Education
Instruction is that part of education which furnishes the
mind with knowledge; and it is not the work of a day or a year, but of a life
time.
He who undertakes to reach the goal of learning at one grand
leap, will meet bitter disappointment.
It is only attained by long years of hard and patient toil, self-denial
and a determination to succeed.
“Knowledge is power” and power is a mighty agent. Some men whom the world call great have used
it until they reached fame[‘]s highest pinnacle, and at last fell victims of
their own folly. Alexander, who after
having climbed the dizzy heights of his ambition and with his temples bound
with chaplets dipped in the blood of many nations, looked down upon a conquered
world and wept that there was not another world for him to conquer, set a city
on fire and died in a scene of debauch.
Hannibal, after having put to flight the armies of Rome,
“the mistress of the world”, and stripped the golden rings from the fingers of
her slaughtered nights and made her very foundations quake fled from his
country and died at last, by poison administered by his own hands, unlamented
and unwept in a foreign land.
Caesar, after having conquered 800 cities, and dyed his
garments in the blood of one million of his foes was miserably assassinated by
those he considered as his nearest friends.
Bonaparte, after having filled the earth with the error of
his name, after having deluged Europe with tears and blood, closed his days in
lonely banishment.
We place in contrast, the lives and death of such men as
Martin Luther, Gustavus, Adolphus, George Washington and Abraham Lincoln and we
might mention a host of others, who stood as the representatives of all those
whom the world call great. We propose
first, briefly to consider the objects of education and second the necessity.
A person growing to a certain age must appear in the world;
he can no longer hide himself at school nor withdraw behind the curtain. He must step boldly out upon the stage, start
forward and become something. What that
something is to be, education only can surmise.
A man must act; whether he is necessitated to labor for his maintenance,
or is freed by fortune from all apprehension, and all constrained exertion, yet
he must act. It is the intent of
education to education (sic.) to
enable him to act rightly, honorably & successfully. A man coming into life is doomed to suffer in
various shapes of sorrow. Youth may fancy
life one scene of gayety; but reality and fancy differ very widely. If education has been rightly conducted, it
will teach a man to suffer with dignity with honor and with profit.
The man launches into life and will be exactly or very
nearly what his actual education purposed.
It is well when youth starts forward well guarded amply stored and
properly stimulated, and prospers in manhood by actual success in his station
whatever it may be. The dreary hours of
learning will then be recollected with pleasure, and the labor will be
abundantly repaid.
The alternative will show this importance in a still clearer
light. The man forced into action
obliged to take some prominent station, may fail to fill it properly; may fail
notwithstanding his best endeavors, and become unsuccessful in all his
pursuits. To fail for want of knowing
what education would have taught him, would be great disgrace; but to fail when
conscious of talents exerted, and carefulness ever active, will take away from
a man’s own mind and from the opinions of bystanders, all that is
disgraceful. He may even gain honor by
the exertions made to prevent adversity.
In this country where we have a system of public instruction
it aims in a broad sense, not only to make men better and more useful in the
sphere in which it finds them, but if possible to lift them up to a higher
one. It is the special aim as I
understand its functions to reach its hand down to the homes of the poorest and
lowliest among us, and proffer help to those who toil on our farms, or in our
shops, furnaces, forests & mines – help in the shape of increased skill,
better taste, more enlarged views, purer pleasures and in an inspiration that
longs and strives for something higher and nobler.
There is no way by which working men as a class are so
likely to improve their condition as by increasing their knowledge. Knowledge and skill combined bring better
opportunities for work, higher wages, and more honorable position in society. Further, a rightly directed education, inculcates
habits of industry, economy, sobriety, and instills the deeper principles of
honor & honesty; and these, it is universally acknowledged, lie at the
foundation of all true success in life.
Working men, in no part of the world, ever made themselves
better off by making war upon other classes of society, by violent strikes for
higher wages, by the destruction of property, by carrying into effect those
communistic theories, which threaten a political revolution that would end in
universal anarchy.
Ideas and opinions of that kind must be uprooted and
supplanted by those higher & nobler thoughts that in this country we have a
free and equal chance of success in life, if we are only willing to make an
effort to attain that success. It must
be admitted however that labor has not been fairly treated, that men were not
born to be mere beasts of burden, that a reform is imperatively demanded, that
will alleviate the poverty and distress prevailing among the working classes;
and here we take it as a field in which a system of public instruction has an
opportunity of showing its power as an agency organized in the interest of
humanity. We are aware that many
children remain away from school on account of books or proper clothing. Certainly these can be provided in some
way. Other children who are compelled to
remain out of the ordinary schools to work should be provided with night
schools. Industrial schools should be
established because they are needed to supply the place of the old apprentice
system which has almost become a thing of the past. They would open the way for the employment of
the young who now for want of something to do, contract habits of idleness and
vice.
A large proportion of the crime of
the country, as shown by statistics, is committed by young men without
trades. The highest aim and object of
education is to train the head the heart and the hand of every girl and boy in
the land, that they may become intelligent fathers and mothers, ornaments to
society, useful to their fellowmen, and faithful and devoted citizens of their
country.
The necessity of education is very manifest in all the
trades and professions. Horace Greeley
said, ‘the working man is by so much the more productive, the more his
intellect is cultivated. Property is
most deeply interested in the diffusion of education. There is not a farm, not a bank, not a
work-shop, not a store whose income is not greater, if it is situated in a
locality where the population is intelligent and moral.”
Daniel Webster said, “We hope and our confidence in the
permanence of our government reposes on that hope that by means of the schools,
the political edifice will be defended against open violence and sudden ruin,
as well as against the slow and secret but not less destruction action of license.”
When a nation has for forty years abandoned the direction of
its affairs to a class of men unequal to the task it is not the work of a day
to repair the evil. It must be the
gradual action of time and education, the elevating the rising generations higher,
that the number of dupes will be gradually diminished. Those who are yet too confident in their
country for anything to shake their faith in the grand destiny of the union,
see in the school, one of the glories of America, which it is important to preserve
in all its lustre. The more despondent
say, “if this country can by saved at all, it will be by its schools”. The conditions of labor are such that a
certain degree of scholarship is essential to success. Whether we speak of the industries, commerce
or agriculture, whether we consider the business man, or the laborer each in
his sphere succeeds almost in proportion to his intelligence and
knowledge. Here nobody finds his whole
career already determined for him when he sets out in life. In the old world it is not a rare sight to
see the sons for several generations in succession follow the profession of
their fathers, not so in the U.S. The
spirit of taking the lead, of enterprise, of adventure is the necessary
mainspring of this new civilization; not American if not go ahead.
Labor without this stimulus commands but a moderate
compensation; the humble prospect of a busy life, sufficient in itself from day
to day is not the American ideal. No
people works harder, but none also is more anxious to obtain the greatest price
for its work. That which Europeans
reproach in the Yankees by the appellation of cupidity or of speculation is but
the effect of the intelligence which they apply to their toil, and of the high
value which they attribute to their activity.
Without it the farmer does not know how to choose the soil he
cultivates, the implements he uses; nor the merchant how to calculate his
chances of success, nor the mechanic to perfect his trade. Some one has said that “the public wealth of
the U.S. is incalculable, simply because the intellectual capital here is rated
enormously high.” Another great
necessity is that God demands it of us, we were created as intelligent beings,
“but a little lower than the Angels,” and endowed with talents we dare not hide
in a napkin and bury under the earth.
All animals, man alone excepted, are possessed naturally of
defensive weapons, might not the fact of man’s being without a natural weapon
be meant to signify that the hand was to be used for nobler purposes, and that
the mind denied to other animals was given to him in order that he might devise
a more exalted way of settling disputes than by the use of brute force. Let us hope that when a few generations have
been educated under peaceful influences, trained to the habits and love of
useful work, that there shall go out all over the land little bands of
peacemakers whose lives shall have become so beautiful that men, seeing them,
shall have no desire to fight.
Women who have been taught to think will no longer run crazy
after buttons, stars, and shoulders straps; and men having learned to realize
of what a terrible thing these are the symbols, will no longer be proud to wear
them. Whenever war is recognized as a
relic of the dark ages, the love for military glory will die out, and man will
be raised up grandly and gloriously to that plane befitting the purpose of his
creation.
Lastly the necessity for man’s education is further seen in
his capabilities for doing good. Every
blade of grass that waves, every trembling leaf that beckons, every fragrant
flower that blooms, sun moon and stars that shine, all are thrilled and
divinely pervaded with the living spirit of the one and only good; how much
more then man the noblest of God’s handiwork.
I would that a school house might be planted on each and
every inhabited mile of this old earth’s surface. I would that no little one were so poor or
neglected or sad that it must be shut out.
When indeed would the time hasten for which we all hope and wait. Then would wars and strifes and murders and
crimes of all degrees be forever swept from earth. Then would we witness the world’s
regeneration and see the dawn of the bright millennial morning when joyous
spirits shall ‘ring in the thousand years of peace.”
The Society of Children
What a dull dreary world this would be without
children. We abhor monotony in
everything and right here is where we begin to cultivate and appreciate variety
the spice of life. It is in the home,
the Sunday school the public school and indeed in all the walks of life the
society of children is found and sought after by men and women who have been
battling with the great problems of life that they may turn aside for a brief
period and engage in the sports of childhood.
We fondle them caress them and kiss them and our joy and delight is
unbounded. What more lovely and
interesting scene can you picture than that of an aged and respected man or
woman whose head has been silvered by the frosts of many winters take the child
upon their knee to dandle and to enjoy their innocent prattle. The vigor & glow of youth returns to the
wrinkled brow and the furrowed cheek and the old adage “twice a child and once
a man” is verified. Children are
imitative, they are more observant than we give them credit for. They are mirrors in which we may see
ourselves. They select their idols and
pattern after them. They walk like them talk
like them comb their hair like them and try to be like them. The power of association is a mighty magnet
which draws with wonderful force and must in the very nature of things make us
better or worse according to the society we keep. The church which has been reorganized as the
greatest moralizing power in the world owes its existence and perpetuation in
part to the recognition and observance of the principle of universal
brotherhood. We are banded together in
the church and Sunday school and in the society of one another for mutual
improvement intellectual & moral as well as social enjoyment. We all adults and children, it the harsh
& bitter strife, need to be taught that our individuality must go down
before the social principle; that proposes & compels fellowship; that
formed the family in society & the church.
This fact of the brotherhood of our race is breaking the bondage of
selfishness, and drawing the individual closer & closer into harmony with
the great whole. Touched by its magnetic
influence, man now feels the force of sympathy, gentleness & love, &
begins to see & act, and live as a brother of the common family. He realizes the connecting link that brings
him to the lowest state of humanity.
Although he may be rolled in gold so far as the wealth of the world is
concerned and in intellectual attainments he may have “delved down deep &
dragged up drowned honor by the locks” yet if this moral element has been
properly developed he becomes a man with a heart & a soul possessed of a
centralizing force with which he is drawn to his fellow man by a power he could
not resist if he would & would not if he could.
The association of children in the Sunday school the church
& the home is productive of much greater good in its influence upon men
& women that might be imagined. I
have heard a respected citizen of our town on more than one occasion make the
remark, “that he did not care so much about the good the Sunday school and
church might or could do for him but that it was a great pleasure to him to
have his family enjoy the association found there and the influence was far
more potent for good than many other places they might go.
And now children we should be happy indeed surrounded by so
much beauty & loveliness. We
fittingly bring the green of the forest and the choicest flowers of field and
garden into God’s house to suggest that Savior whose coming to the earth
interrupted the winter and death of its sin, with the forces of an ever young,
everlasting life. The aspirations that
rise in our hearts find wings in the psalms of praise, & we are taken
higher. It quickens faith, helps
reverence, enlarges love.
To those of more mature years these glorious occasions of
our association with the children recalls memories of home. There is no word in the language that has
such a compass as the word home.
About
it cluster the brightest charms of life.
It is the one spot on earth that lingers longest in human affection, and
appeals the noblest impulses. There is
manifest wisdom in that ordination of God by which a love & a memory of
home should act as a safeguard to keep men steady amid the perils of life and
drifting, to arrest them often before their life-back strikes the rocks &
they are swallowed up in the flood. I
feel that it becomes us to have a reverent spirit when we come to think and
talk about home, for to the Lord Jesus Christ we owe everything that makes it
pure and sacred.
Oh how tender are these memories and they deserve to be hung
round in the chambers of the soul like pictures on the wall. There is a charm in the whole scenery in
which a man’s early life is set; and memory often recurs to these and the heart
gets comfort and the life gets help. I
feel that I am the better for thinking of the trees that grew, and the flowers
that bloomed about my childhood’s home and Wadsworth sings for me when he says,
"How dear to this heart are the scenes of my childhood,
When fond recollection presents them to view;
The orchard the meadow, the deep-tangled wildwood;
And every loved spot which my infancy knew.”
Is there a soul present tonight that has not been
stirred by the touching pathos of that sweet old song: Old men weep for joy and the children will
understand its full impact better bye & bye. Every trembling they that be wise shall shine
as the brightness of the firmament and they that turn many to righteousness as
the start forever and ever. So, dear
children and friends there is a period hastening in the might revolutions of
the works of providence when the “star of Bethlehem shall again mount the
zenith, and its train of light be filled once more with choirs of angels,”
shouting glory to God in the highest; on earth peace and good will toward
men.” Then the day is at hand when, “The
wolf shall dwell with the lamb and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and
the calf and the young lion together; and a little child shall lead them.”
Children Teachers and Friends –
Another year has rolled into the eternity of the past. In the goodness of a kind and merciful
Providence we are once more gathered together to celebrate the birth of our
Saviour. If affords me great pleasure to
see so many here. These little bright
eyes are sparkling with delight. For
weeks past they have been counting the days and waiting with eager expectancy
this happy time. It has now come and no
one more than myself is made happier to see you enjoying yourselves in the
height of your glee hardly able to sit idle on your seats. We welcome you children and teachers and all
to this feast this glorious septal occasion whereby we celebrate on this the
eve of a day above every other day the great fact of “a Saviour born into the
world”. God’s best gift to man, it has
always been and is becoming more so each year a day of present making, and it is
annually more and more promotive of kindly feeling. Its distinctive meaning as the commemoration
of Christ’s advent is continually made more and more prominent. It is rising to the surface of men’s notice
and regard, like a lily’s bloom out of a pond’s hidden depths, making this a
white day indeed in the rointer. We
fittingly bring the green of the forest into God’s house, to suggest that
Saviour whose coming to the earth interrupts the winter and death of its sin,
with the forces of an ever young, everlasting life. We fittingly in our psalms of praise echo
back the angels, “Glory to God”, and in our reverent prayers lift to the
Saviour’s brow the golden crown of a worlds (sic.) redemption. The
aspirations that rise in our hearts find wings in the psalms of praise, and we
are taken higher. It quickens faith,
helps reverence, enlarges love. To those
of more mature years this glorious occasion recalls memories of home.
There is no word in the language that has
such a compass as the word home. About it
cluster the brightest charms of life. It
is the one spot on earth that lingers longest in human affection, and appeals
to the noblest impulses. There is
manifest wisdom in that ordination of God by which a love and a memory of home
should act as a safeguard to keep men steady amid the perils of life and
drifting, to arrest them often before their life-bank strides the rocks and
they are swallowed up in the flood. What
a high and holy origin the home has: God
made the first man after a divine original and after a divine original, too, he
made the first home.
This heaven alone, heaven in grace, heaven in Christ, that
comes to renew and baptize with a true peace and joy the homes of earth. I feel that it becomes us to have a reverent
spirit when we come to think and talk about home, for to the Lord Jesus Christ
we owe everything that makes it pure and adored. We too little appreciate the very great
advantage & distinction we have in being permitted to have had our homes in
a time when, and a land where Christianity prevails. But for him who with no home of his own often
went into and sanctified the homes of others, our homes would not have known
that sweetness and beauty and joy which make their loss one of the greatest
sorrows of the human heart. The home is
the place of first impression. It is the
part from which the bark of life sets sail, and the outfit then prepared will
so largely determine the direction and destiny of the boy age, that the thought
is frought with deepest solemnity. If I
ask you, young ladies and young men, to cast about for the origin of those
impressions and habits and opinions, that now form the staple of your character
you will likely think first of home, and of that name which to every man ought
to be the sweetest on earth, except the name of Jesus – I mean the name of a
mother. How tender are these memories,
and how they deserve to be hung round in the chambers of the soul like pictures
on the wall. There is no harm in the
whole scenery in which a man’s early life is set; and memory often recurs to
these, and the heart gets comfort and the life gets help. I feel that I am the better for thinking of
the trees that grew and the flowers that bloomed about my childhood’s home, and
Woodworth sings for me when he says – “How dear to this heart are the scenes of
my childhood, when fondest recollection recalls them to view; the orchard, the
meadow, the deep-tangled wildwood, and every loved spot which my infancy knew.”
Employment
Men and women were made for activity, for employment. To do something and be something is the duty
of life. A man having nothing to do is
scarcely a man, because he does not prove by his works that he is a man. The saying “that the world owes every man a
living” is a “humbug”. The earth was
made first, man afterwards, and in the course of time violated a law the
penalty for which was death. It was then
decreed that, “in the sweat of his face” man should “rusticate” over this green
earth. Better to say, “there is a living
in the world for every man”. With many,
facts seem to prove that, “man wants but little here below, and he gets it”.
The secret of making men is to put them to work, and keep
them at it. It is not study, not
instruction, not good society that makes men, these are means; but back of
these lies the grand molding influence of men’s life. It is employment. A man’s business does more to make him than
everything else. It hardens his muscle,
strengthens his body, sharpens his mind, wakes up his inventive genius and
starts him on the race of life to show himself a man.
A hundred and fifty pounds of bone and muscle is not a
man. Men are not born, they are
made. Nature has so decreed that under
favorable circumstances we all grow up to the full stature of manhood and
womanhood, but the being that grows to the stature of a man is not a man until
he is made one. The world has long since
learned that men can not be made without employment. Hence it sets its boys to work; gives them
trades, callings, professions, and tells them to work out their manhood. And the most of them do it somehow, not
always very well. The men who fail to
make themselves a respectable manhood are frequently the boys who are put to no
business, the young men who have nothing to do.
Our men of wealth and character, of worth and power, many of them have
been early bound to some useful employment.
In their early boyhood they buckled on the armor of labor, took upon
their little shoulders heavy burdens, contended with opposition, chose rugged
paths of employment because they yielded the best renumeration, and braved the
storms of toil till they won great victories for themselves and stood before
the world in the beauty & majesty of noble manhood. This is the way men are made. There is no other way.
A. I.
Self R[e]liance
People who have been bolstered up all their lives, are
seldom good for anything in a crisis.
When misfortune comes, they look around for something to cling to or to
lean upon. If the prop is not there down
they go. Once down, they are as helpless
as capsized turtles, and can not find their feet again without assistance. Such silken fellows no more resemble men of
self-reliance who have stood firm, fighting their way to position, making
difficulties their stepping stones, and deriving determination from defeat,
than vines resemble oaks, or tallow candles the stars of heaven. Efforts persisted in to achievements, train a
man to self-reliance and when he has proved to the world that he can trust
himself, the world will trust him. It is
unwise and wrong to deprive young men and ladies too of the advantages which
result from their energetic action, by helping them over obstacles which they
ought to surmount alone. No one ever
swam well who places his confidence in a slab; and if, when breasting the sea
of life, we can not buoy ourselves ahead by dint of our own energies, we are
not salvage, and it is of little consequence whether we “sink or swim, survive
of perish.”
Boys and girls this is an acquirement greatly to be sought
after. It brings joy, it brings comfort,
it brings satisfaction, and more, it is profitable. It requires honest work that you may
strengthen your moral and mental faculties, as you would your musales (sic.),
by vigorous exercise. If you have a true
friend, have him for an emergency. Learn
to conquer circumstances; you are then independent of fortune. You may have a rough school but there will be
a pleasant vacation; you may be tempest tossed, but a rift in the clouds will
reveal the sum of better days.
“Men who have left their marks on the years in which they
lived, passed through it all. They did
not mount their high positions by the help of leverage; they leaped into
chasms, grappled with the opposing rooks, avoided avalanches, and when the goal
was reached, felt that but for the toil that had strengthened them as they
strove, it could never have been attained.”
All original content, images, commentary, etc. copyright © by Joy Denison 2015-2016. All rights reserved. All writings, poems, speeches, essays, images, scans, likenesses, etc. by Adam Ickes (b 1845) as well as personal histories, images, and all other content by all persons referenced and discussed within the pages and posts in this blog may not be copied, shared, or reproduced in any way without expressed permission by the owner unless included here from other referenced sources or are historical records already considered to be in the public domain.
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