EDUCATION

DEVOTED TO THE SCIENCE, ART, PHILOSOPHY, AND LITERATURE OF EDUCATION.

VOL. X.

MAY, 1890.

No. 9.

TALENT

TALENTS AND ATTAINMENTS.

BY PROF. EDWIN G. MOORE, ATLANTA, GA.

ALENT was anciently a term used to indicate a sum of money. By an easy transition, it now more frequently indicates mental quality. Whatever is acquired by mental effort may be designated as an attainment. As the fruit which the soil produces may indicate the quality of that soil, so the attainments of an individual may indicate the quality of his mind. Many things, however, may modify both the quantity and quality of the production. These may properly be designated as accidents. Some of these accidents are within our control; others are beyond it. Of those accidents within our control, the most important is culture.

The term culture can, appropriately, be applied only to things which grow. We never cultivate things which do not grow, or are incapable of growth. When we speak of mental culture, we imply that the mind grows. What kind of culture is suitable to

a particular growth, or stage of growth, is an important question. It is necessary that the proper relation of culture to growth should be settled. Growth may proceed without culture and in spite of it. Yet culture may retard growth and even prevent it.

Culture is subordinate to growth. Growth does not occur for the sake of culture, but culture is undertaken for the sake of growth. Before culture can be wisely applied, it is well to understand the natural tendency of growth. It will be discovered that

some tendencies should be encouraged; others suppressed. When growth is slow, or fails in some important particular, culture should furnish such aliment as will quicken or induce it. Encouragement and suppression, then, seem to be the appropriate work of culture.

In the discussion of topics pertaining to the mind, we may be permitted to draw analogies from the natural world. By observing what occurs in the growth of a plant, we may form some conception of mental growth. Whether the seed or germ of the plant contains all the elements that belong to the plant, that is to say, the fibre, juices, tissue, bud, leaf, flower, fruit, or not, it is, undoubtedly, the beginning of them all. Likewise, we may say, that whether that essence, or existence which we call the mind, contains at its inception the elements of perception, memory, reason, sentiment, passion and moral sense, or not, it is certainly the starting point of them all. The cultivation of the young plant consists in suppressing what is hurtful to it, promoting its general development by suitable aliment, and after it has arrived at a suitable stage of strength and vigor, in leaving it alone to follow the law of its nature. The culture of the young intellect may be described in the same manner and almost in the same terms.

It is no part of education to give the young intellect bent or bias in any special direction. If it is found that there is aptitude in any particular line, encouragement may be given in that direction; but this should not be done to the detriment of its general growth.

The agriculturist who cultivates grain does not consider whether his grain is to be used as food for man or beast, or as seed or for any other special purpose. His aim is to produce grain which may be used equally for all purposes. So, the educator of the young intellect ought not to be expected to consider whether the mind he is training is to be devoted to law or medicine, or theology, or mechanics, or agriculture, or trade, or the walks of labor. He should so educate that the recipient of his instruction may be able to follow the bent of his mind with regard to any of them. It is true that the human mind has a vitality and a freedom above and beyond anything in nature; yet, it is affected by its external surroundings. The manner in which the accident of culture is applied to it, has, perhaps, greater influence upon it than all else. If an effort to develop a part of its faculties be attempted to the

neglect of others, we have reason to believe that the whole, as an organism, may be weakened. The aliment which enters an organism during a period of growth, by assimilation, becomes a part of it; and if a single element of growth is wanting, the developed state will be defective. If we recur to the teaching of another science, this position will be established beyond dispute. Suppose a person should wish to develop strength of arm. He might practice with bell, and quoit, and hammer until layer should knit to layer of brawn, Titanic in power; yet so far neglect the muscles of the lower limbs that locomotion would be a task and a pain. To elaborate still further, let us take the figure of a young tree. It shows symmetry and grace in its tendency. Already it excites our admiration as a thing of beauty. Its promised fruit, tinted with vermillion, and russet, and gold, excites our hope as a coming joy. No tree ever gave better promise. But presently a tree culturist finds fault with the tree. He objects to its exuberance; asserts that it will bear too much fruit, more than can be utilized, and, therefore, it should be trained to produce only such as can be used. He will not apply blade and saw at once and remove onehalf of it, for that would endanger the life. He does this: he so covers and secludes the part devoted to sacrifice that no rain or dew can visit it; no ray of warmth or light can reach it; no breath of heaven can kiss it. The young tree, true to its nature, at first puts forth in the dark a few sickly leaves and odorless blossoms. Soon the damp fastens its fangs of poison into twig and branch. They shrivel, rot and fall. The poor tree, no longer erect, bends and leans with its unbalanced burden as if in shame for its deformity. We could give tears for the misfortune of the tree and maledictions for the vandal who marred it. It may be said that no culturer of trees ever pursued such a plan of culture as this. I grant it, but assert that this is precisely what is insisted. upon by some theorists in matters of education. Perhaps the most striking illustration in all literature of the evil effects of injudicious bias is found in John Bunyan's example of the man with the muck rake. Prone almost to the earth in his sordid pursuit, no halos of light or promised crown can lure him even to look up to catch a glimpse of the beautiful universe, or inhale a breath of its heavenly air.

But to return to our line of thought. The work of culture is two-fold, Subjective and Objective. These terms are metaphysi

cal and are coupled with the term certainty or reality for the sake of illustration; thus, subjective certainty and objective certainty; that is to say, what I, myself, know to be true is a subjective certainty, and that which I do not know to be true, but which is equally true, is an objective certainty. These terms, if applied to education must mean about this: If we can conceive of a system of culture which will develop the intellect without the acquisition of knowledge and with no view to such purpose, we have an idea of pure and simple subjective education. Again; if we can imagine a system whose purpose is the acquisition of knowledge without mental development, we have objective education, pure and simple. It may be said that these definitions are mere abstractions and have no existence in practical education. Let this be granted for the sake of argument, and still we have, as an admitted fact, the existence of an abstract quality as inherent in both theories. This abstract quality is the mental quality, and the question arises which of the two theories is preferable as an educational scheme, the one which tends to bring this quality up to the full measure of its capacity, or the other which seeks to make the acquisition of such knowledge as can be utilized of prime importance, and remand the intellectual growth to a secondary place of importance, or rather, leave it to care for itself. It is claimed by the advocates of both theories respectively, that the best intellectual results will follow each scheme. Which one is right? It is fortunate for the human race, that neither can be carried out. The nature of the mind forbids it; but both give color and trend to two distincts systems and in this light we must regard the question. Let us consider the effect of mind upon matter and, for the want of a better term, call this effect a concrete manifestation of mind. Let us remember that the application of some abstract principle is necessary to every concretion, that is to say, without the application of the abstract quality of hardness, nothing can be hard; or that of firmness, nothing can be firm; and so on of all the abstract qualities as applied to the various materials of the universe. Now, the objective theory of education is the acquisition of knowledge with no regard to the improvement of the organ whose province it is to know; to produce concrete manifestations with no thought of the quality which makes concretion possible. This, as a theory is no more reasonable than to expect men to traverse continents without the power

of locomotion; to navigate the seas without ships; to fly without wings.

If we keep before us the fact that the mind, according to its nature gains power with each acquisition, we can see that the refect in the objective theory consists in a disregard of mental law, and therefore is exposed to the evil of unwise culture. Under it, the intellect is not brought directly to its full development, for that is not the direction in which the system moves. The mind thus trained cannot be expected "to rise to the height of every argument," and if it does rise to such a height, it is because it has broken its shackles and renounced its slavery. If we remember that the subjective growth precedes the first act of culture, that no knowledge can be acquired unless there is intellect to grasp it; that as successive attainments increase in importance and difficulty, there must be a corresponding increase in mental grasp; that each step taken begets a reserve of power for the next step, we can have no doubt as to the relative merits of the two systems of education.

The field in which the human intellect has been destined to work may be divided into two areas: that which is near to us, and that which is remote from us. We cannot definitely fix the boundaries of these two areas. That which may be near to some, is doubtless very remote from others. The first gives employment to the perceptive faculties; these are awakened by means of the senses. If the latter is ever reached, it must be done by those intellectual steps, the passage from the known to the hitherto unknown truth which we call reason. To do this, requires a development higher and deeper than any whose aim is merely objective. Millions of men had witnessed the fall of myriads of apples before Newton's day, and a knowledge of the cause was as remote from them as the antipodes. It was his intellect, subjectively developed which used such an incident to ascertain the laws which control the material of the universe.

But let us assume that culture has done its perfect work; that the mental faculties are of good quality and evenly balanced; what then is necessary to success?

We answer, an adequate power of the Will. The will is as much a constituent element of our mental and moral constitution as is memory or conscience. Its function is required all through the period of culture, in fact, there can be no culture without