The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1903-05-31

yet really camping ana unScTupulOus GU
terprises, the long years of prison and
authorship, and its not uniting close, in
the English statesman's death by the
headsman-so tranquil though violent, so
tremendously solemn, so composed, so
dignified-su a contrast to all other
forms of capital punishment, then or
SINCE" Spenser celebrates Raleigh in
some parts of the great poem.
There are two sides to almost all ques-
tons The Latins had a wise saying-a
sort Of protest-audi alteram partem-
hear the other side There are two sides
to the negro question, and after well-nigh
forty years of blindness, of ignorance, of
infatuation, Northern people with intel
ligence are finding it out, and now freely
admit the blunder of the mad Congress
that enfranchised the negro in his stupid
ty, folly, ignorance and superstition. As
to education it also has two sides. The
enthusiastic devotees of education make it
everything. They are as blind followers
of Horace Mann as were any of his blind
ed disciples in Massachusetts, fifty years
ago. Education Is made now the great
lever power of government as well as the
supreme gift to man. 1t opens the gates
| of Heaven to its recipients and makes all
who are so blessed as to mental instruc-
| zion the great makers and builders of the
world. Education of the mind is pro-
nounced to be the great and primal moral
and intellectual uplifter and benefactor.
But there is another side. 1t is argued
| that education is not a regenerator, sancti-
fer and savior of the world. 1t is under
stood that great men are not necessarily
wise men, nor educated men necessarily
moral, pure, good men In the Literary
Digest for eth March, 1908, there is an
instructive paper, but 1 can not use
enough of it here to show its real value
and significance. 1t shows something of
| The actual disadvantages of education. 1t
| quotes well known saying of the great
est German, Goethe, that "The greater the
knowledge, the greater the doubt" 1t
also copies another saying, the latter be-
| ing by the great English critic of the
! first thirty years of the last century.
Hazlitt, that 1.-The most learned are of the
most narrow-minded." Both sayings are
true, and literature and history abound in
striking examples to justify the statement.
The great English Review, THE Nine
teenth Century and After" in It's Febru-
airy number, has an article strikingly inn
pressive as to the disadvantages of edu-
cation" as well as advantages, in which it
is affirmed that "the most prominent men
in nearly every province of human ac-
tlvity have been amateurs. l must take
some selections to establish the truth of
the contention. The great Review says,
and it is surely impressively illustrative.
Amateurs, and not professionals, are
selected to rule our great public depart
mcnts Our great administrators have
nearly all been amateurs and autodidacts.
To take few Of the best known examples:
Cromwell was a farmer, Warren Hastings
and Give were clerks, Mr.. Chamberlain
was brc.'En Mt up for trade, Lord Goschen
for * nifs.. zee, Lord Cromer for the army
Oti.s >zl.4 les have had the same expert
erf.< 49, sef-taught amateurs. Prince
9aeg. as brought up for law. failed
~ ., ass his examination, became a
eoEAsc, squire, and drifted without any
TIA Gng hste the Prussian diplomatic SER
vice nd the cabinet, and founded the
German eiiygre. George Washington was
a surveyor, benjamin Franklin printer
Abraham Lincoln lumberman, NJ de
White railway official.
In hess exalted sphere we meet with
the same phenomenon. Sir William
Herschell was musician, Faraday a
bookbinder, Scott lawyers clerk, Murat
student of theology. Ney a notary's
| clerk, Arkwright the inventor of the
spinning machine and the first cotton
manufacturer a barber, Spinoza a glass
hloVXQP rla I o.I
Armstrong an attorney, Herbert Spencer
an engineer, Pasteur, the father of mod
ern medicine and chirurgy, a chemist; Edi-
son a news-vender; George Stephenson and
most of the great inventors and creators
of industry of his time were ordinary
workingmen"
1t also refers to Lincoln who learned at
school but the three RS; Garfield, a boat
man in boyhood; Andrew Jackson sad
der who could never spell correctly; An
drew Johnson, tailor; George Peabody,
working lad at twelve; Schwab, presi-
dent United States Steel corporation, a
coach boy, stake-driver later; Wedge
wood, laborer at eleven; Arkwright,
never at school, Maxim an apprentice at
fourteen; Cornelius Vanderbilt, a ferry
man when a boy; William B. Aston, head
of family, butchers boy; Baron Roths-
child, a pedler; Krupp, an iron smith;
Rockefeller, a clerk. These are only
few OF the obscure rising to fame or
wealth. The Review is inclined to believe
that the learned must begin to waver as
to the much Wanted benefits of learning "
The fact is not many who are supposed to
be educated are even learned" in any
proper sense. The education commonly
secured is of a very superficial primary
character. The review makes a sugges
tive remark as follows:
1T has been truly said knowledge is 4
power but knowledge in itself is not
power, only applied knowledge is power.
knowledge is like money, not valuable in
itself, but only valuable for what it will
but the best weapon is useless to man
but the NEST weapon is useless to a man
who does not know how to WELD it.
knowledge is an elementary power, but
the power of the Niagara, or OF steam. or
electricity, would be useless to mankind
unless intelligence directs that power to |
some practical purposes The Chinese
knew magnetic iron long before Europeans
L.