Honolulu star-bulletin. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1912-2010, 1914-06-04
PROF, IAGGAR DELIVERS STIRRING
ADDRESS COLLEGE GRADUATES
"Education and Philosophy of
Change" Is Subject Taken
BY Volcano Expert


cred a stirring address on Education
and Philosophy OF Change at the COM
mencement exercises Of the College
of Hawaii. The address proved highly
interesting and has drawn forth con-
siderable favorable comment. 1t Is
printed in full herewith:
There is one thing, by way Of axiom.
that ! wish to preface my talk with
today, and that is that disclaim any
intention OF being practical. Some
times il Is a relief to soar into the
dreamland of ideals. The questions of
hog-pens and sugar-mills, ways and
means, howesteaders and politics, lab
oratory and lecture room, leave for
the toilsome months that are before
your honored new president, and in
due time he will express to you his
policies. II any Of you of the visitors
here have no time for listening to
visionary, but wish only "a good prac'
teal talk" there Is no use remaining
in this audience today.
The discussion of education evinces
temerity. so much Of it is trite and
pedantic. The school boy wrote, The
courage of the Turks is explained by
the fact that a man with more than
one wife is more willing to face death
than IL he had only one" My bold
ness rnust be due to indifference from
being at once welded to geography,
education, philosophy and volcanoes.
My only excuse for accepting the hon.
or you confer on me today is that as
a member of college faculties In Bos-
ton and Cambridge l was for some
years identified with Massachusetts
College, an institution chartered by
the legislature of that state In 1870
as yet ineffective for lack of funds. 1t
was to be an endowed college for the
higher education of large numbers OF
the people, utilizing vacant hours OF
high and normal school buildings, re.
curing earnest and systematic work,
and granting the A. B. degree. 1t re-
ceived unanimous adherence from col
lege presidents and schooimen. The
College of Hawaii, with a glowing I'M
tried field before II, in an island en-
pire OF happy mingled races, appeals
TO my Imagination as possessing I'M
rivalled opportunity for something
new In education, so that uplift OF
generations yet unborn may result
from the wisdom and devotion of her
earliest students, teachers and gov
ernors. II a--
Education, the leading upward Of
youth to higher and better things.
so that each generation shall tran
scerld what went before, includes
more than the teaching of precepts-I
Il includes self.training throughout
life, whereby schoollearned habits be-
come all important ....1 49,.
The strife of conservator against
liberator, conservative against liberal,
him who would hold fast against him
who would set free, has in education
ever been dominant from Afistotie's
time to our own. The greatest and
most enduring reforms have resulted
from new freedoms. Bad failures
have been due, not to the fact of free
dom, but to too much freedom. Free
choice of studies by pupils, the "elect.
i've system, g was at once the greatest
educational reform of the nineteenth
century and the one most flagrantly
abused II is mighty new freedom,
but its dazzling opportunities blinded
us, as so much of invention, construc-
ton and human swarming has done,
to the underlying values, namely:
simplicity, good habits, good judg-
ment, high thinking, and above all,
service. Have we appointed profes-
sors of these five subjects under the
elective system? Yet every teacher
4. y,S,.< AZ &c - @t,;,,orc h., tba moo
netism Of personality or fail.
Fortunately, in the confused rush af-
ter new things, we remain conserva-
tive in our controversies. How true
a reflection of present problems is
this phase of Aristotle I'VE cannot,
determine with certainty whether 1t
is right to instruct a child in what
will be useful to him in life; or in
that which tends to virtue, and is
really excellent"--or in the modern
schoolmarm slang, vocation and Cul-
ture subjects" The topics OF educa.
tional dispute have not changed in
1854 years. This speaks eloquently
for the conservatism of the pedagogic
mind, And again, to bark back to
$50 B. c., was the same Greek philos-
opher prophetic when he wrote, for
to be always hunting after the profit
able i'll agrees with great and free
born souls" This is Japanese doc
trine among Samurai and nobility, and
Christian doctrine forcefully set forth
in churchill's Inside the Cup" So
from the Greek culture to that of the
modern world east and west there
seems to be persistence. Vocation
training for profit money for serv-
ice, progress and happiness.
This word progress, making each
generation really better, is the key
note of successful education. Evolu