--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Bennion, Milton collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 9 number: 5 published: 1906-03 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Milton Bennion, "Concerning the Education of Young Men—I: The Meaning of Education," *Improvement Era* 9, no. 5 (March 1906): 345–347.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera0905unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera0905unse start_page: 345 end_page: 347 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1906-03) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera0905unse publication_year: 1906 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1906, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # Concerning the Education of Young Men—I: The Meaning of Education IMPROVEMENT ERA. Vol. IX. MARCH, 1906. No. 5. CONCERNING THE EDUCATION OF YOUNG MEN. BY MILTON BENNION, M. A., PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY, UNIVERSITY OF UTAH. 1.— THE MEANING OF EDUCATION. "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect. ' ' " This is a statement of the highest ideal of life. Education is the process of attaining that ideal. This process has been described by educators as ' 'love and service to God and man, " which is quite in agreement with the teachings of Jesus. Let us look into the meaning of this phrase. In order that a person may render the greatest service, he must discipline his feelings, and perfect and control all his powers. The perfection of his powers includes both the mental and the physical; and physical perfection means, not merely growth in size and strength, but rather health and control, both positive and negative. Negative control means subjection of the bodily passions and appetites to reason, and the higher feelings; positive control is the ability to do things that require well-directed bodily ac- 346 IMPROVEMENT ERA. tivity. ' 'A sound mind in a sound body, " was the old Roman ideal of education, revived and elaborated by John Locke, who gave this 'splendid advice in regard to soundness of body: "Plenty of open air, exercise, and sleep, plain diet, no wine or strong drink, and very little or no physic. " This may be reinforced and supplemented by the teachings of the Church in the ''Word of Wisdom,'' and the admonition to be clean and chaste in body and mind. But this implies a discipline of the feelings, because there is an interdependence between feelings and bodily states. Let us consider the subject a moment from this standpoint. A Greek teacher wisely said that his business was to lead boys to love the right, and the same truth has been a little more broadly put in the statement that education consists in a just distribution of affection; that is, education demands that we shall love in due proportion those things that are worthy of love, and that we shall hate and fear the things that we ought to hate and fear. ''Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated iniquity: therefore God, even thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows." The perfection of the intellectual powers comes through using them, in acquiring knowledge and applying it, and in creative works, such as planning things, inventing, and, in general, thought production. Great authors sometimes speak of their works as their intellectual children. This creative activity appears in the games and fancies of childhood, and is again manifest with renewed energy and in manly fashion during the period of youth. The youthful imagination may properly soar to its greatest heights in the realm of the ideal and the beautiful, only let its products be sane and worthy of realization. In practical life this creative power is normally manifest in the planning of homes, of industries, the formation of new states and minor civic communities, the drafting of new laws, and the founding of new institutions. Intellectual development is commonly viewed from the standpoint of the acquirement of knowledge. Although this is an inadequate view, it represents an important phase of the subject. We may speak of it as a process of coming into possession of what is most significant in the accumulated knowledge and experience of the race. Education implies knowledge and appreciation of literature, CONCERNING THE EDUCATION OF YOUNG MEN. 347 art, science, religion, and civfc institutions. On the part of each individual, it is a process of constructing a world in his own consciousness. The minute structure of things and myriad forms of life are not a part of his world until he has studied the sciences that reveal to him this world by means of the microscope. The study of the solar system in all its parts, and the innumerable stars in infinite space, moving with a harmony and majesty that seem divine, enlarges his world beyond description to the wholly uninitiated in science. Likewise the study of languages, literature, and history, brings into his world the great and good of all time, the philosophy and art of the Greeks, the laws and civic life of the Romans, the religious fervor and practical wisdom of the Hebrews, and so on through all the ages and all historic peoples. This idea of education as world-building has been made the basis of a philosophy of education by the late Thomas Davidson, and has been worked out by him into a beautiful, idealistic conception, of life. While this view seems to emphasize the mere expansion of the intellect, it includes the feeling for the objects of one's world, and active relations with them. Here is Mr. Davidson's fundamental thought: ''There are as many worlds as there are men. Some are small but well-ordered; some small and illordered; some large and well-ordered; some large and ill-ordered. Some again are rigidly bounded; others are continually expanding. The small well-ordered world gives us the ordinary, respectable citizen, who conforms to the current morality, offends no one, attends to his family, and his business, leaves a good name behind him, and has a grave-stone in the cemetery. Such men form the stable element in every society, and it is well that there are many of them. The small, ill-ordered world gives us the burdens of society, the parasites and ordinary criminals, the men and women who are in destitution, or else are trying to save themselves from it by some form of beggary, theft, or violence. Such a world is poor, fragmentary and confused; the values and emphasis are all misplaced. It usually contains elements altogether irrational and incapable of co-ordination into any world — prejudices, superstitions, supernaturalisms, and the like. The large, well-ordered world gives us the saints, heroes, and benefactors of humanity, the