The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 | Page 2

contempt
of the institutions as well as of the rulers of his native land, through a
father's teaching, and so grow up an embryo traitor, ready at the first
signal to embark in any revolutionary scheme or wild enterprise of
visionary reform, such as have been and are still the disturbers of our
national prosperity. For an example of such a result in our day we have
but to look at the youth of the Southern States, whose fiery treason, far
exceeding that of their elders, is nothing more than the outgrowth, the
legitimate extension and development of that bitter denunciation of
rulers who chanced to be unpopular with their fathers, of that
unrestrained license of speech which left nothing untouched, however
sacred, however holy it might be, which chanced to stand in the way of
gross and sordid interest. The ideas of the hot-blooded, fire-eating
Southern youth of to-day, the recklessness and the treason, the
denationalizing spirit of revolution and blood which so readily
manifests itself in contempt of the old flag, and the direst hatred of all
that their fathers held sacred and laid down their lives to sustain--all
this is but the idea, intensified and developed, of the Southerner of a
bygone generation; it is but the natural deduction from his conversation
and life, pondered over by the child, fixed deeply in his heart as the
teaching of a revered tutor, and carried out, by a natural course of
reasoning, to its extreme in the parricidal rebellion of to-day. And yet
that idea was, in its inception, apparently harmless enough, being
nothing more than that denunciation and vituperation of the political
leaders and the ruling powers which chanced to be in the opposition,
whereby the child was in due course of time weaned from his country,
and taught to look lightly upon and speak lightly of that which of old
time was only mentioned with love and reverent awe.
Nor is this the only reform which is needed in the education of our
youth. The phrase 'completing one's education' is used to-day with utter
looseness, and applied to that period when the youth leaves the school
or college for the busy walks of life. How much of error is contained in
such an application of the term he well knows who, after some years of
world life, can look back upon his college days and see what a mere
smattering of knowledge he gained within the 'classic shades,' and how

poorly educated he was, in any and every sense 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 æsthetic 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