THE EDUCATIONAL INTERESTS OF MASON COUNTY.
Page 266

Unpolished marble does not show Its beauties to the sight, Until the labored polish doth Make all its colors bright. The youthful mind inclines to rest In Nature's finest mould, Until, by education dressed, Its powers doth unfold. Let us imagine that a young immortal is placed before us, whose duty it is to give him an education. This word signifies that we are to take him into our hands, find out what faculties he possesses, and then make the most of every one of them, preserving, however, a just balance among all his varied powers. Not one of those powers were given him to lie dormant. He can never be a real man until all are developed. It is not our business to give him a certain amount of knowledge, to practice him in certain arts, or to teach him a profession. He comes to us to be educated, not to be crammed with other people's ideas, nor to learn a trade. The ideas he can get afterwards by reading. The trade he can acquire when he is prepared for it. What shall we do for this young being, whose future we are to form for him? As quick as possible let us make a man of him. Let us, in the first place, take him up as a physical being, and young and feeble as he is, see what we can do for him. Let the persons who have the charge of him in this particular know everything about his body. Let them map out that knowledge to the best of their abilities, with a deep consideration of the case in hand, to the comprehension of their pupil. Let them instruct that pupil not only in the anatomy and physiology of his body, but in the laws of life and health, of strength and growth, and of that essential exercise by which the highest physical beauty is developed. Let the effort then commence, in which the scholar will enthusiastically unite, so soon as he is made to understand it, to rear up out of this beginning the completest, strongest, healthiest, hardiest, most beautiful and graceful being possible. Let him not only be exercised, but exercised scientifically, by a man who knows every bone and muscle of his body-every want and possibility of his physical existence. Let one set of exercises be suited to employ, invigorate and enlarge the muscles; let another inflate the lungs, enlarge the chest, and give larger scope for the growth and development of the internal organs. A third will give him ease of motion and gracefulness of carriage. Nor need we stop when these ends are gained. The organs of sensation, which are useful according to their power and accuracy, may be astonishingly improved by a course of scientific practice. The eye can be educated to see, the ear to hear and the hand to feel, and the remaining senses do their appropriate work. Nature, in these particulars, gives us the beginning and a subject capable of the highest degree of improvement. It is the business of effort and of art to carry that beginning to the best and highest attainments. Instead of suffering the strength and health and beauty of our pupil to waste away, as they do, almost universally, after the first hour of education is begun, we should not only preserve them all, but carry each of them to a perfection which nature, unaided by education, can never reach. The young man, when he goes from our hands, with all his other qualifications, in place of being the sickliest, weakest, and most pallid and cadaverous person in society, ought to be, physically, a pattern and paragon for all other men, with a good conscience and a brisk pulse, one whose head rarely pressed the pillow while others are astir. Polite without perfumery, graceful without a rattan; meditative, without stimulating cups, narcotic juices or voluptuous fumes. Without particular and judicious treatment, however, this cannot be. Such a result will no more follow from the fact that a child lives on to the estate of manhood, than it follows that the crab-apple will gradually bear better and better fruit, till the most luscious sorts shall drop from its outspreading branches, because the shower and the sunlight continue to moisten and warm the soil and atmosphere in which it grows. Let us also, while this physical training is going on. Look carefully and philosophically into its mental constitution, determine precisely what intellectual faculties he possesses, and then set every one of these faculties to work, that we may thereby give each and all their utmost development. With a chart of the human mind spread out before us, we shall at once see the work we have undertaken to accomplish. We are to draw out, expand, strengthen and mature, and set in harmonious action every one of the prescribed possibilities of thought. It is easy enough when we have fixed upon mental growth as the first object of scholastic discipline to select from the boundless field of human knowledge those studies, which, while they are best adapted so promote this growth, will also furnish the mind with the most important truths. This secondary object can be best attained, in fact, by pursing a perfectly philosophical and universal method, for truth is the food of thought, and those sciences which are best adapted to develop the several faculties of the mind, will be found to be precisely those of the highest future value to the man. When that man goes out from his scholastic life, he will not be as graduates in general now are, the imbecile possessor of theoretic knowledge, but a being of varied powers. The word power exactly expresses the nature of his being. Every one of his capacities has become a power. You need not ask him what he knows. Ask him what he can do. In his ability to do consists his superiority over those who only know. They, in the abundance of their lore can tell you all the laws of reason; because they have been memorizing the elementary principles of logic. He can reason, because the full expansion of this element of his being has been the direct object of his exertions. They can recite by the hour what has been written concerning the arts, based on imagination, particularly the works of great masters. He, through these works, has been cultivating his own imagination. They (it is possible) can tell the names and detail the faults and graces of the great authors of antiquity. He can both write and speak. They are men of information. He of power, securing to himself that wholeness and evenness of mind without which no one can be truly great. This degree of perfection must be reached by exertions to develop a capacity, not to furnish it. OUR LIFE. "Upon the summit of a hill, whose sides sloped either way, A toil-worn traveler musing stood, upon a summer day Behind him lay the path of life, his weary feet had sped; Before, the dim declining way that to the future led. And on his ear there rose a song of mingled wail and mirth, From memory's wonder-waking harp, the music of the earth, And sights and sounds and dreaming things that evening shadows bring, Up to the windows of the heart like birds upon the wing. A vision of his childhood's home, a group in alder grove, A mother's, brother's, sister's voice, the first young dream of love. The fair bride blushing in his arms, the infant on her breast, And, ah, the green mounds by the way, where we laid them down to rest. And much he mused on perils past, of toils and hopes and fears, Like April skies all mingled up with sunshine, shades and tears. And golden wealth so widely sought, and honors bright and brief, That won the thoughtless throng's applause, but filled his heart with grief. I will not say he turned away, in sadness or in gloom, Or that the world he left behind, was of his hopes the tomb; Though heaviness was in his heart, hope kindled in his eye; Behind him was a world of change; before, a changeless sky." ____________ OUR EDUCATIONAL FACILITIES. Having on the preceding pages spoken of the benefits of a mental, moral and physical education, we now refer more in detail to the facilities possessed by our county for disseminating the benefits above set forth, the values of which are incalculable. Education leads into exercise the active powers of man, those which God has endowed and made active for this end. Science, all science enlarges these faculties and gives them scope and vigor. The memory, the understanding, the taste, the power of association, are all to be cultivated. They grow by exercise, and only in this way. We premise by saying that the trust conferred upon those having the superintendance of the public schools, is a responsibility scarcely less or inferior in importance to that of the administration of the government. The government itself depends in no slight degree upon the education of those by whom it is hereafter to be controlled. Amid the various conflicting opinions on oral, political and religious subjects there is need of charity and forbearance, concession and compromise. Citizenship is of no avail unless we imbibe the liberal spirit of our laws and our institutions. Through the medium of the common schools are the rising generation of all nationalities assimilated readily and thoroughly, forming the great American people. The common schools are alike open to the rich and the poor, the citizen and the stranger. It is the duty of those to whom the administration of the schools is confided, to discharge it with magnanimous liberality and Christian kindness. While the law should reign supreme, and obedience to its commands should ever be required, yet in the establishment of the law which is to control, there is no principle of wider application, or of higher wisdom, commending itself to the broad field of legislation or of municipal action, to those who enjoy its benefits and its privileges, and to which all should yield a cheerful obedience, than a precept which is found with nearly verbal identity in the teachings of Confucius and those of Jesus Christ, acknowledged by all and endeared to all by association and education, viz: "All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them." The constitution of 1870, of our State, the fundamental law, provides "That the free exercise and enjoyment of religious profession and worship without discrimination shall be forever guaranteed, and that no person shall be denied any civil or political rights, privilege or capacity on account of his religious opinions. No person shall be required to attend or support any ministry or place of worship against his consent; nor shall any preference be given by law to any religious denomination or mode of worship." A learned teacher and author, in speaking of the duties of instructors of youth, says their duty is "to take diligent care, and exert their best endeavors to impress on the minds of children and youth committed to their care and instruction, the principles of morality and justice, and a sacred regard to truth, love of their country, humanity, and universal benevolence, sobriety, industry and frugality, chastity, moderation and temperance, and all other virtues which are the ornaments of society." It will not be insisted that this duty, so beautifully set forth, is other than in conformity with the noble constitution of our State, above quoted. Neither will it be claimed that the Bible, in any of its translations, is averse to sound morality, or to those virtues designated as proper to be inculcated. If this book is proper, if consonant to sound principles or morality; then can it be claimed that it is adverse to the interests of morality and education, and exclude it from the common schools. Reading the Bible in school is no more an interference with religious belief than the reading the Mythology of Greece and Rome, or an affirmance of the truth of Mahomedanism an interference with religious faith. Our Legislature very justly leaves the selection of books to be used in our schools to the directors, teachers and superintendents, who are elected by a majority of the community for which they act, thus reflecting the will of their constituents. There is no compulsory attendance, no religious tests required, no essentials of belief, no property qualifications to entitle a scholar to the benefits of the common schools of this State. He may be a Jew, Mahommetan, Catholic or Protestant. He may believe much or little, or have no belief at all, but in no case can he be deprived of instruction. The constitution and laws impose no test or other impediment to debar any from the public schools. If the writing of Gallileo, Copernicus or Newton should be derogatory to the opinions of any individual, is that any reason why the youth of the country should be educated in ignorance of the teaching of these philosophers? Shall Locke, Bacon, Milton and Swift be stricken from our list of authors, because some church votes them heretical writers? Hence, the wisdom of our constitution and laws placing the selection of books in the hands of school officers, elected by the people whom they serve, as before stated, thus reflecting the will of their constituents. Our grand old system of equality, regards the Pagan and Mormon, the Brahmin and the Jew, the Sweedenborgian and the Budhist, the Catholic and the Quaker, all as possessing equal rights under our beneficent laws in the common schools. The decrees of a council, conference, or the decisions of a Ulema, are alike powerless before our laws. It acknowledges no government external to itself; no ecclesiastical or other organization as having power over her citizens, or any right to dispense with the obligations of its laws. The doctrine is the supremacy of the people, and that all government is founded on their authority, and instituted for their benefit. We defend our common schools. They are our Alma Mater. It is the enviable lot of the age in which we live, to see "The church and state that long had held Unholy intercourse, now divorced. She, who on the breast of civil power Had long reposed her harlot head, (The church a harlot then when first she wedded civil power,) And drank the blood of martyred saints, Whose priests were lords, Whose coffers held the gold of every land, Who held a cup-of all pollutions full." In the early settlements the school preceded the church, and the educational position now held by our county is an enviable one. We refer with pleasure to the fine school edifices of Havana, Mason City, Bath, and the one now in process of erection at the pleasant village of Easton. These splendid buildings are very justly the pride of their respective localities. The building in Havana, erected in 1875, at a cost of only $30,000, is that city's best ornament. Our people are under obligations to our excellent School Board for assuming the high position they did in the erection of that building, that not only meets the present wants of the city, but will do so for many years to come. The architecture, the mechanical execution, and all the details of ventilation and heating are on the most approved scientific basis. Our School Board, composed of Messrs. Isaac N. Mitchell, Jacob Wheeler and Judson R. Foster (we would like to name each one first in the list to give each a special prominence) will long deserve the consideration of our citizens, not only for the building, but for placing our schools in the control and management of the very able corps of teachers that have and will hereafter assume its management. In selecting female teachers, they sought for ability, experience and adaptation, and one year last passed has proven the wisdom of their selections. The female teachers are Miss Gertie Chase, Miss Katie Kemp, Miss Kissie Wright, Miss Theresa Burnell, Miss Sadie M. Hutchins, Miss Nellie M. Beane, Miss Jennie E. Hutchins. Under their superlative management for the year last past, the schools have made such fine progress that the entire corps have been retained for the coming year. And while the Directors wrote dignoir after the names of each of the other teachers, it is no disparagement to them that they wrote dignissimus after Miss Burnell's. Mr. Thos. W. Catlin, a graduate of Yale College, is employed as Superintendent for the coming year. The schools of Bath are supplied with a competent and efficient corps of teachers, and so satisfactory have been their services that they too have been retained for the coming year. Their fine and commodious edifice is creditable to the very laudable ambition of the town to excel in her educational interests. We have been unable to obtain data of the schools of Mason City to enable us to give the facts in reference to their managements and prosperity. We have made frequent applications to the county superintendent therefore, but have failed up to this date to receive them. We have learned, however, from individuals of that city, that their very fine and commodious edifice is well and competently occupied by an able superintendent, and corps of teachers, to whose faithfulness and abilities the people feel themselves indebted. Another edifice has been spoken of, to be erected in the eastern part of the city. We would refer in detail to every school house and every teacher in Mason county could we do so, and did space permit, but we must forbear that pleasure and simply state that all are very competently supplied, and the class of school buildings throughout the county are creditable to those who have their charge. We cannot express the advantages of our system of schools. It is a fact observed by all, that the best and most vigorous and comprehensive minds of our country have arisen from the masses-from the common people. This is a rule, and not an exception, and exceptions to this rule are very rare. This is attributable to our school system. It is ability and power that makes the progress and advancement, and ultimately attains eminence in politics, law and scientific attainments. The same is true of the most successful manufacturers, merchants, mechanics and farmers. It is the poor man's son, dependent on his own individual energies, that is successful in life; a most emphatic commentary on our school system, and our governmental institutions. We once attended a noted school examination where the son of an Irish laborer carried away first honors in all his recitations, and the son of a wealthy citizen and high official was excused, after he had made repeated failures, from further examination. Money, position and influence will not buy talent, energy, perseverance and application. Some of these results are attributable to the exercise and muscular-physical development which are predominant in the poorer people. "There is a bird, God bless its feet, That chirps a music very sweet, Upon the snow. Let other warblers come in spring, Amid the flowers their notes to sing, And plumage show. But give me yet that little bird Whose cheerful voice is often heard In winds that chill. Blest emblem of God's child of grace, Whose soul the storm of life can face, And carol still."

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