The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1901-12-08
Five Evidences Of an Education.
BY PROF. NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER ,.

upon a recognition of this fact, and
that is a poor education indeed which
fails 10 inculcate the ethical principle
and the manners that embody it.
As a third evidence Of an education
name the power and habit OF reflection
Tt is a frequent charge against us mod
erns. particularly against Americans,
that we are losing the habit of re-
Election and the high qualities which
depend upon it. We are told that this
/ loss is a necessary result of our hur-
ried and busy lives, of our diverse in
I terests, and of the humiliation of
/ space and time by steam. and electri-
city.
The whole world and its happenings
/ are brought to our very doors by the
daily newspaper. Our attention leaps
from Manila to Pekin, from Pekin TO
I the Transvaal. and from The Transvaal
J to Havana. We are torn by conflict
ing or uncOrrected emotions. and our
minds are occupied by ideas follow
ing each other with such Tapidity that
we fail to get a firm and deep hold Of
any one of the great facts that come
into our lives. This is the charge
] which even sympathetic critics bring
! against US.
If it be true-and there are some
counts in the indictment which it is
difficult to deny-then one Of the most
precious evidences Of an education is
l slipping from us and we must re-
double our efforts 10 keep fast hold
upon it. For an uneXamined life, as
! Socrates increasingly insisted, is not
worth living. The life which asks no
questions of itself, which traces events
back to no causes and forward to no
purposes. which raises no vital issues
of principle, and which seeks no in
depreciation of what passes within and
without. is not d human life at all; it
is the life of an animal. The trained
and the unframed mind are perhaps in
sharpest contract at this very point
An armOTy OF insights and convic-
tons always ready for applications to
new conditions, and invincible save by
deeper insights and more rational con-
ViCtiOns. is "A mark of a trained and
] educated mind The educated man has
standards of truth of human expert
enCe. and of wisdom by which new pro-
pOsals are judged. These standards
can be gained only through reflection
The undisciplined mind is a prey tC
every passing fancy and the victim oil
every plausible dOctrinaire. He has DC
permanent forms of judgment which
give him character.
Renan was right when he held tina
the first condition for the development
of the mind is that it shall have lib
erty and liberty for the mind mean
freedom from the control of the I'm
/ reasonable, and freedom to choose tn
I reasonable in accordance with prin
! ciple. A body of principles is a neces
sary possession of the educated man
His development is always with refer
/ ence to his principles, and proceeds b,
evolution, not revolution.
Philosophy is, of course, the grea
single study by which the power O
reflection is developed until it become
3 habit, but there is a phlosophi
study of literature, Of politics, of laJ
ural science, which makes for the sam
q end. The question how, whose answe
is science, and the question why, who's
answer is philosophy are the begin
nings of reflection. A truly educate
q man asks both questions continually
and as a result is habituated to Tefec
ton.
o q %
AS a fourth evidence of an educatio
Il name the power of growth. There
!. q type of mind which, when trained {
Y a certain point, crystallizes, as it wer
Il and refuses to move forward thereaft
d er. This type Of mind fails to Civ
d one Of the essential evidences of a