The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1912-06-13
BALDWIN ON CONVENTION Advises Boys to Gain the Habit of Reasoning From Facts
 and Ideas. -s

or Reasoning From FactS and Ideas.
 Speaking at the annual commence ment exercises of the Taft school at Waterbury today, Governor Simeon E.. Baldwin said in part:
 The State of Connecticut takes a special interest in her schools, not only those which she supports and directs. but those conducted under private auspices. l am myself, the president of the trustees of the old est of these, private iinstitutions: the Hopkins Grammar School of New Haven, founded for the breeding up of hopeful youths, both at the gram mar schools and colleges, for the public service of the country in fu- ture years.''
 Studying is of little use unless we assimilate what we acquire. It is not enough to remember it. We must understand and master it. There arc two things on which education spends itself,-facts and ideas. Facts precede ideas. A good deal of school life is drudgery. It is learning facts before we understand the relations that make them interesting. ....
 Some of the ultimate facts that one must learn, and begin te learn early relate to what public service is. They constitute the frame work of our system of government. What is that system What are' the public officers who conduct it's operations In what does it differ from the political sys- tems of other governments. To me 1t seems that they should be made so far a regular subject of instruction in some way in every boys school.
 The greatest schoolmaster England ever had, Dr. Thomas Arnold of Rug by said every man from the highest to the lowest had two businesses. One his particular calling to- which he looked for a Livelihood. The other is his general calling, which he has in common with the rest of the people namely, the calling of citizen and a man. r
 Everybody admits that he must re- ceive a special education for his special calling Why Is it not equally necessary that he should receive one for his general calling. : A good education for citizenship is more important to country where the choice of rulers is in the hands of the people, than a good education of certain of it's people for certain particular callings. It can flourish without good artificers It can buy mechanical productions from foreign ers. But 1t cannot flourish unless 1t is fairly we'll ruled, and it cannot be ruled fairly well save by those who are chosen for their offices with some discrimination. and guided in thoir administration by sound public opinion. fss .Ssp aa
 Every boy; before he goes to col- lege, should be made by school in- fluences and by home influences 10 understand what our main American institutions are and that they rest upon individual responsibility with out respect of perssns; obedience to law; free schools; security to person and property for all unjust attack; no privileged orders; home rule through the several states in most things; a strong national government as to a few things; short written. in stitution6 republican in form, diee tinguishihg these things In outline; a power in the Judiciary to distinguish them in detail; a general, but not rigid, division of the powers. of the government, whether statei or ma tional, between three departments. executive, judicial and legislative. the latter to be commonly. administered by legislative assembly; and an in- destructible union of indestructible states.
 In closing he said The great end in life is not to win the first places everywhere or anywhere. It is to live our lives well according to our abilities and opportunities. Men are not born equal. Some will lead {; more will follow. But each will have his. dominant ideas: ideas that domi- nate him. No boy need miss his rightful place, whose ideas are just ly drawn from the facts he has learn ed and then fairly acted upon. Let him use the golden days of school, then and of college when 1t comes, not only in laying up a store of the two things school has to give, facts and ideas, but also in gaining the habit of reasoning from facts and ideas. To possess that is the acme of education.