The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1897-11-23

TX conientment is the highest good. IL
is probable that education is a mistake.
since contentment and ignorance are a
more frequent coincidence than content
ment and learning. 1t is the function OF
education TO kindle ambition and TO graf
ify II. but not to satisfy It. There Is al
way more beyond. Al England is now
stirred by the ~pessimistic version OF edu-
cation already alluded TO in these COL
unns. given by Prof. Mahaffy In a COL
legiate even at Birmingham. He doubts
II the schools give as good an education
as they did thirty years ago: at any rate
he discovers frightful ignorance among
graduates OF his acquaintance. He has
himself known students OF his own
Trinity college. Dupiin, to turn out re-
markable criminals. Did not that argue
something wrong with the system? He
modestly said nothing about what 1t ar
gued in the teachers. But, however that
might be. he had the graves, doubts
whether the diffusion of education had
diffused morality or happiness.
That a distinguished professor should
take superficial views Is the strongest in
dictment, that we have seen of such par
tial mental ~dicipline as that of professor
Mahaffy. Everybody knows that the in
teilect and the character are not invar-
IDLY developed in the same degree: but
everybody, except Prof Mahaffy, knows
that ignorance and vice average to go to-
gether. although, fortunately for so
SACky, JAY a iiOlCNs VA tiS d
criminals. and only a moiety of the vi
cious are educated. We are concerned
not with exceptions but with rules. The
Duke OF Devenshire says that even IL
education does not make happiness. II Is
necessary II the modern man and womaa
is successfully to compete for a larger
existence. The fact is that education
makes usefulness. and contentment the
basis Of happiness, and thus substitutes
a larger for a smaller life.
The fact is that false education sup
plies Prof. Mahaffy the basis of his indict
ment. An education thai units a man
for life, and leaves him powerless, is not
education in the sense of relation to the
actual world. They talk in Europe of the
learned proletariat-that is. of a body of
scholars that can scan Virgil and inter-
pref Plato, but who know nothing of af-
fairs, little of science and art. Here Is
where our educational systems are weak.
To enter upon life we must have science
and art. because modern life is scientific,
and its successes must be wrought out
that Is. the worker must know how to
think Alright and how to act Alright. The
trade school. the techinal school. are es-
sential if we are to produce something
above Prof. Mahaffy's pessimism. Eng
land is fast losing her industrial pre-
eminence because her technical education
is far beneath that of Germany. The APP.
plication Of science to art. Of knowledge
Of things~to construction, is the German
genius. In the United States we need es.
pecially to encourage general education
as we now do, but to turn the enthuSi.
asms of muscular effort from foot bal
fads to the scientific battle with steam
water, hydrogen. oxygen, and the factor
Of force and matter. In grammar and In
high schools we are wasting the highes
power by allowing ourselves to be dis
suaded from constructive effort by de
structive engagements, from the con
%structive genius Of peace to the destruc
tive genius of war. To nourish courag,
we want less pigskin and more OF tn,
spirit that suffers long and is kind in tn
science and art of Industrial evolution OF
which social evolution Is based.-Lewis
ton Journal,