Year: 1869




1t is said that butone youth in every
thousand in old New England enjoys
the advantages of a liberal or college
education, and of course a much small
Ter proportion of our western youth.


Yet, from this one-thousandth part
of community come nearly all our
Statesmen, Physicians. Clergymen
and eminent Teachers.


The fact that a number of our great
men did not enjoy college privileges,
does not materially effect the general
rule; and it is a fact, that no intelli-
gent person will gainsay, that, were
our higher institutions of learning de-
strOyed, our government would ine-
vitably sink into despOtic monarchy
like that of Turkey or some kindred
despOtism,


Yet, as a people, we are apt to over
look this fact, and ninety-nine per-
sons in every hundred curl the lip in
scorn at the one who decides to take a
regular college course of education.


We do not intend, in this article, to
speak in detail of the men who are
making us the nation we to-day are,
but will direcl few thoughts to the
subject of the necessity of a regular
and systematic course of study in or
der to the proper development of the
mind.


We commence collecting facts as
soon as reason dawns, and were this
all of education, (the mere collection
of a great number of facts), our col
leges and even our common schools
might easily be dispensed with.


But this is not education, or at most,
it is only very small portion of it,.
Education in its true sense, is a lead
ing out of the whole powers of the
man, both mental and physical and
no matter how many facts we may be
in possession of, if we cannot use them
to advantage, they are but useless rub
bish. 1t is not what we know that
makes US wise, but what we can use
successfully.


Thst person is truly educated who
can putall his store of facts into active
and useful service. This power can
only be acquired by constantly classi-
flying and arranging what is acquired.


When a fact is committed, the stu
dentshOuld learn its relations to other
facts, and also whore it can be made
useful to them.


Suppose Linneus had simply given
us all the facts he had learned about
the plants and trees just as he acqnir-
ed them, what q mass we should have
received; but how useless Suppose
Audubon, Button, Agassiz and other
naturalists had done the same, what
a crude mass would all our sciences be
at the present time!


And yet, that is the popular notion
of education.


"I want my child to learn this, that
or the other thing, and l want he
should learn the greatest possible
amount in the shortest possible time
is what you hear from almost every
parent in effect, if not in as many
words.


But this will not do, the mind mus
be diseiplined-it mnst be trained tC
combine fact to its kindred fact, anC
do it at the will of the pOssessOr.


The mind naturally admires order
but is strangely prone to disorder; il
delights in having system, and ye
shrinks from the labor of systemtem
izing.


1t is only by constant and unremit
ting effort that the-orator is enabled tC
draw at will from his treasuTe-hOus6
of facts, as he delights and entrances
the audience, that with such rapture
listen to his glowing elOquence.


There is great pleasure in following
through a we'll wrought chain of argu-
ment, but who can forge the chain
without a long and earnest drill re-
Geived preparatory to the work.


Look at the amount of drilling nee
essary to prepare the army for the bat
tle-feld, and is not the mind more
difficult to train than the body?


We lose an infinite amount of time
and labor in our schools for lack of
system. And we would urge on every
parent the importance of giving his
child a chance to take some systemat-
ic course of study, no matter though
it do not extend beyond the common
English branches. ..


See to it that your child can use the
knowledge it acquires, and be not so
anxious for store of facts as for a
power to use them well.


J. NJ. MCKENZIE.