The Richmond Virginian. (Richmond, Va.) 1910-1920, 1912-04-03
\ .sHiIGHT ON DEDICATION"

\ FLtsHiIGHT ON "EDICaTIOS."
1t is half truth uttered by Miss Mallonee, of
Richmond public schools when she tells an In
vestisating committee that the purpose of the
education of child Is to equip 1T TO earn liv-
ing"
We might ask. In the very beginning. What
SORT OF a living" and confuse the entire ques-
tion.
Almost any one can earn some sort of liv
ing The will 10 work is the basic means of
sustenance To this, education is non-essential
aid snpernuous True enough, education is eco
ncmc In origin. 1t contemplates living but
better living But SO surely as education sets IT'S
mind upon the limit of Giving" and its earn
ings" SO surely viii ii miss its great destiny
which is that of uplift. instead of the perpetual
tion of a le,el
II may be replied that education ought to be
confined to that scope which would deal with
the plastic mold of child life aud, by working
upon 1t. better adapt it to Its condition and envi
ronment. That is we'll and good-so far as it
goes. 1t does not go far enough. In popular ed
ucation. dealing with whole people. We
learning is refining the mass. We are under-
taking the terrible task OF founding opportnni-
ty or destroying It, Who shall say. what edu-
cation is for or what it's limits arc?
we know fun well The power of ridicuIe that
lies in an exposition of apparently irrelevant
things taught In schools which for the
masses, 1t is not easy to answer with a mono
Ia
to do with Latin. or what the daughter of a
seamstress needs with botany. But all such
questions ought TO be resolved in treason; ana
the reason Is that public education is to give a
common and equal chance to people OF all the diff
fering strata of society Suppose the brlcklay-
ers son has in him the markings OF great geo
metrician Shall he get in the public schools the
incentive to become what spasinodic nature has
enabled him TO beeome,--or. with the idea OF
equippine him to earn a living, ought he TO be
made into and confined to bricklayer with
hopeless dreams? Should the daughter OF the
seamstress find her education stop AT the sewing
circle and an ability to make out bills for Easter
hats. or should, perhaps, she find in public edu-
cation an impulse toward the perfection of some
God given taent7 No. education Is not based
upon the necessity of equipping children to earn
a living. 1t is. on the other hand. should be,
based on the idea that 1t provide its children
with the means of discovering for themselves the
kind of living they want to make
After all, the true view Of popular education
Is not that il Is for those whom 1t teaches. SO
much as IL liz fer the State WHO taaehss.shem for
its own service The State" lis great aggrega-
ton of medtocrites the great majority Of whom
are capable of earning sort of a living.
Every one of these mediocrities who could have
become an exception, and did not. is an economic
loss not only to himself. but to the State, In Its
higher aspects education is not the mere saving
OF the mass from sAitorscy. but the saving to
exceptional work OF the gifted individual. Valu-
able as Is that quality OF learning which the
mass may. understand and assimilate, more val
uab BILE even Is the occasional genius, the excep-
tionai child whom the State takes from the
dunghill of obscurity and places In the sunlight
In which his efforts may benefit the whole peo-
pie.