Year: 1875



 A Richmond paper gives voice to Q sentiment which, unfortunately, finds acceptance in field much broader than the limits of Virginia, in saying that a large number of tho young men of the State are "too we'll educated for practi- cal purposes" The fallacy embodied in that brief sentence is so far inwrought into the popular belief as to be the fruit full cause of an enormous amount of in efficiency, with it's resultant poverty and misery. All over the country, not alone in the great cities, are to be found in large numbers men and women who, in virtue of 8 certain, or, rather, a very un- certain, amount of literary culture, hold themselves aloof from and above the commoner occupations of everyday life. They apparently expect their education, such as 1t is, in some mysterious and mi raculous manner to lift them above the necessity of daily toll, and to bring them comfort, if not luxury, in whose produc tion the 'sweat of their brow' shall have no place. Every journalist, every pro- fessional man, every merchant, every woman who has earned her own place in the world by vigorous and persistent en- deavor, is we'll acquainted with class of applicants for aid and counsel who "have had an education," who are "willing to do anything" yet who are wholly unfit to do anything outside of certain overcrowded and poorly paid avenues of employment, and who lack the moral stamina or the common sense to put such culture as they have into the work that is waiting to be done even if it be less dainty.

 The trouble is not that they are "too well educated" /" but that their education, whatever it includes, lacks the highest essential quality of all worthy culture, the perception that it is in itself means; not an end, but force, power, factor of value in the attainment of higher ob- jects; and that it's greatest use inheres ill enabling the worker to do we'll, to dig nifty and to elevate whatever work lies where his hand may find it to do.

 The cry of distress from those "t too well educated for practical purposes" as our cotemporary puts it, goes up con- tinually, but sounds always more mourn fully with the incoming of winter. It would be as vain for a journal as for an individual to attempt to give aid or coun- sel in each one of thousands of cases. In point of fact the majority of those

 

 from rejecting the idea that their educa- tion should be applied to the commoner work of everyday life, while waiting for easier or more aristocratic avenues of labor to open for them, will not recog- nize themselves or will resent the DOT traiture. But it may be well for good many young men and women to whom are just presented the issues of self support, of life worth living and of char acter worth having, and into whose ears has been dinned the idea that education is too dainty Q possession to be used in ennobling drudgery-it may be well for some such to consider whether mental caliber and culture may not find room for as broad and as elevated play in me chanical or agricultural or domestic h. Dor as in the avenues of professional work. In the professions it is the few who attain eminence, and the work which secures competence is as fatiguing and as persistent as the day laborer's. Even social consideration, which is apt to be their idol, waits to a far greater de gree than the educated inefficient class are apt to believe on ones self than on one's employment.-N. y. Herald.