Newark post., 1912-09-18

very early days, it would seem that few
have faltered before the task. Needless
here to repeat even a few. But what is
interesting to note is that thing so
broad so complex, so varying as educa-
ton shows an underlying fundamental re-
semblance in system and ideals diamet-
rically opposed in detail. There is
throughout the characteristic feeling,
fro mwhich, | think, few would dissent,
that education must be a preparation for
life. But when does education end and
life begin? Is it not beautifully true
that they begin and end simultaneously?
Nevertheless, there is a distinct diff
ference between 'school-days' and
chool-work, and life work. This diff
ference is what we call education. What
it ought to be is our problem. 1t is the
problem of the race. 1t was the prob
lem of the leisurely Greek, the Roman
warrior, the feudal knight, the English
gentleman. To-day it is the problem Of
the workingman and workingwoman.
This introduction may perhaps seem
to lead to plea for purely industrial
school, and no doubt those who uphold a
material, work a-day, physical system of
education will point to history as JUS
tifcaton. The Greek prepared for phi
losophy, poetry, and politics; the Roman
for the rostra and the field; the cheva.i.r
for sword and lady; why shall not ""
prepare for work and business? But oui
life is more than trade. 1t must contain
not only our own contribution to its i'm
provement, but the best that has been
contributed in every age. Evolution does
not mean mere change; it means pro-
resson, geometric progression, nay it
means the ever-increasing sum of a geo.
metric progression. 1t is our privilege
to enjoy and to augment an heritage
accumulated since ages. If we know not
how to lengthen life, we can still broaden
it.
A purely manual and practical sdu-
cation fails to do that. After certain
degree, it becomes a spiritual, an educa-
tional and financial loss Such scheme
does not take into account the fact that
difference exists and ougth to exist be-
tween the school and the world. We have
not the right to spend millions of dollars
and the energies of the most intelligent
and best trained members of the COM
munity to rear a race of mere unadulter-
ated carpenters and cobblers. Any
healthy, intelligent boy will learn more of
trade i'll three months work at shop
than in one year at school, and the girl
who has copied thousand recipes cannot
vie with the one who has prepared alone
three plain meals a day for one year.
What we want to teach our boys and
girls is not to make a table or chair
term, but to learn what work is and to
respect it and love it, to be willing to
learn carpentry and farming and dish
washing after graduating; to have a gen
eral conception of the scope and possi-
bilities of modern industry and science
the actual information, whether practical
or not, we may acquire in school, is very
slight, indeed.
There is more than this, much more.
AS vital as the life within the shop, is
the life without, the time spent with the
family and friends, most OF whom do not
probably understand the details of the
shop work. To live happily, nobly,
spiritually, socially, there must be some
thing in common between all, outside the
tool-chest. The power of the individual
to meet his fellows in such aspirit, is
what we are wont to call culture. 1t is
the thing without which the SCOT will
always stick to the chimneysweeper, it
is the sine qua non of higher congenial
society.
That such culture is necessary and sal
utary to social as well as individual in
trests, no one denies. The question is
how best to attain it. 1t is readily
agreed, even among the dissenter of class
icism, that literature, language, and pure
science, are the most prolific sources of
ture, tolerance, and humanity.
Our forefathers sought these qualities
in careful study Of literature based on
a thorough knowledge of the classics But
to attain them, in what may seem at first
a more economical way, many fadists and
industrialists urge the study of modern
languages to the exclusion of the an
cient. We have found too much joy and
inspiration in German and French not to
speak of desire to make these languages
more familiar in our country, without
the greatest interest and enthusiasm. The
the industrial, and the literary
man alike, cannot but find profit, prac-
tically and intellectually, from know
ledge of the modern tongues. Most stu
dents of the classics would gladly see
a more extended study of them. What