Phillipsburg herald. [volume] (Phillipsburg, Kan.) 1882-1905, 1896-07-16
Prof. StryEer's Lecture.

AS'e ~ NV . LSSNhtSs
Prof. Stryker delivered lecture al
the Baptist church last evening to q
large and appreclative audience
Though manuscript was used, the
professors delivery WAS easy and ma
tural. The lee ure was replete with
great thoughts, and The many noble
sentiments uttered will remain long
with the teachers and others who
heard them. We give bsIow a few
quotations from it, they show It's gen
eral tenor. Lack Of space will not
permit giving more of it.
mo true teacher has failed to note
the need of some mans by which, in
part at least, the old time willingness
and readiness to respect authority
and sacred things could be restored.
How to do this and still have reason
and love govern is The great problem
Of today.
"Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn,
Pecks Bad Boy, and books Of their
class, are decidedly immoral in their
tendencies as they are ordinarily read.
The bad boy is made a hero, and has
become a model after which hundreds
are patterning today,
"There is too much of a disposition
to make light of everything sacred in
the great institutions, the church, the
home, and the school, and which must
be held sacred and made pure and
noble, or our civilization will become
what some predict Of it, a corrupting
mass which shall fall with an awful
crash in a ruin, more terrible than
Rome in the time of Nero But my
friends, / do not 30 interpret the
present tendencies,
every thought, every added hap
pineSs, leaves lasting impression
upon the mind of the child and in
creases its possibilities by just that
much
"Education means independent
thought and action; it means ability
to stand alone.
Nothing that is easy of attain
ment, ever gives great mental or
moral power. 1t is the intensity of
the activity, the magnitude of the diff
fculty to be overcome that counts.
"Christ and his mission were con-
sidered failures. Pestalozzl was
failure at everything he undertook.
HIS was the victim as other great and
noble souls have been of the lgnor-
ance, prejudice and cunning of his
time.
"The only person who cannot safe
ly have opinions is the one who is so
narrow as to believe that all that is
good aud true is in his church and
party, and all that IL Vicious and bad
is in the other church and party.
Such q person is not fit to teach any
school, and is not good citizen.
II do not mean to encourage cor
ner grocery argument or partisan en-
thusiasm which begins a few weeks
before election day and extends no
farther than candidates and party,
and then dies out until the coming
year. 1t is about as valuable as the
religion which is put on every Sun
day or each revival meeting and laid
aside the remainder of the time.
Christ the greatest of all teachers,
the perfect example, was a living pro-
test against what l believe to be the
most serious failing among teachers
in all ages and countries, and the
most difficult to remedy,-the giving
of lip service only, the failure to feel
and know truly, the meaning of the
words spoken, the failure to put the
whole life and soul to the work Of
moulding and shaping the destiny of
human souls.
"Our action politically is our indi-
vidusl opportunity of making better
or worse the whole human race. Po-
lltical science is human science. The