Principles and Methods by J. J. Taylor

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Apr 2, 1908

Principles and Methods

By J. J. Taylor

AMONG thoughtful persons there is a conviction that the education of the present time is radically defective. In too many instances, instead of making useful men, it produces shrewd rascals. The great criminals, that loot banks, wreck insurance companies, rob public treasuries, devise unlawful schemes, and, oppress the weak under the forms of law or in defiance of law, are not unlearned and ignorant men. Usually they are the scions of the schools, but of defective schools. Instead of being a blessing to them and the world, their education is a curse.

Pres. Woodrow Wilson, speaking both as a philosopher and as a practical observer in a great institution, touches the vital point in these words: “Education is not, after all, when properly viewed, an affair of filling and furnishing the mind, but a business of informing the spirit; and nothing affects spirit but spirit.” A greater than he has taught that no man knoweth the things of a man save the spirit of man which is in him. Any person occupying the place of teacher necessarily teaches more than is printed in text-books. He teaches himself. Excellence in arts, sciences, languages, literatures, or other branches of learning, is important; but vastly more important is the personal character of the teacher. Moral rectitude, involving faith, fidelity, high principles nobly maintained, counts for more than all the forms of technical knowledge; and happy is the parent who realizes this fact in choosing a school for his child.—J. J. Taylor.