The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-12-06

With; force and precision; third. open mindedness to ideas; fourth. ability to get what he wants out of books;, fifth, ability to observe closely, imagine vivid- ability to do some sort ofrwork we'll and cheerfully"
 Dr. Alderman said some men who had never been within the doors of college answered those tests. On the other hand. | there were college men who did not an swer them. From these facts, 1t would certainly not be reasoning accurately,
 however, to say that college was not tho place to be educated.
 The first test of an educated man was his ability to behave himself. As Mat thew Arnold had said, three-fourths of our time was spent in conduct, taking conduct in the larger sense that included all our activities. and not merely our actual personal. bearing in public. It was, however, a test of an educated man whether he had what are considered cs- sential good manners, not merely the mannerisms- and excessive attention ot little formalitics that fioated about as lightly as the changing cuts and styles of fashion. One should seek dignity, thoughtfulness toward others, even charm and grace. These things had an actual value as personal equipment. One heard stories of the rudeness and roughness of great men, and confused their personal traits with greatness itself. If we really knew the personal life of Lee and Grant, we would come to realize that gentleness | ruled their personal intercourse. There was Mckinley, born of simple parents in l the West and as youth unacquanted with the social structure. Yet if there ever lived any Prince descended from a
 long line of Kings who had been more
 gentle in, bearing or who had shown more
 nobility in the conception of courtesy, we
 were ignorant who he was.
 The ability to use his language we'll was
 the second test considered by Dr. Alder
 man.. He could not think of an educated
 man not being able to use his language well. There were two men among those
 who he had known who used the English | language in a way to lift up ones con ception of the race. One of these was
 President Eliot of Harvard. The other
 was the late pr. B. M. Palmer. President | Eliot used it as the ultimate expression of the modern world. Dr. Palmer had
 used 1t as Cicero might have used 1t, with rotundity and sweetness, with Il species
 of consecration fitted to the high purposes
 to which his speech was devoted.
 | Dr. Alderman said that he was not purist; he was not one who under all cir
 cumstances inveighed against slang. He
 recognized the fact that some of the | slang of the. past. What was slang tn
 lsO3 might become good English in 1s4O.
 19S0 or even 1920. Slang of some kind
 was to the language what the democracy was to a nation. It enriched the old life 1 with the red blood of the new. Though
 sometimes 1t is desperately vulgar, 1t was
 usnally strong. It had force. On the
 whole, however. slang should not be com
 mended.. It should be opposed Slang | .z,,Vr t1n | trouble of thinking out and saying what
 a single specimen of slang expression ] would express For this reason, espe-
 clally, 1t was bad It saved one the l trouble of thinking. and so did not en-
 courage a growth in thoughtfulness. A
 man with full command of his language
 might afford at times to use slang. But
 a young man, getting the power over his
 language. atrophied his ability when he
 had recourse to slang. He condemned himself to vulgarity or to mediocrity
 when he should be exerting all his ener-
 gies to his powers of expression. It took | work to acquire mastery over English | cxpression, No word, either, was so
 simple as to release one from effort to
 secure it's best pronunciation and articu-
 latiun-
 He described the process by which per . | sons who had passed from youth assert
 
 | earlier part of their lives. New ideas
 received after these ideas had been so l aggregated into mass. were seized upon
 by one set of ideas and made to assimi-
 late. But now and then there came an | idea antagonlstic to all the other ideas. | The uneducated person repudiated such
 a new idea without debate. and usually
 gave it name ending with 'ism." The
 educated man. on the other hand, read | iusted his other ideas so as to admit | the new idea, if there was any truth l in it.
 The attitude of the uneducated person
 was caused by the difficulty with which | thought was attended It was a great l deal of trouble to think, and nearly all l thought was accompanied by sunering. | The supreme test of an educated man was his openmindedness to ideas.
 | The best instance of openmindedness in | modern times was Gladstone. The open
 minded man might not appear to
 achieve as much as the man of violent ideas and convictions, who could not by
 any possibility be persuaded from one view of every subject with which ne
 had to do. The violent man, however,
 had force disproportionate to his l knowledge. He got credit that was due ! him, because not being open to more than a single idea on q given subject he
 was given great directness in his life. The larger view of Erasmus. however
 perhaps accomplished more than the
 ideas of Luther. who had narrower view. The one-idea man had the advan- taRe of directness. The man openminded | to ideas had the broader view. though he might sometimes lack effectiveness. l The two qualities, effectiveness and broad-mindedness, were not, however. an tagonistic The test of the thoroughly educated man was to combine them Tn his character. The educated mans ability to get what he wanted out of books was an impor- | tant advantage. While the day of the omniscient scholar had passed, 1t was still essential to be able to get what one wanted from book without dawdllnS | over what was irrelevant.
 Dr. Alderman referred to the compar- alive rarity of close observing and accu- rate reasoning. In the former connection.
 he said, he often wondered whether men really snw the world. Could many of
 the students before him tell the kinds
 of trees that formed the university's S pathetic, but aspiring collection in for
 estry? Did they know the shapes of the
 different kinds of leaves? In reasoning. | inaccurately, one of the commonest | causes was feeble data.
 The final test of ain educated man was
 to do some kind of work we'll and cheer
 fully, not well and grumblingly. or well