



Produced by Al Haines










MEANS AND ENDS

OF EDUCATION



BY

J. L. SPALDING

Bishop of Peoria




  WHO BRINGETH MANY THINGS,
  FOR EACH ONE SOMETHING BRINGS




CHICAGO

A. C. McCLURG AND COMPANY

1895




COPYRIGHT

BY A. C. MCCLURG L Co.

A.D. 1895





By Bishop Spalding

  EDUCATION AND THE HIGHER LIFE.  12mo.  $1.00.
  THINGS OF THE MIND.  12mo.  $1.00.
  MEANS AND ENDS OF EDUCATION.  12mo.  $1.00.


A. C. McCLURG AND CO.
  CHICAGO.




CONTENTS.


CHAPTER

   I.  TRUTH AND LOVE
  II.  TRUTH AND LOVE
 III.  THE MAKING OF ONE'S SELF
  IV.  WOMAN AND EDUCATION
   V.  THE SCOPE OF PUBLIC-SCHOOL EDUCATION
  VI.  THE RELIGIOUS ELEMENT IN EDUCATION
 VII.  THE HIGHER EDUCATION




MEANS AND ENDS OF EDUCATION.




CHAPTER I.

TRUTH AND LOVE.

None of us yet know, for none of us have yet been taught in early
youth, what fairy palaces we may build of beautiful thought--proof
against all adversity;--bright fancies, satisfied memories, noble
histories, faithful sayings, treasure-houses of precious and restful
thoughts; which care cannot disturb, nor pain make gloomy, nor poverty
take away from us--houses built without hands for our souls to live
in.--RUSKIN.

Stirred up with high hopes of living to be brave men and worthy
patriots, dear to God and famous to all ages.--MILTON.


A great man's house is filled chiefly with menials and creatures of
ceremony; and great libraries contain, for the most part, books as dry
and lifeless as the dust that gathers on them: but from amidst these
dead leaves an immortal mind here and there looks forth with light and
love.

From the point of view of the bank president, Emerson tells us, books
are merely so much rubbish.  But in his eyes the flowers also, the
flowing water, the fresh air, the floating clouds, children's voices,
the thrill of love, the fancy's play, the mountains, and the stars are
worthless.

Not one in a hundred who buy Shakspere, or Milton, or a work of any
other great mind, feels a genuine longing to get at the secret of its
power and truth; but to those alone who feel this longing is the secret
revealed.  We must love the man of genius, if we would have him speak
to us.  We learn to know ourselves, not by studying the behavior of
matter, but through experience of life and intimate acquaintance with
literature.  Our spiritual as well as our physical being springs from
that of our ancestors.  Freedom, however, gives the soul the power not
only to develop what it inherits, but to grow into conscious communion
with the thought and love, the hope and faith of the noble dead, and,
in thus enlarging itself, to become the inspiration and source of
richer and wider life for those who follow.  As parents are consoled by
the thought of surviving in their descendants, great minds are upheld
and strengthened in their ceaseless labors by the hope of entering as
an added impulse to better things, from generation to generation, into
the lives of thousands.  The greatest misfortune which can befall
genius is to be sold to the advocacy of what is not truth and love and
goodness and beauty.  The proper translation of _timeo hominem unius
libri_ is not, "I fear a man of one book," but "I dread a man of one
book:" for he is sure to be narrow, one-sided, and unreasonable.  The
right phrase enters at once into our spiritual world, and its power
becomes as real as that of material objects.  The truth to which it
gives body is borne in upon us as a star or a mountain is borne in upon
us.  Kings and rich men live in history when genius happens to throw
the light of abiding worlds upon their ephemeral estate.  Carthage is
the typical city of merchants and traders.  Why is it remembered?
Because Hannibal was a warrior and Virgil a poet.

The strong man is he who knows how and is able to become and be
himself; the magnanimous man is he who, being strong, knows how and is
able to issue forth from himself, as from a fortress, to guide,
protect, encourage, and save others.  Life's current flows pure and
unimpeded within him, and on its wave his thought and love are borne to
bless his fellowmen.  If he who gives a cup of water in the right
spirit does God's work, so does he who sows or reaps, or builds or
sweeps, or utters helpful truth or plays with children or cheers the
lonely, or does any other fair or useful thing.  Take not seriously one
who treats with derision men or books that have been deemed worthy of
attention by the best minds.  He is false or foolish.  As we cherish a
human being for the courage and love he inspires, so books are dear to
us for the noble thoughts and generous moods they call into being.  To
drink the spirit of a great author is worth more than a knowledge of
his teaching.

He who desires to grow wise should bring his reason to bear habitually
upon what he sees and hears not less than upon what he reads; for thus
he soon comes to understand that whatever he thinks or feels, says or
does, whatever happens within the sphere of his conscious life, may be
made the means of self-improvement.  "He is not born for glory," says
Vauvenargues, "who knows not the worth of time."  The educational value
of books lies in their power to set the intellectual atmosphere in
vibration, thereby rousing the mind to self-activity; and those which
have not this power lack vitality.

If in a whole volume we find one passage in which truth is expressed in
a noble and striking manner, we have not read in vain.  To read with
profit, we should read as a serious student reads, with the mind all
alive and held to the subject; for reading is thinking, and it is
valuable in proportion to the stimulus it gives to the exercise of
faculty.  The conversation of high and ingenuous minds is doubtless as
instructive as it is delightful, but it is seldom in our power to call
around us those with whom we should wish to hold discourse; and hence
we go back to the emancipated spirits, who having transcended the
bounds of time and space, are wherever they are desired and are always
ready to entertain whoever seeks their company.  Genius neither can nor
will discover its secret.  Why his thought has such a mould and such a
tinge he no more knows than why the flowers have such a tint and such a
perfume; and if he knew he would not care to tell.  Nothing is wholly
manifest.  In the most trivial object, as in the simplest word, there
lies a world of meaning which does not reveal itself to a passing
glance.  If therefore thou wouldst come to right understanding,
consider all things with an awakened and interested curiosity.

When the mind at last finds itself rightly at home in its world, it is
as delighted as children making escape from restraining walls, as full
of spirit as colts newly turned upon the greensward.

In the realm of truth each one is king, and what he knows is as much
his own as though he were its first discoverer.  However firmly thou
holdest to thy opinions, if truth appears on the opposite side, throw
down thy arms at once.  A book has the power almost of a human being to
inspire admiration or disgust, love or hatred.  To be useful is a noble
thing, to be necessary is not desirable.  The youth has not enough
ambition unless he has too much.  It is difficult to give lessons in
the art of pleasing without teaching that of lying.  The discouraged
are already vanquished.  In judging the deed let not the character of
the doer influence thy opinion, for good is good, evil evil, by
whomsoever done.  When the author is rightly inspired his words need
not interpretation.  They are as natural and as beautiful as the faces
of children or as new-blown flowers, and their meaning is plain.  The
spirit and love of dogmatism is characteristic of the imperfectly
educated.  As there is a communion of saints, there is a communion of
noble minds, living and dead.  To speak of love which is not felt, of
piety which is not a living sentiment within us, is to weaken both in
ourselves and in those who hear us the power of faith and affection.
The best that has been known and experienced by minds and hearts lies
asleep in books, ready to awaken for whoever holds the magician's wand.
Books which at their first appearance create a breeze of excitement,
are forgotten when the wind falls.

A human soul rightly uttering itself, in whatever age or country,
ceases to belong to any age or country, and becomes part of the
universal life of man.  A sprightly wit may serve only to lead us
astray, and to enmesh us more hopelessly in error.  Deeper knowledge is
the remedy for the foolishness of sciolism: like cures like.  In the
books in which men worth knowing have put some of the vital quality
which makes them worth knowing, there is perennial inspiration.  They
are the form and substance of an immortal spirit which, in creating
them, became itself.  "I have not made my book," says Montaigne, "more
than my book has made me."

Were one to ask an acquaintance who knows men to point out the
individuals whom he should make his friends, his request would probably
receive an unsatisfactory reply: for how, except by trial, is it
possible to say who will suit whom?  Those whose friendship would be
valuable might, for whatever cause, be disagreeable to him, as the
greatest and noblest may be unpleasant companions.  Many a one whom we
admire as he stands forth in history, whose words and deeds thrill and
uplift us, we should detest had we known him in life; and others to
whom we might have been drawn would have cared nothing for us.  Between
men and books there is doubtless a wide difference, though a good book
contains the best of the life of some true man.  But when we are asked
to point out the books one should learn