The Teacher: Essays and Addresses on EducationPalmer, Alice Freeman
Philosophy
The Teacher: Essays and Addresses on Education
Palmer, Alice Freeman
Education; Education, Higher; Women -- Education
And this is the power possessed by the mighty dead,--men of every time
and nation, whose voices death cannot silence, who are waiting even at
the poor man's elbow, whose illuminating words may be had for the price
of a day's work in the kitchen or the street, for lack of love of whom
many a luxurious home is a dull and solitary spot, breeding misery and
vice. Now the modern college is especially equipped to introduce its
students to such literature. The library is at last understood to be the
heart of the college. The modern librarian is not the keeper of books as
was his predecessor, but the distributer of them, and the guide to their
resources, proud when he increases the use of his treasures. Every
language, ancient or modern, which contains a literature is now taught
in college. Its history is examined, its philology, its masterpieces,
and more than ever is English literature studied and loved. There is now
every opportunity for the college student to become an expert in the
use of his own tongue and pen. What other men painfully strive for he
can enjoy to the full with comparatively little effort.
But there is a second invigorating interest to which college training
introduces its student. I mean the study of nature, intimacy with the
strange and beautiful world in which we live. "Nature never did betray
the heart that loved her," sang her poet and high priest. When the world
has been too much with us, nothing else is so refreshing to tired eyes
and mind as woods and water, and an intelligent knowledge of the life
within them. For a generation past there has been a well-nigh universal
turning of the population toward the cities. In 1840 only nine per cent
of our people lived in cities of eight thousand inhabitants or more. Now
more than a third of us are found in cities. But the electric car, the
telephone, the bicycle, still keep avenues to the country open. Certain
it is that city people feel a growing hunger for the country,
particularly when grass begins to grow. This is a healthy taste, and
must increase the general knowledge and love of nature. Fortunate are
the little children in those schools whose teachers know and love the
world in which they live. Their young eyes are early opened to the
beauty of birds and trees and plants. Not only should we expect our
girls to have a feeling for the fine sunset or the wide-reaching
panorama of field and water, but to know something also about the less
obvious aspects of nature, its structure, its methods of work, and the
endless diversity of its parts. No one can have read Matthew Arnold's
letters to his wife, his mother, and his sister, without being struck by
the immense enjoyment he took throughout his singularly simple and
hard-working life in flowers and trees and rivers. The English lake
country had given him this happy inheritance, with everywhere its sound
of running water and its wealth of greenery. There is a close connection
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