Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1907-06-28
AND ITS BUILDING.
Bv Archbishop Glennon.
$50 $500:

says are days looked forward to with
pleasure on the part of pupils and
their parents, with anxiety on the part
on the part of the many friends on
the invitation list. / say with resigna-
| ton, because the audience is preju-
diced, feeling that however honorably
and laudibly the young entertainers
may acquit themselves, there is and
must be lacking initiative, variety or
novelty in their productions.
Similarly also is the audience preju-
diced against the 'orator" of the day,
because they realize that his speech to
the pupils and the graduates can be
little more than a series of platitudes
which appear and have appeared with
| persistent regularity every succeeding
year.
l have noted specially these later
years the oft-repeated reference to
what the speaker calls character" and
character building as a result of
scholastic training, and while the sub
ject is trite l may be permitted to say
| q few words on it to-day, because OF
your interest in education and educa-
tional results.
| I am glad that the public to-day no
longer regards education in the mar
row, limited way it did some years
ago, when education was looked upon
as something purely mechanical-so
many hours spent in study, so many
books to read so many formulas mem
orized, so many sciences investigated
and as a result the pupil SO trained
was looked upon as a machine, equip
ped to make money or speeches, or
some other material task.
| The breaking down Of the machine
so frequently, and the utter inadequacy
in any instance of these machine-made
scholars to reach out or to lead on, or
even to hold their own, has driven
people to ask for something more than
a mere scientific training, something
that affects and perfects personality,
and that will set a principle higher
than formula, and man as more
| than his work.
| And this is what the orators to-day
mean when they speak Of character.
OF course you will agree with me
| that charactet and character building
| should be considerable feature of the
| educational world Of to-day; you also
would agree that the young men and
women leaving our colleges and con-
| vents should bring back with them not
| alone scientific attachments, but in a
very marked way consistent, noble,
| Christian characters. And yet, as there
| is no effect without a cause, there can
| be no result in the order Of character
| building unless the principles that make
| for it lie within the school curriculum,
so that the orator of to-day who would
| insist on character and character for
nation should carefully investigate how
| and wherein the pupil had an oppor
| tunity of obtaining it.
If the work OF a school Is limited to
| a purely senior training; if its curric-
ulum excludes the supernatural if that
which we call religion and allied prob
lens are ignored and outlawed; then
the best the speaker can ask for pupils
so trained is that as students of nature
they should obey natures laws; that
as they observe law in nature, and fate
to punish it's laws violation; 1t were
best for them to respect these laws
and obey them; that, in fine, all nat
ural virtues should be theirs, and in
their character should be found temper
ance, prudence and all the gentleness
of the flowers and the strength Of the
oak tree.
Sometimes fond parents fancy, when
they hear these things exploited, and
gilded over by the genius Of the speak
err, that if their children were only to
attain the heights so LUMINOSITY de-
scribed, so eloquently pictured, nothing
more was left for their devoted ones to
cultivate nor themselves to hope for
And yet what have these speakers
said to their pupil class that might
not, with equal propriety, be applied
to the graduate of the stock farm? Ger
tainly in both cases natures laws
should be observed, and similarly. too,
their violation brings on man and beast
speedy punishment Nature is good
and natural law is quite commendable
yet if we limit education, to the nat
ural only, we leave mans truest as
pirations without Interpretation, and
his hottest hopes without any meaning
We waste our energy in gliding tombs,
and spend our time in scattering flow
ers that wither on the sad procession
that leads to the grave.
He only may speak of better things
to a graduating class who has as a
background the broad liberal curric-
ulum of an education to appeal to;
where God as we'll as nature finds
place where reason and revelation go
hand in hand to the training of the
pupil, and where there is spread out
for the student, not alone the fairy
tales of science but the entire duty
and destiny of humanity.
Then it is that character building be-