been drawn together here to-
night by a like impulse and enthusl-
asn. We have come to celebrate the
annual festival of our schools and &c
express our interest in the educational
welfare of our common city.
The exercises of commencement day
mean more than the mere termination
OF course of study and instruction
They are the beginning of serious
and critical future. These exercises are
the Students Inauguration to the
sterner discipline of the college ano
university or to the Seyerer require
ments of practical life. We come into
these halls, from year to year, to be-
stow upon our chosen youths the prize
OF victory for which they have striyen
so earnestly. We also send them forth
With our blessings into the school Oh
the world where they may attain tina.
intellectual manhood and wornanhood
whose foundation is laid in their schoo,
days. l feel that / can rely upon your
interest and sympathy as l attempt to
speak OF education in it's broadcast anc
completest sense.
More than 200 years before the dawn
OF the Christian era the Athenian
Plato, held that the true education of
the citizens was indispensable to the
greatness and stability of the state.
His idea Of education, yelled under
various names, always reveals itself
as the underlying principles of his
philosophy. He recognizes the complete
education of the ruler and of the sub
Ject to be the most essential elements OF
wholesome government. Education i'm
plies that dignified self-possessios
which is produced by the complete and
harmonious development of all the ele-
ments of mans nature. 1t assumes the
possession by every man of a certain
stock of natural powers and capabili-
ties, whose harmonious expansion into
completeness and symmetry is educa-
ton. There is broad distinction be-
tween true education and that which
often passes current for it. True edu-
cation is something more that mere
scholarship. No man can be rights
called educated until mere attachments
| have been transformed into instru-
ments of usefulness and power and put
under the control of their possessor.
When men are SO trained that they will
be able to command all their powers
| and make use of all their talents, they
will constitute the true glory of the
nation.
1t is natures plan that the develop
nent of the race should be through ed
ucation. The child fingers longer than
any other creature in the vestibule OF
life in order that he may be the more
| perfectly equipped for the purposes de-
signed for him by a beTeficent creator
Education is therefore, the birthright
of every human being and if he is de-
pf1Ved of it he suffers a, grieyous wrong
for which there is no compensation OF
atoneqnent. Though education is ar
inherited right. yet 1 cannot forbear tc
say to my young student friends that
it is a privilege which may be rejected
or accepted. WisJieSl, like fortune, is
! a lazy goddess and demands that they
who would share her blessings shall
seek her. No young person can go far
wrong who deVoteS a. certain amount cd
time regularly to a definite course OF
intellectual work Each ones aim ir
life will determine what such a course
| should be No day. however, should be
allowed to pass without being com.
PEELED to yield the result of its pre-.
scr1bed plan of labor. Random activity
should be avoided; for jumping from
one thing to another without plan ie
little better than id1eness There is no
lack of self-styled scholarly men who
have fritter-ed their time away by f1y-
ing from one department of etucatio
to another without taking the tine tc
examine more than the border lines OF
| any. Such men. it is said. MAY know
the truth as 1T is about thing and sup
port it with acrid and wrangiing dog
matism. but they never can know the
truth as it is in a thing and support
! 1t with faith and insight"
THE GREAT SAFEGUARD.
1t is a. great safeguard for a young
person to have an aim in living. Then
he will have no time for idling. and
there will be no need of any fictitious
stimulus. Hippocrates, who was de,
voted to the benevolent art of healing
said $500 years ago, Life is short. art
long, opportunity fieetfng, experiment
| slippery. judgment difficult" These
ideas contain no less truth today: al
must recognize the fact that whatever
may be said of the world it is no stage
for inactivity: idlenes can only lead tic
wreck and ruin.
There is a belief unfortunately too
| generally current that business alert
ness, shrewdness OF judgment, and ca
pacity for affairs are not the products
of the higher education. The courses
of study in our higher Institutions Of
learning are considered worthless in
large part because they fail to short
| en- the road to wealth and station. If
! the fundamental design of higher edu-
| cation has this aim only in view their
/ courses are sadly in need of revision
! But If the purpose of education is to
develop and make available the facul-
ties and powers of men the introduce
! ton of any false utilitarianism would
be subversive of its true end.
The great tendency Of modern edu-
cation, especially in America, is haste
! for results and those only of a material
kind. The temptations of wealth are
too often permitted to call our youth
away from the proper work of the
high school and college. Short roads
and bypaths are opered up which
tempt them to undertake business with
insufficient preparation, to seek adj
/ mission to technical and professional
schools. The result of this unfortu-
nate practice is that we so often have
frivolous accomplishments in society,
| practical illiteracy in professional
life, incompetent instructors 20 teach
our children. and half trained men TO
plead the causes and heal the diseases
and lead the thinking of the people.
We cannot too strongly protest against
such perversion of the true function
of education. Let US develop the DOW
ers OF manhood and woqnanhood in
our youth and afterwards impose upon
| them those obligations to society which
they will then be able to meet in the
strength Of vigorous maturity.
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