dry, useless matter is pounded into the
pupils. These matters, that the pupils are made to memorize, take up
most of their time and engage their most precious brain-power;
whereupon, at the University, the identical process is carried on
further. They are there taught a mass of antiquated, stale, superfluous
lore, along with comparatively little that is valuable. The lectures,
once written, are reeled off by most of the professors year after year,
course after course, the interlarded witticisms included. The high
ministry of education becomes with many, an ordinary trade; nor need the
students be endowed with great sagacity to find this out. Furthermore,
tradition regarding University life sees to it that the young folks do
not take their years of study too seriously, and many a youth, who would
take them seriously, is repelled by the pedantic and unenjoyable style
of the professors. The decline in the zeal to learn and to study is a
fact generally noticed at all our Universities and higher schools, and
is even cause for serious concern with those in authority. Intimately
connected therewith is the "grafting" tendency, which, in these days of
ours, so poor in character, makes great progress and grows ever ranker
in the higher schools. To have "safe views" takes the place of
knowledge, and the poison spreads. To be a "patriot," that is to say, a
person without a mind of his own, who carefully takes his cue from
above, sees how the wind blows there, and trims his sails accordingly,
bends and crawls,--such a person is more considered than one of
character and knowledge. When the time for examination approaches, the
"grafter" crams for a few months what seems most indispensible, in order
to squeeze through. When, finally, examination has been happily passed
and an office or professional post is secured, most of these
"ex-students" work along in a merely mechanical and journeyman style,
and are then highly offended if one, who was not a "student," fails to
greet them with the greatest respect, and to treat them as specimens of
some other and higher race. The majority of the members of our so-called
higher professions--district attorneys, judges, doctors, professors,
Government officials, artists, etc.,--_are mere journeymen at their
trades, who feel no need of further culture, but are happy to stand by
the crib_. Only the industrious man discovers later, but only then, how
much trash he has learned, often was not taught the ve