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

PrOI. 1hOmaS A. JaggRr, Ir., deIiI .
cred stirring address on Education
and Philosophy OF Change" at the com
meDeemeHt exercises OF the College
"f 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 l wish to preface my talk with
today, and that is that I disclaim any
intention of being practical. Some
times II is a relief to soar into the
dreamland of ideals. The questions of
hog-pens and sugar-miIls, ways and
means, howesteaders and politics, lab.
oratory and lecture room, I leave for
the toilsome months that are before
your honored new president, and in
due time he win express to you his
policies. II airy of you of the visitors
here have TO time for listening to
visionary, sut wish only "a good prac.
tical t. e." there is no use remaining
In dis 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 If he had only one" My bold
ness must 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 / was for some
years identified with Massachusetts
College, an institution chartered by
the legislature of that state in 1910,
as yet ineffective tor 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.
quiring earnest and systematic work,
and granting the A. B. degree. 1t re-
ceived unanimous adherence from col.
lege presidents and sehoolmen. The
College of Hawaii, with a glowing un.
tried field before it, in an island EN-.
pire of happy mingled races, appeals
to my imagination as possessing un-
riyalled 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.
errors. five zsa*
Education, the leading upward of
youth to higher and better things,
so that each generation shall tran |
scend what went before, includes
more than the teaching of preeepts-
1t includes self-training throughout
life, whereby school-learned habits be-
come all important
The strife of conservator against |
liberator, conservative against liberal,
him who would hold fast against aim |
whoSweuld slset free has in education |
ever been dominant from Aristotle's !
time to cur 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" was at once the greatest |
educational reform Of the nineteenth |
century and the one most flagrantly !
abused Ii is a 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 iudg-
ment, high thinking, and above all, !
service. Have we appointed profess
sors of these five subjects under the
elective system? Yet every teacher
Y,,,Icf incniro fhaoa 4b;ngc NV fho mo ~
netism of personality or fail.
Fortunately, in the confused rush af
ter new things, we remain eonserta-
tive in our controversies. How true
a reflection of present problems is
this phase of Aristotle: 1--WE cannot
determine with certainty whether it
is right to instruct 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