PUBLIC SCHOOL EDUCATION. 



115 



outside and generously placed at our disposal. We doubtless 

 fail ; but the ideal is there before us, and it is no shame to fail 

 in the attainment of a great ideal. The only shame were not 

 to try. 



With these forces at work I think that after all the public 

 schools do try to aim at a well-defined and honourable goal. 

 They try to send out into life, and into the liberty which comes 

 of a disciplined character, a body not of highly educated men, 

 but of men who are capable of serving God and the community 

 in many capacities ; men whose tastes on the whole are refined, 

 who help to preserve the higher things of life because they have 

 learned themselves to value them, and who by their moderation 

 and the respect which it earns exercise a steadying influence 

 in the State. 



Discussion. 



Professor H. Langhorne Orchard (in the Chair) had much 

 pleasure in asking the audience to express their thanks to the author 

 of the Paper for the interesting and lucid manner in which he had 

 brought before them the difficulties besetting a pubhc school- 

 master's work, and the public benefits by which that work is 

 attended. The public school teaches children not their private 

 duty only, but also that which they owe to the public. The public 

 school fits the boy (or the girl) for public service, and for taking 

 useful place in the life of the community. The thing to be specially 

 aimed at is not acquisition of knowledge so much as acquisition of 

 character and healthy development of mental faculties. A good 

 digestion and assimilation is preferable to food aggregation, be the 

 food never so excellent. 



Education is better than mere instruction, and the author rightly 

 affirms their distinction. The young mind must not be treated 

 as a lumber room, nor even as a granary. It is a field, with qualities 

 and potencies to nourish, develop and fructify the seed. By leading 

 the learner to help himself, education tends to successful co-operation 

 between teacher and pupil, unto public advantage. But education 

 must be religious education, based on the fundamental Bible 

 truths of Christianity — God's revelation of Love in the personal 

 Saviour. 



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