The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1915-07-20

Education may be taken as a, very broad term for the entire conscious process of passing on from one gener- ation to another the accumulated treasures, the acquired capacities, of the race. So conceived, it touches every age, but childhood is it's special province-the period marked by na- ture as peculiarly adapted to this pro cess.
 If, unlike the beasts that perish, man has a social heritage, handed on from one generation to another, so that we are not dependent upon our biological inheritance alone, it is to childhood that this debt is paid, by the
 children that the new credit is acquir- ed in trust for the years ahead, in which they are to be the living link
 between the past with it's achieve ments, and the future with its posst- bilities.
 Childhood Must Have Its Chance. 1 If therefore the social structure is to be sound and suitable, childhood must have it's chance must have time enough to perform it's function, must not be cheated of it's debt, expected to yield harvest of figs from a sowing of thist1es.
 If we realize this social task of ed ucation from our present point of view one part of it undoubtedly consists in the mere preservation of actual in formation. We need not concern our selves very much about that. The pritning press has solved it. True, there is information which can be preserved and imparted only in other ways, for example, through art. Paintings, sculpture, architecture
 music, all tell their own story in a | way that descriptions of them, even 1 critical studies of them, do not. The I hand which can conceive and execute works of art, and the eye which can
 see and appreciate them, are essential to. the preservation of our social herit- age. Actual and valuable infOrma- | ton perishes from the world if as an incident of warfare works of art are
 destroyed, or if, through the failure | of education, we cease to know their value. Arts of skill might disa ppear 1 in the same way. But, speaking large Fly, the next generation is not in seri- i ous danger of a. dearth of information. A second task of education in a
 policy of social construction is to teach 1 the use of the mind and body. It is of l little avail to have a body unless one | knows how to use it. Most of us mis- use and fail to use our eyes, our ears, 1 our hands, our back, our tongues and
 teeth, our lungs and diaphragnfs, our 1 legs, our skin.
 From Four Legs to Two.
 For a million years or so, no doubt,
 we travelled on all fours, as babies still
 do, and now nature fails us sometimes I when we try to stand upright. For g. million years or so salvation on earth i depended on ability to distinguish | friend from foe at great distance. i Now, when the objects of our interest and solicitude are nearly always at 1 eighteen inches from the eye instead of a rnile,. we find ourselves handicap | ped by an optical instrument fitted for i the distant but not for the near vision. l We subject ourselves to eye-strain and
 had headaches, curved spines, and i'll | temper in consequence.
 ] No other mechanism in the world,
 we are often assured, is so continuous l 1y and flagrantly abused-fronn ignor- l ance, from obstinacy, from careless I ness, from parasitic enemies, from in duIgence of it's own eccenrticities-as i the human body. Education for eff l ciency implies instruction as to these
 elementary things; not anatomy and
 physiology; though those are useful; i;
 functions, coordination of muscles, re- pose of nerves. Hygiene in all it's branches is the first element in social
 education. But the mind also is useless save as l we have learned how to use it. To inn l part Information is no more to give
 the mastery of the mind than. to inn l part food is to give the mastery of the | body. Certain drills are necessary to 1 make the mind rapid and, accurate. l Certain processes are necessary to de- l velop observation and the critical l faculty. Other exercises are useful in cultivating the memory and the imag- 1 ination.
 Choosing Things Worth While.
 But, above all, in. a policy of social construction,~tfe educational system 1 must be successful in planting, water ing, and securing increase in the power of forming economic judg- rnents, in the power of estimating t-va1ues as higher and lower, of com I pairing rightly future pleasures with
 those of the present. the permanent l with the fleeting, the spiritual with | the material Right reasoning about | what can be attained by a given ef- | fort, and what the satisfaction thus
 attained is really worth, as compared l with other possible results from the l same effort-this; take it, is a prime | function of social education.
 One other obvious end of education
 may be named along with the impart- | ing of information and the develop l rnent of capacity to use the mind and | the body. That is the forming o1 1 good physical, mental and normal l and moral habits The economic req 1 soning just now referred to is con scious and sometimes a. slow and pain
 full process. But after a while, if the l processes of our reasoning are sound a particular judgment has been form
 ed so clearly. or so often, or is SC
 buttressed by authority, that it is ac- cepted as a moral judgment. It ob-
 tains an ethical sanction. The con-
 scious reasoning process is no longer 1 necessary. Time is saved. Effort is saved. Wear and tear of tissue and vi
 tai energy are saved
 No doubt honesty was once the bes
 policy. There may be borderIand: where it is so still. But for us and oul
 children honesty has ceased to be
 policy. It is an instinct, a habit O,
 mind, an economic judgment so ofteI
 made, so clearly established, so au
 thoritatively attested, that it offend
 rather than helps us to a1lude to it
 material advantages.
 The farther we can go in this direc