The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-06-20
EDUCATIONAL ESSENTIALS
 SHARPLY PHRASED Editor White of Kansas Wants Private Opinion Made Public Opinion.
HIGH HATED VANDALS
Threaten Western Civiliza- tion as Much as Huns
 in Red Shirts.

Oberlin, Ohio, June 19.-The com mencement exercises at Oberlin college to-day were enlivened by a instructive speech delivered by William Allen White, the widely known editor of the Emporia, Kansas Gazette. His sub ject was Some Essentials of Our Edu- cation and abounded in stirring epi- grams.
 Mir. White said in part; If our free schools and our colleges and universi- ties do not teach men the economic value of kindness, then these institu- tions merely turn upon society each year, hoard of armed vandals to work for the destruction of society. Western civilization is in just as much danger from the vandals in high hats, as 1t is from the Huns in red shirts. For the vandals and the Huns are equally ignorant of Gods basic law of kindness. And their presence in the world makes men who would be happy by being kind and generous and help full, in the routine of ordinary busi- ness, like men who roam unarmed in a savage wood, and pay with their lives the price of their broa6 humanity. The school that does not teach it's students the duty of man to man, that does not implant deeply in its graduates a working wisdom in fundamental hu man law of kindness, instead of being a blessing, that school is a curse upon any people.
 { The education that does not teach self reliance, that makes men flabby under the delusion that they are kind, khe education that makes mans vis- ions of righteousness mere fushes of morality-is only modified ignorance For until man passes his education on, until he gives back to the state in service what 1t gave him in schooling, his right to citizenship is based upon mere law and is not part of his be- ing. Only the man Is free who has fought himself free. The world is full of slaves-slaves to custom, to tradl- tion, to the things that are, to party to church to out-worn ideas-cowards who know that the truth shall make them free, but who fear to make the truth their truth by declaring for it simply and without buster or without shame.
 He who serenely with what weapons God has armed him, enlists in the fight to make his private opinion public opinion, thereby returning to society his patrimony-he is the educated gen. tleman. For he has won his education, not sponged ii. Moreover, if he got his education from q machine in a shop or from q shovel in the street, or from horses in the field, that man who fol- lows the instinct divinely planted in his soul, follows it through the paper walls of convention and usage to the right as he sees it, still has he more culture, more of Heavens own refine ment than if he has yard of school astic letters tackled after his name. For if there is anything in the brotherhood of man, the fatherhood of God is need ed to prove the brotherhood. And if there be human kinship there is im- piled some hereditary spark, call it conscience, instinct, revelation, racial vision, or what you will-whch implies broad democracy, wherein at some small point men are equals.
 Education, if it be worthy of the name, should be the bellows that makes the divine spark within each soul glow into torch to light his fel- lows. But too often our school and col- leges turn out nothing more consider able than good citizens Your good citizens obeys the laws, conforms to the amenities, worships whatever Gods there be, and lets 1t go at that. He does not get under the load of the world and lift. He is dummy direc- tor who fails to realize that he is a partner in the injustices of this life. He does not see that until he turns out to the caucuces and primaries and conventions and mass meetings and makes his protest felt, the thieves that inhabit the Jerich road will keeep right on assaulting the weak, robibng the poor, and threatening the welfare of society. If he has light it is not only hidden under a. bushel, but the bushel is nailed down and cleated to the floor One of the curses of this country is the large class of so-called good citi- zens' who, because they have book learning and well-itting clothes, are looked up to as leaders. Better is 8 government of stable boys following sincerely and seriously the light of God gives them than council of good ci- tizenship' adoring yesterday, and afraid of nothing so much as the dawr of tomorrow.
 "The right to save this year and spend next, the right to store up the energy of youth and manhood into the capital for advancing years, should be denied no one The only restriction which the state should put on thai capital should be that it may not be used to oppress the society that al lowed the accumulation of capital There must always be the man witt ten talents, and man with one talent And the business of the state should be to so adjust the relations between them that the man with the ten tai ents shall not deal unfairly with tht man with one. But to wipe out tht distinctions between the two by mak ing each a man of five talents-that ii folly, and the right sort of education should keep men from such folly