208 STATE BOARD OP AGRICULTURE. 



paper on the "Medical Treatment of Domestic animals," Mr. John L. Hunter 

 on the "Culture of Indian Corn," Mr. Fred Snyder on "The Farmer's 

 Home." 

 The closing lecture of this Institute was by President T. 0. Abbot on 



THE EDUCATIONAL FALLACIES OF THE MIDDLE AGES. 



As no manuscript copy of this lecture is furnished for our report we give the 

 following synopsis of it here : 



President Abbot spoke of the growth and changes of what constitutes edu- 

 cation. For nearly a thousand years a cloud of ignorance, such as we can 

 hardly conceive of, rested upon the world. Some of the kings and clergy 

 could neither read nor write. Previous to this there was a long age of literary 

 and artistic splendor. By and by, after the dark ages, the invention of print- 

 ing enabled many people to own books. Latin was then the key to all knowl- 

 edge. Even after the formation of Italian, French, English, German, and 

 other modern languages, Latin was considered the foundation of all education. 

 We no longer think Latin or write books in Latin, with rare exceptions. It 

 is a false and narrow notion of culture to base it on a knowledge of Greek and 

 Latin instead of tlio sciences, history, French, German, and things which per- 

 tain to our government and the welfare of the people. "We find culture in a 

 Newton, a Faraday, an Agassiz, although they give most of their time to the 

 study of science. The best models of style are not all written in Greek and 

 Latin. To write English and to speak English we must study and use the 

 English itself. A foreign language is no more necessary for our use of Eng- 

 lish than was some strange tongue to Demosthenes or Pindar, David or Isaiah. 

 There is a liberalizing tendency and some advantages in some knowledge of 

 some other language than our own. The place to learn English is from the 

 pure wells of English undefiled. Too much time has been devoted in the past 

 to words, and not enough to facts and the thoughts that come from them. To 

 rely on these old authors tends to make a set of readers who take the old 

 books as authority in place of original investigations. Other studies have 

 come to the front, such as physical science, social science, including hygiene, 

 philosophy of education, land ownership, civil service, political science, and 

 agriculture have become prominent. Thought should tally with fact. Disci- 

 pline is vastly the better which does not affect to talk or to write until there is 

 something to say. An inductive spirit should go along with the study of lan- 

 guage. It is much neglected in our schools. A great mistake made by old 

 writers was this : They tliought observation was too easy to need rules or 

 much care to secure accuracy. In planning a course of study for our schools 

 there is a waste to be saved, a curiosity to be fostered, not smothered. As late 

 as 1841, at Yale college, in the regular required course, there was no chemis- 

 try, no botany, no geology, no anatomy, no physiology, no mineralogy, no 

 meteorology. Times have changed. The sciences have come to the front. 

 Education is no longer considered merely of value in the professions of law, 

 medicine, and theology, but it is a material help to any workmen. There is a 

 prejudice in some minds that nothing is education that does not come out of 

 books. It would be more nearly correct to say that nothing is really educa- 

 tional that comes wholly from books. He spoke of the great value of educa- 

 tion to farmers and mechanics to help them in business and in social stand- 

 ing. His strong testimony in favor of a scientific education is all the more 

 valuable as it comes from one who gave all of his early life in pursuit of a 

 classical education. 



