Indeed,
without its co-ordinating influence the education of the common school is
a thing of shreds and patches. Besides, the mind aroused to historic
consciousness, kindled in itself by the best that has been said and done
in all ages, is more apt in the pursuit, intelligently, of any specialty;
so that the shortest road to the practical education so much insisted on
in these days begins in the awakening of the faculties in the manner
described. There is no doubt of the value of manual training as an aid in
giving definiteness, directness, exactness to the mind, but mere
technical training alone will be barren of those results, in general
discriminating culture, which we hope to see in America.
The common school is a machine of incalculable value. It is not, however,
automatic. If it is a mere machine, it will do little more to lift the
nation than the mere ability to read will lift it. It can easily be made
to inculcate a taste for good literature; it can be a powerful influence
in teaching the American people what to read; and upon a broadened,
elevated, discriminating public taste depends the fate of American art,
of American fiction.
It is not an inappropriate corollary to be drawn from this that an
elevated public taste will bring about a truer estimate of the value of a
genuine literary product.
Pages:
2514
2515
2516
2517
2518
2519
2520
2521
2522
2523
2524
2525
2526
2527
2528
2529
2530
2531
2532
2533
2534
2535
2536
2537
2538