The mirror. (Stillwater, Minn.) 1894-1925, 1903-06-25

II "
not aware that / advocated the Night
School or education in general as
means of reform. He proceeds with
the distressingly sweeping statement
that IA great mistake in England and
America is too much education"
can but quote Richter: "Away, away,
thou speakest of things which in my |
endless life have not known or shall
not know" Where am I? in darkest
Africa, that hear such things? If it
can be true that America has too much
education, never before heard of the
English people being accused of this
fault.
He tells us that education is antago-
nistic to honorable work and those be-
ing educated want to be so-called ladies
and gentlemen. l answer that he here
refers to the "ieisure class" have
been told that i'll England. they are
called ladies and gentlemen; in America
they are commonly known as tramps
He deplores the fact that the farm
boy will get an education and thus un-
ft him for farm duties. S. D. has
seemingly not learned the fact that, in
America at least, a man has not got to
be hog in order to raise one, and that
a college education or even the knowl-
edge of profession is not out of place
on the farm. He then favors us with
a striking eulogy on the virtues of hon
esty, and the sure retributive provi-
dence, emphasizing the fact that Chi
canery, cuteness and double-dealing
are the natural products of education.
Then down with our American free
institutions! May our noble flag be no
longer disgraced by waving over such
nurseries Of vice and crime! Let those
Of us who now realize the existence of
these burning shames, rise up in all of
our righteous dignity-chew the ear off
the night wstch-fire the schoolhouse
ride the teacher out Of town on q
rail-and hurrah for Ignorance!
Gentlemen, would have you under
stand that my critic has conned the
library catalogue, and under the fiction
list has placed his insignia and stamp
of approval, with congratulations. He
may have written by it the word,
Permitted" I am pleased that he
has called our attention to this fact, as
L made no reference to our library in
my article. But that you may know 1
fully appreciate it, in looking over my
library slip I see 81 book numbers
thereon cancelled, all of which are from
the fiction list. We all at times need a
certain amount Of mental recreation
which we find in reading fiction; yet
some minds are satisfied at all times
with the fiction in literature as well as
the fiction in real life, and never
seek for anything sounder or more
dense. They have not the capacity to
appreciate the man who spent his en-
tire life in studying the Greek verb,
and then regretted that he had not
confined his study exclusively to the
Indicative mode of the Greek verb; but
there are yet at least few loft who
can appreciate the value of problem
in trigonometry or a few chapters of
Cicero.
S. breaches his glorious climax in
his last paragraph, as he oyer-foods us
with such an output of knowledge as
would have astounded Cicero, and
put Demosthenes to shame, to wit:
.That branch of literature (fiction) is
exerting greater influence for good
today than churches and colleges" I"
i Ahl methinks that even now mystical
lore foreshadows a time when the
parent will say to his aspiring offspring
"It is folly for you to spend twenty
years of your life in school, college and
churches. Just climb up in the loft.of
the barn where you will not be dis
turbed, and spend twenty years in
reading fiction, and thus obtain bet
tor and purer education" We cannot
dispute the fact that such an education
would never be the means Of taking the
boy from the farm.
i I was obliged to read the closing
j, paragraph three times before the truth
dawned upon me that it contained "a
wheel within q wheel" The minds Of
our most noted fiction writer's have
!. been developed, and their intellectual
, ity built up by means Of our colleges