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The Education of the Youth

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Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Sep 5, 1907

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 84, No. 35.

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The Education of the Youth

WITH what interest the planter watches his grove of oranges! how carefully he plants the seeds, waters and cares for the ground, each day visiting the grove and anxiously watching for the first signs of life that will bring him the desired results.
We may well compare sound education to a tree that first begins as a tiny seed placed in the soil, germinating and expanding into trunk, branches, leaves, and finally into fruit. In man we see the same organic parts—an uninterrupted chain. We see in the new-born child those hidden faculties which, in the future life, will gradually unfold.
Education may be divided into two consecutive parts, dwelling first upon that which is termed the physical.
No planter would think for a moment of crowding his trees, or of putting around them too much fertilizer, hoping by this means to cause them to bear the finest fruit in a short time. Well he knows that such a course would result in the destruction of the tree. So it is with the child; his physical frame will submit to just so much, then nature rebels. Pestalozzi exclaims, “Men, fathers, force not the faculties of your children into paths too distant before they have attained strength by exercise, and avoid harshness and overfatigue. When this right order of proceedings is anticipated; the faculties of the mind are weakened, and lose their steadiness and the equipoise of their structure.”
In many of our large cities we are brought face to face with startling facts. Many of the children, either in the home or in the school, are being educated with only the mental object in view. We are constantly coming in contact with some child whose educators are urging him forward, anticipating the time when he will go forth from college, carrying his diploma or record of standing at the head of his class. Such individuals, if they do take the lead, which is seldom, as they generally break down under such a strain, make a failure of life from an educational view. What we need at the present time is an all-round education, which will not only prepare the child physically to battle with life, but morally also.