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to-day which strikes deep down into the hearts of every one present. Never, I believe, has a President of the United States attended a meeting of this organization. Once before it was hoped that a President would attend ; but the wish was never consummated. This year we looked forward to the fufilment of the long-deferred hope, and believed that we should see and have with us President Garfield, the teacher President, the chief magistrate of these fifty million people, accompanied as he was to be by the governors of New England and the members of his Cabinet. We had hoped to listen to words of wisdom from those high in official position, and should have especially welcomed our beloved President among us. He had left the White House to commence the very journey which would have brought him here After visiting Long Branch and his Alma Mater, Williams College, he was to come here with Mrs. Garfield and the children and the families of his secretaries. But, alas! that is all changed. Yet our grief at not meeting him is nothing compared with the pall which hangs over this country far and wide, this terrible Fourth of July. But thank God, friends, he still lives; and I trust that these prayers, which are everywhere offered to our Heavenly Father for the preservation of his life, will be answered favorably; but we must add reverently, God knows best, let his Divine will be done.

to us.

LECTURE III.

THE SCHOOL CURRICULUM AND ITS RELATIONS TO BUSINESS life.

By W. A. MOWRY, A. M., President oF THE ASSOCIATION.

DUCATION is a broad word: it is wider

than the schools, deeper than the curriculum of studies, and higher than childhood and youth. It is not confined to the schools: it begins with the first dawning of the infantile intellect, and it is finished, if at all, in the heavenly world. In its scope it includes all the studies of the school and the college; all the trades and the industries; the editor's sanctum and the historian's study; the poet's favorite glen, where genius most inspires and nature thrills; the artist's studio; the monk's cloister; the field of carnage; the mart of trade; the nations' great highways upon the briny deep; the office of the statesman and the diplomatist; the platform of the orator; the pulpit of the preacher. Infancy, youth, manhood, and age, all alike belong to the realm of education.

With what phrases shall it be defined? How

shall it be chained down with the words of the dictionary? Its limits can hardly be determined; how then can its meaning? Only by catching its spirit and describing its genius; by observing its mission, and noting its intent, its methods, and its results.

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Webster defines "to educate" as follows: "To bring up, as a child; to lead out and train the mental powers of; to inform and enlighten the understanding of; to form and regulate the principles and character of; to prepare and fit for any calling or business, or for activity and usefulness in life."

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Observe the scope of this definition, the verbs used:

I, To bring up; 2, to lead out; 3, to train; 4, to inform; 5, to enlighten; 6, to form; 7, to regulate; 8, to prepare; 9, to fit.

Observe, also, the forces and the objects upon which these verbs exert their power:

I, Bring up a child; 2, lead out and train the mental powers; 3, inform and enlighten the understanding; 4, form and regulate the principles and character; 5, prepare and fit for any calling or business; 6, or for activity and usefulness in life.

In fact, this leaves nothing out. It includes the whole of life: its purposes, its objects, its intentions, its methods, its results; its enjoyments, its happiness, its usefulness.

Such, then, is education. What are its relations to business? How shall a system of education be so arranged as best to prepare the young for the business of this life? Shall such system include or exclude the high school? Is the high school an important factor in the best and most complete, the most successful preparation of the young for business life? And what should be the true course of studies in the high school, to produce the best results?

These are the questions which must engage our attention in this paper. Many things seem to indicate that this is the age of materialism. Many tendencies; at least, are materialistic. Too many minds sometimes of an order too high to make such opinions excusable — either obscure the difference, or altogether blot out the distinction between mind and matter. But we must not make that mistake. It is upon the mind we are at work; and it becomes a matter of profound interest to us not to carry material analogies too far, when we apply them to the realm of spirit. While it is true that there are laws of mind and of its education that may not easily find analogies in the material world, yet it is true also that there are laws which pertain to the mind which closely resemble the laws that pertain to matter. For example, the entire vegetable world is subject to the law of growth. We have the several periods of the life, growth,

and decay of all vegetation; and we have the same in human life. The germ, the twig, the wellgrown tree, its period of full maturity, its decay and final death, all resemble the periods of human life. Again, this human life in its several stages is analogous to the quality and strength and characteristics in general of the mental powers. The mind in childhood is similar in its qualities and development to the body; in manhood the same is true, and in old age. The rapid and vigorous growth of a young tree, as it approaches its period of early ripeness and maturity, closely resembles the intense physi cal and mental growth, development, and activity of the corresponding period of vigor and maturity, both physical and mental, in mankind. So the later period in life of the one bears a strong likeness to the corresponding time in the other.

Again, the laws of development and improvement of the one agree with the corresponding laws of the other. You take the wild strawberry in the state of nature, and by long periods of careful nursing, culture, and care, produce that delicious fruit, of late years found in the markets in such abundance, extreme cheapness, and delicate flavor. Or the wild pear or apple, by equal and long-continued patient care, generation after generation, finally has yielded to education or development or culture, and has given us the almost endless varieties of this delicious fruit now found in the vast orchards of the land.

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