EtUU r'a Chair.
21
broils arc a natural consequence, ami they
result in a continual change or teachers.
Each successive teacher lias his own hob
bies, his own plans of government, often
his own text books, always his own char
acter. So there U ellcetually no system.
The schools are in a state of confu
sion. Hut besides this, there isa pointful
more tlilllcult to reach. This is to correct
the habits of stuily. Do we not know that
the universal teiulenoy is towards superfi
ciality? That the chilil is also taught lo
pnctlcu deception by the very plan of
recitation? Because, if lie does not know
his lesson, he invariably pretends to know.
Thioiighthc stimulus of praise and re
wards, he still cultivates Iiis deceit, lie
thus very often grows up two-faced and
supcrliciai. In this enumerating we have
yet left out many grosser defects in the
child's education, arising from (lie inca
pabilities ot the teacher, from the copying
of his character, li is hobbies, etc. If we
extend our observations to the graded
school, wefiud. that these imperfections
are only multiplied. The desire for tlie
pupil to advance, both on the purl of pa
rent and teacher, beget in him habits
of smattering, and shallow understanding
of what he goes over. Hit mind thus
grow.-, weaker riwher than stronger.
So we bee that there is not oulv room for
emir, but that great error exists in our
schools. Children grow up through them
and do not acquire more than half the real
strength of mind that they should acquire,
yot possess themselves of evil habits, both
of thought and action, that they never
cut shake 'oil'.
lint let us carry our research still far
titer. Let us glance f.tra moment into the
college life. This comes nearer home.
It i true wc come to the place where
good and learned men have jurisdiction,
but we do not exalt the facts when we
say that here we find still more startling
wrong. And why? Plainly because we
are Juithcr down u stream which, in very
small rills, once barely llowed on this side
of a summit that is pun and high, but
it descended more and more rapidly as it
bore farther and farther away, and it 1ms
arrived at the precipice where it pours ov
er forever.
The meanness of college life is prover
bial. Students have access to every kind
ol vice. They generally improve their
opportunities to such a degree that we
scarcely know where to find more scala
wags and miserable scamps, as well as
chuckleheads and jobbernowls. Wc ven
ture to say that there exists as much real
dowiirigh' ignorance among college stu
dents, as amongstany other class. A few
come through college with strengthened
minds, and arc men, but for one of these
there are perhaps a hundred who enter but
haven't the strength to go beyond the
Sophomore year.
Habits always grow, unless they are
manfully corrected. Students in college
are only embodiments of habits stored up
at home, at the common or graded schools.
So, we find a small minority who have be
come, in some degree, masters of them
selves. The gi enter number are simpry
"horned cattle " At college, if anywhere
we llnd examples ot the fruit which has
grown both from the seed that "fell by the
wayside" and that "which fell on good
ground;" the great extremes of human
life. Then what do we conclude? Plain
ly this, dial the great majority of college
graduates, as well as students, have no
real physical or mental energy. This we
find verified at every commencement.
Hence colleges entirely miss their aim.
Their graduates, as a class, are decidcly
thin and weak. Their minds are not as
strong as they were at ten years of age.
Many bright boys have gone over the cur
riculum, and by the process of cramming
have become duller and more supeiticial
from the very day 11103- filtered college.
Hundreds complete their college course
every year, let it be said in a whisper, but
would that it were whispered throughout
the land, who cannot actually pass an ex
animation through common fractions, in
Arithmclit , or who cannot, witli safely to
En&gsami
