The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1908-12-10
REAL EDUCATION.

n
guages; he may have conned the accu-
mulated knowledge of the world and yet
be uneducated; he may read the works or
the wise men of the world and yet learn
little wisdom; he may garner huge COL
lection of facts and yet avail himself OF
none of them Education does not consist
of knowledge, nor of learning mere facts,
nor even of the exercise of the reason in
connection with the facts and the knoWl-
edge. Roger Ascham limited at the right
education when he said of the Improbable
exercises Of the schoomen of the Middle
Ages that They were always learning and
little profiting: their whole knowledge was
tied only to their tongue and lips, and never
ascended to the brain and head" That
education is alone the real education which
:'gets into the SYSTEM becomes an IN
strument in the hand, an equipment to the
mind part of the nature, an addition to
human powers, development OF the body
and of the moral nature, the cultivation OF
the soul or man spiritual. Addison says:
w nat sculpture Is W d UlONh VI tAoi oAOs
education is to the human soul. The
philosopher, the saint, the hero, the wise,
the good or the great often lie hid and
concealed in plebeian, which proper
education might have disinterred and
brought to light
The right function of education is to
develop mans fullest capacity and the best
in him. Many men who are nominally or
conventionally educated are lamentable
failures as men, and therefore, the ignorant
are led quickly to conclude that education
is a complete failure, and to decry it. Ed
ucation is not at fault; the difficulty is that
the man was not successfully educated, or
that his natural powers were so feeble that
no healthy fruit could be expected to spring
from the spindly and diseased root and
branch.
The notion that an accumulation Of facts
or the study of any particular subjects or
the attainment of university degree con-
stitute education is an error. The college
course, the reading of books, the study OF
profession or of some subject are all
merely the methods of training used in the
field of education. Education is ian ap-
premiership in life.' A man may study
very thoroughly the literature of the Eliza
bethan age; may know infinitely just what
authors or what currents of thought or
opinion contributed to the outburst OF
Shakespearan song; may justly estimate
the precursors Of the world s bard and their
proportionate influence, and may trace
with consummate skill the development OF
the language which at that time was gain
ing Immensely in pith and fibre, and yet if
there be no uplift from the contact with the
remarkable age and it's remarkable men. il
no CLEAN of inspiration shall dawn upon
the student, if his soul be not stirred and
his character uninfluenced, he has gained
no training and no education.
There are men who live all their lives ir
libraries and yet remain dull and ignorant
men; there are men who read constantly
Of Plato and Socrates, and yet they vii
not take enough pains, in order to bring
upon earth the ideal republic or the reign
of wisdom and justice, to vote on election
day. There are hosts of men trained
technically in profession who never re.
ceive the incidental and collateral benefit
to be derived from study. Every mar
learns something from his trade or pro-
fession, but the only men who are educated
hy Thorn ara tboco who rooo;x,o n l;,o;,,l:r-
for the mind and character.
The physician who follows his profession
as trade has not been educated by his
profession. If he is not awed by the won
ders of the human frame and purified by
the mysteries in the realm of his art; if he
does not learn great lessons revealed tc
him of human life, with its mingled hero.
isms and crimes, it's tenderness and feroci.
ty, its nobility and depravity, it's cruelty
and mercy, he is but dull man following
mechanical trade. If the lawyer learns
simply to cite cases and to ferret out the
right rule OF practice in order to win case
he is nothing but sharp craftsman. If he
is not inspired by higher ideas and ideals
. of justice and of patriotism, his mere
accumulation of facts and his reasoning
about them mean no more education to him
than the training which a MATCHMAKER
gains means to that craftsman. DAME
Webster grasped the idea of education:
knowledge does not comprise all which
is contained in the larger term of educa.