The times dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1903-1914, 1913-08-03

shaped to that purpose; very large
part of the courses are directed to that
end. The average student in our col
leges. for instance, is required to study
mathematics through solid geometry,
and for no other purpose than that of
acquiring accurate habits of thought.
He may never open a geometry after
he leaves the school, and may never
have occasion to employ any of the
mathematical methods he has mastered,
but he is drilled in the subject because
it will. teach him to think.
Add to mathematics the other scien-
tific and philosophical subjects taught
in college, and one will see that they
fulfill the purpose of their creation
they give the student the most valuable
asset of life in that they quicken and
stimulate his reasoning powers. And
that the college men of the country can
and do think, their work in a hundred
fields of successful endeavor fully
attests.
Learning to Work.
Perhaps the next great credit to be
posted on the account of education is
that it teaches the student how to work
and how to overcome difficulties. Here,
thank Heaven, we face new age with
new point of view. The narrow
theory of manual labor is passing, and
the old idea that he alone tolls who
sweats has been abandoned. We know
that the great labor of the world is that
of the mind; we know that the great
victories Of industry are gained not
by the pick and shovel, but by the
brain.
1t follows, then, that when we have
taught a boy how to think we have
taught him how to work, and that
consistent habits of thoughts are price
less habits of work. The time has past
when the student could breeze through
four years of college without study.
Our new standards of admission and
graduation demand that man learn
to study; the independent position of
our colleges guarantees that the idle
boy will be sent home as soon as his
delinquency is discovered. Every boy
who goes to college is given the oppor-
tunity of acquiring consistent habits of
mental labor, and few men can leave the
college with its seal Of approval upon
them who are not trained to work as
God has given them brains.
Gaining New Ideals.
Next in the ledger account of the
college against prejudice, we must
credit the college with the vast benefit
it confers on every boy or girl in giving
him or her new ideals of life. Surely
this, if anything, the college does. The
lad enters college the creature of the
environment in which he has lived; he
leaves it the product of college which
has trained him. Four years, be it
remembered, he spends under the
tutelage of men who dream dreams and
see visions, men whose magnificent
minds are given to applying the ideal
to life. The boy does not live who can
breathe this atmosphere and not go
forth with the noblest ideals of life. A
case that recently came to our atten-
ton may serve to illustrate what the
average college is doing in exalting the
ideals Of its pupils. Ten years ago there
entered Virginia college boy who
had been forced to earn his living for
number of years. He had no loftier
ideal than that of eating three meals a
day, sleeping in comfortable bed and
having decent clothes to wear He
came to college, not because he wished
to do so, but because his uncle thought
that as his friends were going to col
lege this young man should also. At
college he came under the influence of
one of Virginia's great teachers-a
man of the most exalted ideals, magne-
tic, impressive. Gradually this man
worked upon the spirit of the boy,
showing him new worlds and giving
him visions great beyond belief.
j q