The Evening Star WEDNESDAY, JULY 12, 1871.

Evening Star, Volume IX, Issue 2621, 12 July 1871, Page 2

The Evening Star WEDNESDAY, JULY 12, 1871.

Those who listened to the addresses delivered by the Professors who have already marked out the course of studies for their University course, must have been struck with the vast fields of thought and learning opened to the youth of Otago. And those who enter as students must make up their minds to labor in them if they mean to maintain equality with cultivated man in other civilised nations of the globe. The opportunities for prose-

outing these various studies are really greater here than in most other countries. Although Otago has passed through a time of depression, there is not so much pressure on the means ot existence as in countries of the Old World, nor even as in America; and the expeuce of a University course is reduced to a minimum. Nor need those who have had the necessary pre-liminary-training shrink from grappling with the different subjects proposed to be studied. So great a change has taken place in the modes of giving instruction that learning is divested of half its difficulties. Professors are now-a-days real aids to learning—not goads to urge students forward, but guides to help them on their way. So far, then, as our present start goes, _ wo have arrived at a stage that promises to be an advanced step towards raising our population to the highest attainments in science and philosophy. As respects the first students entered, whatever their preliminary course, whatever authors they may have studied, they must avail themselves as best they may of the more or less favorable preparation for those higher pursuits. But it seems to us that in future, throughout all the schools in the Province, the ordinary course of instruction should be so arranged as to load up to the University course. Whether such a plan has been kept in view or not, we cannot say, but if not, it would be advisable that this should be steadily aimed at. We do not know that it is absolutely necessary to bind schoolmasters to one set of books, so much as to train children in that method of investigation and reading that will render after study easy and pleasant, instead of wearying and irksome. Those who listened to the lectures given by the professors who have already commenced their course, must have been struck with the different view's of education held by them from those generally entertained. They point out clearly the difference between cramming and educating. They point out that what is aimed at, is not so much a knowledge of facts or language, as the training of every student’s mind to habits of careful and accurate investigation, so that even every thought that presents itself may be weighed, analysed, and tested. It is to the more general development of this mental power that the world owes its present advanced civilisation. Formerly the privilege of a few who were in advance of their fellows, it was comparatively useless,Jjecause ofJhejjre; mankind. Three or four centuries back, a man would have been burnt for a wizard, who could have transmitted a message to another with lightning speed at ten miles distance: any machinery adapted to lighten human labor by multiplying means of production, would have been looked upon as an invasion of the rights of labor, anddestroyed. Ridiculous as it may seem in those days, even to bend the wind to work out the devices of the human will, or to command the fire to do its bidding in revealing the mysteries of mineralogy, were looked upon as impious meddling with the Divine decrees. Ignorance had drawn a cordon round the domain of science, beyond which it was not allowed to pass. There used to be, and even now is, a prejudice which the world’s experience has not dissipated, although facts stand out in strong relief to contradict it. The idea prevails that knowledge—mental training—unfits men for the every-day work of life. A great deal of talk goes on amongst those whose acquaintance with the subject is very suj>erficial about technical education, which they are persuaded will be of more use than a University course. But precisely the same faculties of mind require to be brought into operation in attaining technical knowledge in its now extended sense, as are necessary to the scholar and the philosopher. The difference is that the worker applies the principles and knowledge he has acquired to art. He will not be the less an adept in the use of tools through a knowledge of anatomy; on the contrary, he will be able to avoid many habits that, once acquired, render toil more toilsome, and with ease to use every muscle to the best advantage. To take a very familiar example. Most of the bad penmanship in the world arises from the unskilful positions of the body and hand in writing. The slightest acquaintance with the means of adapting both to the work to be done would correct this. Yet the evil has gone on from generation to generation and boys and girls are allowed to go through the drudgery of acquiring mechanical habits which they neverovercome in after life, and which they would have never been allowed to fall into if their writing tutors had considered the adaptability of the means to the end ; and which they themselves would have corrected did they know the reason why. Use has familiarized us with ugly caligx-aphy, and so the evil is perpetuated. And so it has been in many other branches of human acquirements. We look

forward, therefore, to the time when oomeral culture will uproot all these defects, and to this end the education of children should tend from its earliest stage. We were once told by an Irishman he had had a good education but no learning. Ho made a distinction which it would be well for all to mark —a man may be learned but not educated. The aim of our common schools should bo to train children in such habits of mind as will fit them to pass easily through the severer courses of study at the University.