Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1901-10-24
THE MONASTIC DANGER IN HIGUET
EDUCATION

The reaction against the policy of haste
and supcrficiality brings with It, however
pcrils of its own. Antipathy to the deg
radiation of education involved in its APP
praiscment by the standards of the mark
ct and the contingencies is in dan. cr
of leading to an aloofncss which affects
to ignore the principle that education, at
it's highest and best, is a pre- paration for
life, says Herbert w. Horwill in the oct
ODER Forum. If unitarian theories of ed
ucation err. 1t is because they unduly mar
row the true conception of utility. r o
parent who wishes his boy to be taught
nothing but what Is ''practical' is. in p in
ciple profoundly right:a training that
bears no fruit does nausht but cumber + n
ground. it is by his Interpretation of the
practical" by his understanding of the
demands of life and the means by which
they may be met, that the true teacho +
distinguishes himself from the quack.
Hence. to overlook the close contact into
which the individual will inevitably be
brought with the affairs of his fellows is
to be guilty of a serious failure to grasp
one Of the fundamental requirements If
any real education. The student will
whom the teacher has to deal is Is not des-
tined to spend his existence in vacuo, or
even the next thing to it in a hermit
age of intellectual anchorites carefully
shielded from every sound of vulgar hu-
man speech. Whether he is his brother $
keeper or not, there is no getting away
from the fact that he is his brother $
brother The impossibility of isolating
him from his kin or of emanCipating him
from his own share of responsibility for
whatever in his environment is the result
of human effort or NJ glect. puts the solu-
ton of the problem of his education beyond
the reach of the intellectual reclusc as well
as of the intellectual cheap jack. No one
who regards the affairs of the extra-aca l.
th..I Of 10, ,,f., - ln.,
n dilottante or a cynic can reasonably
hope to achieve any real and permanent
success as n teacher.
If this be so, it may be pardonable to
hesitate before accepting the usual com
placent view of the tendencies of contom-
pOrary higher education in America. l.
not the number increasing Of colleges
which are making it their great ambition
! to become inconsistencies devoted to the
purposes of knowledge and respar h
rather than schools for preparing the
minds of youth for the discharge of pub
lie affairs" Perhaps it has been to.
readily assumed that the Incorporation OF
modern subj" + in the course of studies
would In itself secure the desired contact
with actual life. There might, of course
be mediaevalism in Latin, but surely bao I
erioiogN must be closely relevant to tn,
needs Of our own times. The science o.
bactcriology-yes; the teaching of bactcr
iology-not necessarily. To "A practsns
physician a knowledge of this subject |,
evidently OF the greater value: but its in
clusion in the course of study pursued by
non-professional undergraduate must b,
justified on entirely different grounds from
those which give ii place in "A technic .
school OF medicine. 1t would be quite pos
sihle for a college to Danish fIom its curri
culum the classical languages and litera
lures. with every other branch of old
fashioned scholarship and Mace imam II