of the word, how ill
fitted for the realities of work-day life, when first he emerged in
self-sufficient pride from the sacred walls, and launched boldly out
upon the world. At the time when, according to the popular acceptation
of the term, the education is completed, it is in truth but just begun;
and he who, upon the slender capital of college lore, should set himself
up for a finished man, one competent to take upon himself the duties,
responsibilities, and labors of active life, would soon find to his
sorrow that he was yet but a babe in wisdom, and yet needed a long and
severe discipline ere he could be considered one of the world's workers.
In the few years devoted, in our country, to the education of youth,
little more can be done than to teach them the value of knowledge and
the proper method and system of its acquisition, leaving to the
exertions of the after years that education of the mind and development
of the intellectual powers which constitute the finished man. And this
should be the object of all our schools, for females as well as for
males, to inculcate the truth that the true education begins where the
schools leave off, and depends entirely upon the scholar himself, aided
only by that groundwork of preparation, that systematizing of effort,
imparted by the tutor in the tender years. This end should be ever
before the teacher's eyes, and the whole course of study adjusted with a
view thereto. And the instruction imparted should be of such a character
as most thoroughly to fit the student for future study, giving him a
firm foothold upon the most essential branches of knowledge, from which
he may advance steadily and securely when left to himself; frequently
warning him that this is but the beginning of great things, and that the
abstrusities of wisdom, wherein is all its aesthetic beauty and its
holiness--all its moral good--lies far beyond, where it can only be
reached by the most patient, persevering, and unremitting toil; not
forgetting, at the same time, to point out the glorious reward which
awaits the seeker of truth. The effect of such a system would soon be
felt, not only in our national life, but in our very civilization. For
thus would be thrown out upon our society, year after year, a class of
thinkers, of earnest, working, strong-minded men and women, searchers
after truth and disciples of the highest good, instead of the crowd of
half-fledged intellectual idlers who yearly emerge from ou