The World's Need by W. H. Buxton

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D.C. · Apr 5, 1906

The World's Need

By W. H. Buxton

The world needs men and women of quick perception and sound judgment, those who can see the relation of cause and effect in the physical, moral, and social spheres. Much can be done in youth to cultivate the perceptive powers; but they are of all the faculties the least susceptible of cultivation in adult age. Consequently, if, as Professor Huxley says, deficiency of judgment be the most common intellectual fault, how important it is that children and youth be given the opportunity of forming their own judgments through the use of their perceptions at first hand, and of learning through their own experience the results of conduct. The traditional methods of learning and teaching by rote are responsible for much of the helplessness exhibited by young and old in practical matters.

The world needs clear thinkers. For one person who can give a clear, coherent account of the simplest event, or the logical development of the simplest theme, you will find a score whose ideas are misty, whose sentences trip, whose reasoning is inconclusive or fallacious. Every school exercise should train the student in sustained, logical thinking, and in clear, forcible, and effective expression. Every teacher should be a teacher of logic and of English.

The world needs persistent, self-reliant workers. There is a prevalent idea that the purpose of education is to free men from the necessity of labor; this is far from the true conception. The end and aim of every right educational process is to enable the individual to do more and better work, not merely for himself, but for God and humanity. Students need to realize that none of us live unto ourselves. Education should fit the individual for his place in our complex social and industrial system. In every school exercise, thoroughness and persistence should be cultivated. Students should early form the habit of close application, of overcoming obstacles, of getting results, of “delivering the goods.”

And last, but most of all the world needs men and women of principle, those who will not drift, who will not “follow a multitude to do evil,” but who, on the contrary, will ever say and practise nitor in adversum—“I strive against opposing circumstances.”—W. H. Buxton, in Southwestern Union Record.