The Denison review. [volume] (Denison, Iowa) 1867-current, 1902-06-13
Practical Application Of Education
BY DAVID L. kIEHLE,
Professor of Pedagogy, University of Minnesota.

- HE educating policy OF continental Europe has
- been to improve the intelligence Of the people
" in order to make them more efficient in their
respective spheres OF life, and thereby to increase
their usefulness to society above them, as well
as to add to their own happiness, but without
R@6@ disturbing the traditional class distinctions as
MSH@M they exist. In America the opposite idea has
~ 0AnH2V largely prevailed; those in humber life have been
XXNIIIyN taught that education is the avenue of escape
N&&S2 from the sphere of life into which they have been
born, and with which the evils OF life have been
&NKSS4 associated. Under this impulse our educational
MX1nIHlk8 system has fostered a general migration from
XUNIIIDB domestic and industrial life. Our daughters are
JIIIlnIMK headed away from the home freside, and are
1IIlHHNH strung along the way from the merchants coun-
| ter and stenographers table up to the practice
Of law and medicine. Our boys have dropped
the hoe and the hammer, and are headed for the town to become
clerks, doctors, lawyers and legislators.
Now, it is not in my mind to condemn this view of education or
to oppose it; but I do urge that we enlarge our views to include that
other idea, that education has for its aim a preparation for a life of
comfort and honor in every walk of life. 1t is to furnish our youth
with culture Of mind and heart that will make them noble men and
women, and with the necessary skill Of hand that will make home a
place of refinement and health, and the shop a place OF intelligent
and remuneratve industry. 1t is to make all industry of cultivated
and to occupy the largest place of usefulness to which he is by
nature adapted, to avoid none as fit were menial, and to make home
life the center to which art, science and wealth make their final and
choicest contribution.
It is not only that education should prepare for a better living,
but it should teach what a better living is. Next to living, the great
est problem OF life is, what is good living? And the greatest obstacle
to a good system of education lies in the misconceptions of society
respecting the kind of a living that is most worthy of our seeking.
No one can object that mans frstlefort is for bread for himself and
his children; and until this demand is satisfied it is useless to interest
him in anything else. But having bread, he should learn that the
delights of life do not increase with the accumulatons of bread in
the forms of money and bonds. Our schools and our learned men
have also to learn what the proper service of education is, and what
the final end of its acquisitions in use. Explorers and searchers for
things new, whether it be for lew continents, new laws of science,
or new PHILOSOPHERS of life, are great contributors, and deserve great
honor, but these do not rank highest. They are but the forerunners
OF those who apply thing new to the better living OF the people; those
who COLOMBO the new worlds and establish governments OF freedom
OF the oppressed; those who utilize science for the improvement OF
social conditions to make more people happier and better, and who
multiply happy homes with happy children.