Excerpt from Christian Educators in Council: Sixty Addresses by American Educators; With Historical Notes
Man is confronted with two possibilities: he may become worse or better. Those looking on the sunset of life are apt to see the shadows of evil growing; but our day accepts the idea that man has not only gone forward with time and the course of events, here worse and there better, but that on the whole he has greater possibilities and is in better conditions. We agree with Whittier when he exclaims,
"Take heart! The waster builds again.
A charmed life old Goodness hath;
The tares may perish, but the grain
Is not for death.
God works in all things; all obey
His first propulsion from the night;
Wake thou and watch! the world is gray
With morning light."
The instinct of life in the animal is hardly more universal than the aspiration of man for improvement; individuals, families, societies, churches, nations, races, seek for its measure. Every new scheme for the amelioration of man"s condition, every ism or ology or reform, lays claim to attention on the ground of its power to improve human affairs. Great writers and orators have each advanced the claims of their favorite theme - industry, commerce, travel, poetry, history, philosophy, science, art, religion, education - each of these has performed its great part and deserves its eulogy. We disparage none; but we may say that whatever commerce, or industry, or philosophy, or religion, even, has accomplished, that only remains which has been wrought into man or his conditions by those processes of forming habits of thought or action, of growth, of nursing, or training, or instruction, which we call education. We may not pause to define this term, or lift it out of the crude notions that limit it to the book or the teacher, or that flatter every body with the idea that he knows all about it without attending to it, and is qualified and ready to assume its responsibilities whenever he has failed in every thing else. These are evils that must be cured by the onward march of culture.
The power of education is so admitted in the best thinking of civilized nations in our day, that all men point to Sadowa and Sedan, those scenes of conflict and horrid war, and tell us that we find the cause of victory not alone in the bravery of the generals, not alone in the material of war, but in the education of the respective combatants. The nations of the earth, laden with the articles illustrative of their accomplishments, meet in the great world"s fairs in peaceful contest, and compare their positions in the trades and industries, and the most considerate and thoughtful inquiry shows that not merely the investments in commercial fleets, not merely the money invested or the numbers engaged in industries, but the skill taught in the schools, determines the supremacy of their articles in the markets of the world. Morever, intercommunication is so rapid and direct in spite of oceans and mountains, indeed of all natural barriers and of all impediments imposed by nations, that every producer is brought into competition with every other, wherever he may live on the globe, and thus the quality of each article determines its sale, and its quality is dependent upon the skill of the producer, and that skill upon his education. Thus commerce by its immutable laws daily enforces the lessons of these great contests of war and peace.
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