The Laurens advertiser. (Laurens, S.C.) 1885-1973, 1912-08-28
EDUCATION OF BOYS
FOR PRACTICAL LIFE

doned-New Plan Is to Bring Stu.
dent Closer to Things Which will
Help Him Directly.
(By w, M. Riggs, President Of Glenn
son College)
Recent educational thought has nut
remarkable stress upon the idea of re-
lating the school and college to life.
A ncrusal of the programmes of edu-
cational meetings will show that from
a half 20 three-fourths of the time of
such gatherings, national. State and
county Is gwen to the discussion of
such topics as the rural school, the
school and life, training for service,
and others similar to these For sew
eral years the whole trend OF educa-
tional reform has been away from the
old idea of the purely classical course.
Some schools have made no changes:
but wherever changes have been made
they have almost invariably been of
practical or scientific nature.
The school of hundred years ago,
took the student away from life. 1t
trained his intellect and trained it
well, but 1T turned him back into
busy world to which he had become
stranger He had been trained to
think in abstract terms-to theoriZe:
but he found the world full of con-
crete problems calling for practical
solution. He found much work to do
| w icl, no
The modern idea is to train a man
to think in terms OF things as well as
in terms of ideas-that a man may get
knowledge by doing something as well
as from studying about what has been
done; and that the knowledge thus
gained and made usuabe is of more
value to the individual and to society
than is mere abstract learning.
Not Sordd Ideas.
Some think that education for eff
cheney means training for sordid ma
terialism. Such is hardly the case. 1t
cannot make a man more selfish to
teach him how better to provide for
his family, care for his stock, preserve
and increase the fertility of his soil,
which for a while he holds in trust
for future generations. Surely, to
teach man how to make a better
living will not lead him to a worse
life. Making living and living a
life are both a duty; but the making
of the living is the necessity. The
great majority Of the people must
work for that living, and the educa-
ton that helps them to make the best
living most efficiently, leaving time for
the pursuit of happiness and culture
as well, is the education that they
have a right to expect
The agricultural and mechanical
colleges stand for education for the
affairs of life. They belong to the
great and growing class of modern in
stitutions that seek to combine in
their courses training in those sub
jects and activities that are closest
to human life and that make for the
enrichment and the efficiency of life.
They are not trade schools, for they
| SlNe d SIuueHI training III many lines
of activity and thus help him to find
out what armor is best fitted for his
SHOULDERS.
This helping a man find out what
his talents are, is one of the greatest
services school or college can rem
der.
Technical Training.
The remarkable progress that has
been made in agriculture, manufac-
turing and commerce in recent years
makes technical training all the more
necessary Fifty years ago a man
could cultivate virgin soil in a hap
hazard way and make a good living
but the man who tries that of
farming in South Carolina today is
almost certain to fall Manufacture
ing enterprises are now run on a large
scale with every bit of lost motion and
waste eliminated
The marvellous development going
on in the country now, especially in
the South, greatly increases the de
mand for men trained for efficient SER
vice in many of the fields of work.
The completion Of the Panama canal
will add new Zest to the commercial
life of this section. Railway lines will
be extended and improved Lowlands
will be drained. New industries will
spring up. Water powers will be de-