The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1910-08-23
SHOULD LATIN Be TAUGHT?
Education is Intended For Train
ing The Mind


SI IL 10 wv
Scholar.
To the Editorials the body, when
in health, hungers for food, 50 the
healthy mind reaches out for knoWl-
edge. AS you have seen big eaters
starved and weak, because their FOOD
was ~undigested, 50 you have seen
boys who were great readers, readlng
all the time. in school, and out OF
school,, and yet they were unlnformed
and ignorant. Their minds were
starved and weakened from day to
day, and year to year, because they
were undisciplined and not supplied
with the necessary food to roduc
mental growth.
When the muscles are we'll trained
even violent exercise is taken with
pleasure and work may be engaged
in with such pleasure as to convert
daily toll into recreation. So study
and all mental effort may be entered
into with enthusiasm and pleasure,
if the mind is well trained. Histories
and biographies, the sciences and the
arts, travels and explorations, rather
than stories and trash furnish whole
some and relished food for the edu-
Gated mind.
During the period Of active mental
growth, the mind should not be over
loaded with unitarian knowledge, but
trained and developed upon the most
select cultural studies. Not sooner
than in the second or third year in
college should these cultural studies
be put aside and the boy begin to
specialize for his profession or call
ing. You rarely see q scientific
specialist, who is not a cultured
scholar. Every promising bright boy
should be educated before he is
trained for any special work. He Will
then be ready to grapple any proposi-
ton whether professional, CONNER
cial, or scientific farming. He will
be prepared to be q leader in his
county, State or nation. Give aim
the right start with the best curri-
culum in the best school, and he viii
continue to climb the adder Of sue
cess, if character and manliness have
been developed along with the edu-
cation.
It is not the boy with nothing but
book learning, who succeeds. n
fellow. who loves books only, may
lead his class in college, but he will
never be a eader of men. If you
have a bright, manly boy, that you
can't control and keep at his books,
you MAY expect great things of him,
if you give him the best opportunity
for an education.
Send him to the best school. where
discipline and study. and exercise,
and s~elf-control, and moral training
are conducted on scientific principles,
before his youthful thirst for knowl-
edge is wasted.
IL general, whether the meat or
the vegetable diet is best for man, is
a question for scientific discussion
and not for individual opinion. Like
wise the question of whether the
farmer boy should study Latin or
Agriculture AMI other utilitarian sub
jects is not one for individual asser-
tiOns pro ana con. The expert Scien-
tifiC statisticians in Germany and
elsewhere state that the boys Of classi-
cal training show stronger mental de-
velopment than those trained in the
sciences.
With an experience of t%hirty-fve
years of daily work in the classroom
with boys of every kind in character,
ability, and industry | must not neg
lect to add one other point in favor
of Latin. Here the teacher can give
daily task, and if he knows the capa-
bility of his boys, he car judge with
great what the industry Of
each has been just as the experienced
farmer can inspect the work Of his
boys with hoes and note which was
painstaking and which was careless,
But put those boys on riding c%ultiva-
tors and the ability to judge their
work will be more difficult.
Only boys of the necessary ability
can learn the lessons in Geometry.
But in Latin every boy, capable of
learning at all, can keep up with his
class. The brighter boys Of the great
est industry will nevertheless find am
pie food for hungry minds.
J. c. HORNER.
Oxford, N. c.. Aug. II.