The Penn's Grove record., 1910-04-22
EDuCArloN-NHAT is TT
Man the Only Creature Capable OF
Education
wM RRAKER. at the "Cove."

WIN. B. BRAKER, at the Cove"
According to Kant, the eminent Ger
man philosopher, mar is the only
creature capable of education. The
lower animals require, at most, only
nourishment and protection to enable
them to reach their proper condition
and to perform all the functions OF
their nature; but man is possessed OF
powers and faculties indefinitely per-
fectible, and which require to be trained
and directed by others; otherwise they
may be useless, if not absolutely injur'
ious.
Education, in the most extended sense,
has to do with the progress of the human
race toward a more perfect state OF de-
velopment. Education regards man as
an individual destined for a future and
higher state of existence, for which his
! entire life in this world is merely a pre-
paratory training. In this sense a man
is educated, either for good or evil, by
everything he experiences, from the
cradle to the grave.
Education is tie full and harmonious
development of all the powers and Ca
pacities of %man-full, that is, each to
the highest point of which it is capable
and harmonious, each in complete
unison with all the rest.
According to Milton, education is
s'to repair the ruins of u first parents,
to restore harmony and beauty and
power to that system which was ruined
by the fall" There can be, indeed, nc
| education without some instruction
hut there may be much instruction with
very little profitable education. The
best educated man is not he who
KNOWS MOST, but he ii. al CAN DO MOST.
The law in education, mental orphys-
ical, is exercise. If we desire %todevelop
a muscle, we exercise it; if we want to
in prove a faculty, We must in like man.
ner exercise it. But this exercise must
be pl oporiioned to meet ii e strength of
the Individual, and every period of ex-
ercise should he succeeded by a time IF
rest.
The renowned Henry Ward Beecher
defined education as 'the knowledge OF
how to use the whole of oneself. Mel
are often like knives with many blades;
they know how TO open l. and On'y
one, all the rest are buried i'll the handle,
and they are no better than they would
have been if they lad been made with
but ole blade. Many men use but n
or Two faculties out of the score with
which they are endowed. A man is
educated who knows how to make a
tool of every faculty-hOw to open it,
how 10 keep it sharp, and how to apply
it to all practical purposes"
Who can estimate the amount OF
knowledge that a child requires during
the first few years of it's life, without
effort, without instl uctiOn, without any
thing, but The spontaneous workings OF
its own mind? This knowledl e, how
ever. is entirely objective, being acquir-
ca trom mature and life around it. This,
then, is The periodtor perceptlve teach
ing-for storing the mind with objective
knowledge. But during this time the
Child is lot content with being merely
the recipient OF knowledge. True to It's
instinct, it soon begins to reproduce
what it has acquired to initiate what it
sees and hears, and to express what it
feels. Tie power OF seizlng vivid ideas
of lhiDgs-ot combining, aSSOciating
and connecting them with the appioprl
ale word OF signs, is now III the highest
state of Intensity. Nature, therefore,
shows that i'll education our principal
aim at this time of life should he to
furnish nutriment for the growth and
expansion of the powers OF inward rep
sentatiou-Jhat is, for Strengthening
memory, training and regulating the
Imagination, giving full play to the
laws OF association, and producing the
capa city OF expressing i0eas i'll clear,
luminous, correct and cOpiohs language.
This is the acme in the child's life,
When habits of mind may he acquired
with great facility.
AS Ill morals the greatest injury you
can do an innocent child is to suspect
him. So in teaching you can not do a
greater injury to a scholar than to make
him suspecthis knowledge. In question
ing a boy, so as to bring out his knowl-
edge, care should be taken to follow
only the natural order. Ii questioned
on the subject of his reading, the
questions should follow the order in
which it was read, and not taken at
random through the lesson, or, as is
sometimes done, by proceeding from
the end to the beginning. This is of
more Importance than it may at first
seem; for there are certain laws of the
mind, commonly known as the laws of
association, according to which things
are stored up i'll the memory and repro.
duced.
The object of education is the full
and harmonious development of all our
faculties, the bringing our entire nature,
physical, moral and intellectual, into
the highest state of perfection of which
it is capable.