The record-union. [volume] (Sacramento, Calif.) 1891-1903, 1899-05-19

| fruitless Of good results, and partic-
| ularly so, If it would unfit one for any
honest vocation of honorable toll With
many one, however meager intel
! lectual equipment in youth has not pre-
vented him from leading the intellectual
life"
| A PLEA FOR REFORM.
E. /. Calvin makes a plea for more
practical education, Endorses Mr.. Hunt
ington's views, and makes the follow
! ing suggestions:
Mr.. Huntington has touched the key
note,' he said, land he is a benefactor
because he has set his fellow men to
thinking in the right direction The
true meaning of education (educo) is not
so much that which is put in the mind
as that which is drawn out; and the
best educator is he who quickens his
pupils with such a love for useful
| knowledge, as will stimulate their pow
ers of observation and reflection That
too many of our American schools have
been given to the examining plan and
have followed too closely the text books,
is we'll known. When an Arnold takes
hold of a Rugby school he sets his pu-
pills to healthy thinking. Until lately
the plan has obtained in our American
colleges and universities of establish
| ing a procrustean bed, and requiring
| every student to be Topped off or
stretched out oAit it. A fixed amount
of Latin, Greek, the higher mathemat
les, ETC., was exacted of every student,
no matter what his aptitude for study
or his mental inclinations. President
Elliott of Harvard, was among the first
| leading educators to favor and adopt
a liberal elective course Of study, so
that young men who had made a good
start in high schools, and were sup
posed to,have reasonable idea of what
they most needed to guilty them for
various professions or mercantile pur-
suits, might take up the studies they
felt would be most profitable. I have
known college professors whose minds
were so filled with the ideas and opin-
ions gathered from their profound
| study of multitudinous authors, that
they had no clear opinion of their own.
Il believe that one of the best feat
ures of our modern education is to be
found in manual training For proof
we need only to look to what. has been
done in this direction during the past
fifteen years in ST Louis, Chicago.
Philadelphia and Boston. 1 believe that
to be engrafted upon the grammar and
high schools of the country, we should
soon see its beneficent results. When
boys ranging from II to Is become in
terested in the construction of that
which is useful when the hand and
mind find partnership, it results in a
higher standard Of manliness and self
respect. The scroll saw, the hand
printing press, and carving tools, placed
at boys disposal, under the guidance of
good teachers, will do more to lift our
youth above hocdlumism and vagrancy
than anything I can name To the
credit Of the royal house of Russia, be
1t said that emulating the example of
Peter the Great, the Princes of that
house have been taught trades.
While on this topic T want to say
another thing: If Wendell Phillips We're
alive to-day he might be inclined to
add to his list of lost arts that of good
housekeeping; for many of our young
women have a distaste for housekeep-
ing and cookery and if the truth were
known many a man has been driven to
drink by sour bread, bad coffee. and
that great promoter of Indigestion the
frying pan. Many cultured New En-
gland mothers, however, took a pride
in training their daughters in good
housekeeping, and the young women
grew up in refined homes, where they
We're not ashamed to be seen in calico
dresses as the presiding spirits of the
kitchen. Women should know how to
keep house, how to cut and make their
garments, and men should know how
to do the practical work of the world
with educated hands"
A RULE FOR EACH MAN.
President Frank Miller of the Ma
tional Bank Of D. O. Mills & Co., does
not believe in any fixed rule. He said:
&c. P. Huntingtons views on educa-
ton may be fairly summarized in his
own words as follows: The years from
Is to q are immensely valuable, for
they are years Of keen observation, in
dividuality and confidence In many
cases, quite too many they are spent
in examining the mind with knowledge
that is not likely to help a young man
in the work he is fitted to do
1T seems to me that each young man
should strive to acquire, in equal parts,
observation, individuality, confidence
and education. A deficiency in any one
of these four requirements will be a
serious matter. At his own peril each
one must decide whether he needs a
little more education or little less, and
| act accordingly. Each mans case diff
fers from that of any other man. Meth
DDS will differ but results will be uni
form, either success or failure. Daniel
Webster burned his diploma when he
received it; and Cortes burned his ships
when he landed in Mexico. Neither
man undervalued that which he burned,
but was bent upon looking forward and
not backward"
HIGHER EDUCATION THE THING.
H. Weinstock, of Weinstock, Lubin
& Co., whose lectures and essays have
often caused him to be taken for coll
lege Professor, does not belle the ap-
pearance. He defends the very educa-
ton Mr. Huntington combats, as fol-
| lows:
Il am a strong believer in higher
| education. The young man who comes
out of college and finds himself unfit
the failure to the college; the fault is
| his Such man would probably have
| been a greater failure without his col
| lege education. I do not understand
that universities and colleges under
| take to furnish brains; their aim, as I
take it, is TO train whatever brains the
| student may have. A trained mind as
a rule, can accomplish more than an
| unframed mind, and, while the young
| fellow with the college education may
be handicapped at the start, when