440 THE MEANS OF PREVENTION. 



matured understanding of the parents. The aim of education is to 

 prepare the child so that it may take care of itself in the struggle 

 for existence. This axiom answers a question which many are ask- 

 ing, though but few seem able to answer. How many children may 

 a couple generate ?• The answer is, No more than their means will 

 allow them to fully educate for this struggle for existence. Many 

 persons, who unfortunately marry without the least idea of their 

 new duties, are not fitted to have any children. Their own parents, 

 having been unsuited to this noblest of duties, have transmitted 

 their own incapacity to their children. " Yerily, the sins of the 

 fathers are visited upon the children" in more ways than we at 

 present are aware of. 



Education ! What is it ? What form does it take ? In my 

 opinion, education has three forms. First, the preparatory educa- 

 tion of the school and college days. Second, the so-called " cultiva- 

 tion " which is the result of one's general reading. Both of these 

 forms are but gleanings from the work of others. Third, educa- 

 tion proper, or that which the individual works out of himself by 

 reflection upon what he has read, observed, and heard. It will be 

 at once seen, and daily experience proves it, that a cultivated man 

 is not necessarily an educated one ; nor is every educated man a cul- 

 tivated one, although this exception is more rarely the case than 

 the former. 



We often read in the daily papers that the public schools of the 

 present clay are too much inclined to develop philosophers, and not 

 enough toward practical ends. It would be a blessing indeed did 

 they seek to produce good, clear, radical (not in the sense of igno- 

 rant newspaper writers) thinkers. A philosopher is one who thinks 

 deeply upon any subject. He is quite frequently found, in a crude 

 form, shoveling coal or pegging shoes. The polished form sits often- 

 er in the professor's chair. The diamond is frequently spoiled in 

 the polishing. So it is with many crude but sharp thinkers. When 

 polished, the clearness is lost behind a multitude of words. Read- 

 ing and writing by no means constitute an education. People seem 

 to think they do, however. They are but the means. Ability to 

 think logically is the attribute of an educated man. A foolish per- 

 son may be taught to read and write, but no one would dare say 

 he is educated. They lack the one pearl of price — the ability to 

 think ; but the capability to read and write greatly increases the re- 

 flective abilities of an otherwise crude thinker. It is the essential 

 quality failing in our present humanity. The occasional individual 

 thinks, the masses never. One would suppose, judging from per- 



