The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1903-07-10
.ATK|NSON'S ADDRESS
TO SUMMER SCHOOL
In Excelsior He Tells the Teachers Many
Things About What Their Work For
Education Should Be.
Pupils of the Summer School, Ladies

Pupils of the Summer School, Ladies
and Gentlemen:
1t has become the custom for al
| address to be delivered TO you upoT
the opening of the Summer School, anC
for the past three years the task ha:
| I am apt to become monotonous and
mayhap somewhat didactic. but If
! do, it is the fault of the speaker, and
not OF the subject which is before me
That subject is never monotonous. The
consideration of educating the young
and OF developing them into good citi-
zens and high idealed men and women
| who shall carry on the traditions OF
| our race, and shall ever strive after
higher and better things, must always
be absorbing.
Higher and better things. The words
bring to mind Longfellow's lines, which
1 shall take as the kney-note, as II
4 were, of the short address shall make
| to you: Words that speak not from
earth, earthly but words left by a poet,
| a maker, and coming back to us from
his spirit that has winged it's way to
the great unknown.
And from the sky serene and fair,
A voice fell like falling star.
EXCELSIOR.
Trite as is the poem, it teaches the
greatest of lessons, that seeking after
the higher and the greater aims of life
and of life's work. If we come TO
think of it the greatest and the best
of aphorisms are trite, in so far as
trite means common, but not worn out,
its accepted meaning. Great thoughts
well expressed become common, be-
cause they are communis, ready to be
of service. Every proverb is trite, but
what would language be without its
proverbs, the condensed wisdom of the
masses, homelike, sailed, having that
smack of human insight which is the
gift not of transcendentalism, or emas-
culated dilletanteism or aestheticism
or any other ism, but is good hard
common sense. Common sense,-thatI
attribute of the hard workers and hard
thinkers of the world, who call spade
a spade and yet haze in their hearts
and pour forth from their lips the true
poetry of life. Common sense.-the
simple expression of the grand and the
beautiful, which is never so we'll ex-
pressed as when told in the language
that is understood by the young asl
by the old, by the educated as by the
uneducated, by the dull as by the bril-
liant and gifted.
We have to rise to a voice, calling
from afar. We have to take for our
motto EXCELSIOR" and We have to,
reach our ideal by the simplest means. |
would have you therefore listen TO
that voice and 1 would have you teach
its clear ringing tones to those whom
you are to teach, and whom you are
to raise. We have two lines of thought
to follow out. We have to study how
to put our teaching into the simple form
W hlCH WI II pam " NhOSC NhpStI
minds are budding, and we have also to
study how to reach the higher plane
of abstract thought which will give
scope to the trained mind to soar into
the empyrean Of the highest knowl-
edge and the highest ideals.
In former addresses to you I have re-
Trained from speaking of the higher
object to the phrase, how
ever, and have only used it in the
technical sense. There is no higher
education" The education of the COM
non school is higher education. The .
education of the Kindergarten is |
higher" education, since each Of these
tends to bring the child higher" !
There is, however, an advanced educa-
ion. I
And now you might very justly ask {
ne what is meant by higher" What :
s meant by this word Excelsior I
which I have used at the commence ,
nent of these remarks. II there is no ,
higher education, If there is no Elk :
.eIsior" why strive? Why not get in =
o the rut of human life? Why not =
yallow in our own piggery? That is Z
he end which must come of narrow, Z
nd worthless education, but our mot r
o you say is Excelsior" 8
The higher education" is to me edu- ,
alton as a whole. Educa ton from the G
arliest days of the school life High =
t. striving after rhRl
deal, the rising step by step from the
abuIa rasa, the white page of the
hild's mind, TO the fully developed
mind OF the grown man, stored with
nowIedge and ripened with experience. v
very step in this is step in higher 4
ducation. Higher education is the l
roadening of the mind. the develop .