320 ANDREW J. SHIPMAN MEMORIAL 



education within its geographical borders, it behooves us to 

 study what education may really mean. If we take the sched- 

 ules of instruction provided by the authorities as the minimum 

 required for graduation from a given school or classroom, 

 the necessary requisite for promotion to the next grade, or the 

 exaction for entrance to high school or college, or even for the 

 reception of a degree in arts, literature, science, medicine or 

 law, and study them through and through, we fail to get an 

 absolutely complete idea of what education really is. To in- 

 struct the learner mentally, to practise him in the intellectual 

 gymnastics of knowledge, as a circus performer or acrobat is 

 taught to perform wonderful feats, is not enough. That may 

 enable him to pass clever examinations and sustain difficult 

 theses, or even to make new and brilliant discoveries, but after 

 all it is not the sum and substance of education. But that is 

 as far as the State — considered in its present position — can 

 go, for it deals with material, not spiritual things, and can 

 only see that the physical and material equipment is good. 

 The development of what lies entirely within the conscience, 

 the awakening of the heart-strings moved by the moral law, 

 it must leave to other hands, since so far no provision has been 

 made for this in its schedules. 



Yet, as I have said, the State is but the concrete form of "all 

 of us," expressing the hope and aim of our united will and 

 wisdom. As such it must look to a perpetuation of itself 

 upon an even higher plane. We do not wish our successors 

 to be of less worth than we are; they ought to be of better 

 fibre. The whole matter, therefore, becomes one of immedi- 

 ate interest to each of us ; because in a sort of a political pan- 

 theistic phrase we are each a part of the State. The education 

 provided by our institutions, no matter where or what they are, 

 ought to produce material for good citizens, ought to make 

 each component of the State turned out by them higher ex- 

 ponents of everything that is good and noble in man. Water 

 cannot rise higher than its source, and so the State cannot be 

 better than the collective goodness and wisdom of its citizens. 

 It is a theme for you and for me to ponder. 



Now, without in anywise touching on or discussing the 

 question of creed, it must be apparent that the religious and 

 moral sense of an individual is a very large part of his make- 

 up. It is figuratively the compass by which he steers his life. 



