Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1924-01-24
WITH THE
HIGH SCHOOL.
CLASSICS
By MARGARET BOYD
STEM Newspaper union.

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Happy is this, she is not yet so old
but she may learn"
Merchant of Venice.
There has been much speculation
as to the age at which people cease
to be able to learn. There is. of
course, no set age-some people can
not learn anything after they are
twenty, and others can learn after
they are hundred. In general, too
much stress is laid upon youth as a
new subjects. 1t is common to find
people who have been unable to go
straight from high school TO college
fearing that they will be handicapped
in their studies by their age if they
enter after they have been out of
school for some years. Such, think,
is never true.
Languages have always been held to
be a subject that should be studied
during youth. The very young child
is learning words all the time, and it
makes little difference to him whether
the word is Latin, English, French,
Italian or Russian. 1t, therefore,
seems probable that very young child
can learn a new language much more
quickly than an adult can. 1t is much
to be doubted, however, whether a
sixteen-year-old boy can learn new
language any more quickly than a
sixty-year-old man.
Benjamin Franklin began his study
Of languages after he had been for a
long time the proprietor and editor
Of newspaper, had published Poor
Richards Almanac" had founded the
Philadelphia library, and had done
enough other work to make the aver
age man think there was no need for
him to study anything new He first
mastered French, then Italian, then
Spanish, and finally Latin.
Teachers are generally of the opin-
ion that child entering school at the
age of eight reaches high school at the
same age as a child Of equal native
ability who enters kindergarten at the
age of three or four-an older child
can learn in few weeks what it took
the younger child months to master
One Of Americas scholarly men was
coal MINER ignorant even Of his al
phabet, at the age OF nineteen; yet he
had completed college education and
become superintendent of schools in a
large city at the same age that most
men reach such positions.
Older people who have difficulty in
numerous than young people who have
similar dificulty-the ease with which
one learns a new subject has little to
do with age; it is rather a matter
of native ability and competent
teacher.
=. those who do not think so
deeply, and they were the greater
number by hundred to one"
-lvanhoe.
OF those who do not think so deeply
there are two classes: those who can
not think and those who do not want
to think.
Not everybody is able to think deep
y. We do have mental limitations,
though few Of us ever study hard
enough or think deeply enough to
reach them. For some people, how
ever, the mental links are quickly
reached Such people are variously
classified as morons, subnormals and
those who cannot 'think so deeply"
Those who do not want to think are
Of two classes: those who are lazy
and dislike mental exertion, and those
who are afraid to think.
Jonathan Swift expressed the opin-
ion that If people did much thinking
they must go mad; and all Of us rec
oguiEe the fact that there are certain
ideas that do not bear thinking about.
Emerson warned of the risk attendant
upon thinking when he wrote: BE
ware when the great God lets loose
a thinker on this planet. Then all
things are at risk. It is as when
eOnflagration has broken out in a
great city and no man knows what is
safe or where it will end. There is
not q piece of science but It's flank may
be turned tomorrow; there is not any
literary reputation, not the so-called
eternal names Of fame. that may not
be reviled and condemned. The very
hopes Of man, the thoughts of his
heart, the religion of nations, the man
ners and morals of mankind are all at
the mercy of new generalization"
And again "What is the hardest task
In the world? To think. / would put
myself in the attitude to look in the
eye an abstract truth and cannot.
I bleach and withdraw on this side
and that. I seem to know what he
meant, who said, No man can see God
face to face and live"
Before man can think deeply with
out danger to his community it is
necessary that he should be well in
formed. Confucius is credited with
the statement that thought without
learning is perilous,' and there is no
doubt that much Of our present social
and economic unrest is due to the
thinking of men who were not suffi-
GENTLY well informed"
When thinking on social and eco
nomic problems it is necessary that