Page:Education and Life; (IA educationlife00bakerich).pdf/27

 *tauqua Scheme" and the plan of "University Extension." Education adheres less rigidly to the old lines, and men can gain a more purely English training, including scientific preparation for industrial and commercial pursuits. These schemes are useful because they tend to popularize education, and they reach a class which would not be reached by the usual courses of study.

But there is danger of departing from the ideal type of education—education for general training and knowledge and manhood. Not that traditional courses must be rigidly adhered to, for a new field of learning has been opened in which may be acquired a knowledge of material nature. But, in the zeal for the modern side of education, there is danger of neglecting the ancient, the classic side, the humanities. Language and literature, history and philosophy and art, since they train expression and cultivate ideals, and teach the motives of men and the nature and destiny of the human race, since they deal with the spiritual more than with the material, since they belong exclusively to man, since they stimulate the activity of divine powers and instincts, since they are peculiarly useful as mental gymnastics, since they are culturing and refining—they still have and always will have a high value in ideal education. The ancient side and the modern side should fairly share the honors in a college course.

The arguments for so-called practical education are fallacious, whenever the nature, time, and possibilities of the pupil will enable him to develop anything more than the bread-winning capabilities. When one knows the pure mathematics, his knowledge can be applied in the art of bookkeeping with a mini