The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864: Devoted to Literature and National PolicyVarious
Religion
The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864: Devoted to Literature and National Policy
Various
Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; United States -- Politics and government -- 19th century -- Periodicals
natural course of reasoning, to its extreme in the parricidal rebellion
of to-day. And yet that idea was, in its inception, apparently harmless
enough, being nothing more than that denunciation and vituperation of
the political leaders and the ruling powers which chanced to be in the
opposition, whereby the child was in due course of time weaned from his
country, and taught to look lightly upon and speak lightly of that which
of old time was only mentioned with love and reverent awe.
Nor is this the only reform which is needed in the education of our
youth. The phrase 'completing one's education' is used to-day with utter
looseness, and applied to that period when the youth leaves the school
or college for the busy walks of life. How much of error is contained in
such an application of the term he well knows who, after some years of
world life, can look back upon his college days and see what a mere
smattering of knowledge he gained within the 'classic shades,' and how
poorly _educated_ he was, in any and every sense of the word, how ill
fitted for the realities of work-day life, when first he emerged in
self-sufficient pride from the sacred walls, and launched boldly out
upon the world. At the time when, according to the popular acceptation
of the term, the education is completed, it is in truth but just begun;
and he who, upon the slender capital of college lore, should set himself
up for a finished man, one competent to take upon himself the duties,
responsibilities, and labors of active life, would soon find to his
sorrow that he was yet but a babe in wisdom, and yet needed a long and
severe discipline ere he could be considered one of the world's workers.
In the few years devoted, in our country, to the education of youth,
little more can be done than to teach them the value of knowledge and
the proper method and system of its acquisition, leaving to the
exertions of the after years that education of the mind and development
of the intellectual powers which constitute the finished man. And this
should be the object of all our schools, for females as well as for
males, to inculcate the truth that the true education begins where the
schools leave off, and depends entirely upon the scholar himself, aided
only by that groundwork of preparation, that systematizing of effort,
imparted by the tutor in the tender years. This end should be ever
before the teacher's eyes, and the whole course of study adjusted with a
view thereto. And the instruction imparted should be of such a character
as most thoroughly to fit the student for future study, giving him a
firm foothold upon the most essential branches of knowledge, from which
he may advance steadily and securely when left to himself; frequently
warning him that this is but the beginning of great things, and that the
abstrusities of wisdom, wherein is all its aesthetic beauty and its
holiness--all its moral good--lies far beyond, where it can only be
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