The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1896-02-15
THE TRUE EDUCATION.
Inaugural Address Mt Lombard.
BY PRES. G. E. NASH, ID.

| y BY PRES. G. E. NASH, ID.
Following is the Galesburg Registers
report OF DIR. Nash's inaugural address.
The reader will understand that it is
only report-an outline of the thought
and not the address in full.-EDIToR.l
The New York Herald, by an iron
clad rule formulated by the elder
Bennett, excludes college graduates
from its employ. The paper is great
commercial enterprise, and in its
sphere has achieved marked distinc-
ton and performed wonderful jour
nalistic feats. It's exclusion of college
graduates is significant. The paper,
] while 80 great success from bust
ness standpoint, is nevertheless des-
titute of principle and the counting
room rules the editorial department.
There is unfortunately, however, an
opinion that college men are unfit for
service and it is shared by many peo-
pie. They regard the higher educa-
ton as so much waste. They call for
practical education that will fit one
for thrift, business, and commerce.
Any education that does not meet this
commercial standard is deemed USE
less.
What answer do we make? To this
judgment the age seems to give
assent. When Matthew Arnold said
conduct is three fourths of life he
was thinking of conduct as opposed
to dogma. But | do not think the
external expression, for which con-
duct is synonym, constitutes three
fourths of life. 1t is the outward and
not the inward manifestation. It
does not comprehend character, a
term we do not half understand.
Character is more than conduct. Still
the one can be regarded as the COM
plement of the other, conduct being
the outward expression or growth
from character, the inner form of our
intellectual and moral life.
Now the educated man is finished
character. Education is to contribute
to the ultimatum, the finality, the per-
fected result reached in the distant
future. A utilitarian who regards
education from business standpoint
has therefore no business to have
anything to do with teaching. Teach
ing is great and sanctifed duty. 1t
deals with minds, and mind is the
greatest thing we know of, and of it
and its inherent possibilities we
should stand in awe. 1t was made in
the likeness of the Creator. Our ideas
of education have changed with our
ideas of man. In the past the idea
of man was sordid. The varied fund
of quotable information was the meas
ure of knowledge. Such theory has
no value from true point of view.
We have now attained higher stand
ard of mans capacities and, having
come to sum up his achievements, we
stand speechless, although mindful
we have not yet attained high de-
gree of appreciation. Mind is elusive.
Measure the mind of man by the
mind of the greatest mani The mind
of your boy, analysed, is the same
essentially as the mind of Shakes
peare, or even of Christ himself. If
he cannot initiate Shakespeare, he
may initiate some one else, whose
aptitudes may be the same. The
possibilities growing out of mental
development are great. This is in
deed wonderful age. There is no
telling what marvels we now con-
template with incredulity may be
accomplished by the contact of
mind with matter. 1t is ours to set
this mind in motion, to inspire it to
accomplish great results, to send it on
its mighty mission. The educator is
thus wonderful factor and he should
regard his task as most momentous
one.
l love to think that God has COM
mitted part of the creative power to
us. Not that we may evoke new mat.
ter but that we may shape the final
outcome, the finished product, though
directing the processes of soul devel-
opment.
The doctor then in an eloquent
strain defended higher education,
showing how it calls into active life
the higher faculties of the mind and
the deeper and broader sympathies
and contrasted this with the cheap
and slow standard of the utilitarian.
Men, through right process of edu-
cation, can find ten thousand chan
nels for delight and satisfaction and
higher living, effected by a proper
development of mental resources.
Gain thara muat he a ground for