FAEMEES' INSTITUTES. 267 



would take his breakfast. Yon cannot make an educated maa as you woukl fat 

 a turkey, — by cramming him." 



The thouglitful Locke, ahnost two hundred years ago, expressed the same 

 conchision in this way : "Those who have read of everything are thought to 

 understand everything too ; but it is not always so. Heading furnishes the mind 

 only with materials of knowledge : it is thinking makes what we read ours. We 

 are of the ruminating kind, and it is not enough to cram ourselves Avith a great 

 load of collections; unless we chew them over again they will not give us 

 strength and nourishment." 



Turning noAV to the other extreme, a training in the technical use of knowl- 

 edge in some trade or craft is not education worthy the name. I may have all 

 the skill of the puddler in the iron-mill, or the more delicate expertness of a 

 glass-blower, and remain as uneducated as the machine that may yet take my 

 place and do more perfect work than I can. AVe all know that men of most 

 consummate skill are sometimes least capable of shoAving themselves men, when 

 occasion calls for action outside of their established routine. Theirs is a train- 

 ing such as you can give to a horse, or such as has now and then made famous 

 a learned pig; it cannot form the basis of training for manhood and citizenshiji. 



Nor is education to be sought in a simple combination of these elements. 

 The truly practically educated man has other sources of power as well. AVhile 

 the knowledge and the skill are eminently practical in the control of an educated 

 mind, and every thinker needs them, we must not feel too sure that the acqui- 

 sition of these gives the culture needed to use them to best advantage. We 

 may become more skillful workers, but the trade that enables us to earn our 

 way in the world, however essential, is but a very small part of the art of living 

 well. Says Superintendent Payne, in his recent work on School Supervision : 

 "The most useful, the most truly practical art which can be acquired, is that 

 of reasoning dispassionately and accurately upon all questions which come up 

 for solution in daily life ; yet it is certain that the studies which best furnish 

 the mind with this ability have but little direct use in those employments 

 whereby the masses of mankind earn their daily bread." How all-pervading is 

 this reasoning, touching every practical question of life, any of us here can 

 testify. 



Doubtless we shall all admit that the most practical education is that which 

 aims to cultivate the most practical good sense, however Ave may differ as to the 

 value of certain studies or methods of teaching. In this direction aa'C haA"e had, 

 durmg the last tAventy years, a crusade in behalf of so-called practical studies. 

 It Avas needed, no doubt. The conservatism of long-established routine had 

 overlooked the groAvth of ncAV fields of study, more enticing, more suggestive of 

 thought than the old worn paths, and more direct roads to comfort and enjoy- 

 ment in life's work. But, in taking advantage of this grand opportunity for 

 joining our Avork and our Avisdom, let us not drift to the extremes of mere use- 

 ful knowledge or mere training in a routine drill for the trades. Both are nec- 

 essary ; how necessary, I cannot stop to tell ; but the one makes a cyclopaedia, 

 and the other, a machine, while botJi combined fashion us into something less 

 than man, the rational being. 



HoAV much time may Avell be devoted to this proper training of the mind to 

 think, it may not be possible to decide for all places and circumstances. The 

 whole question is relati\-e to the degree of civilization enjoyed by us all ; for as 

 knoAvledge Avidens, our relations to the world about us increase, and the culture 

 needed to cope Avith all these relations successfully musl be equally enlarged. 



