--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - May, J. P. collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 13 number: 3 published: 1910-01 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'May, J. P., "The Purpose of Education," *Improvement Era* 13, no. 3 (January 1910): 240–243.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1303unse 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: improvementera1303unse start_page: 240 end_page: 243 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1910-01) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1303unse publication_year: 1910 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 1910, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # The Purpose of Education The Purpose of Education. BY J. P. MAY. All people are agreed that man should be educated, but just what education should consist of is perhaps a mooted question. Very disagreement is found, however, regarding the found- little ation,which is the common school course; this is recognized as necessary for the foundation of every child's training. The gen- eral tendency of the times is towards the plan of giving to each student that class of knowledge for which nature has best fitted him, in order that he may be of most use to society, and to him- self. After the common school course is completed, all additional training should be given with the aim in view of developing the pupil along those which he is adapted, and, at the same lines for time, make a normal man of him, with the greatest degree of efficiency compatible with such normality. That such is recog- nized as a good standard, is evident wherever education is an issue. If this standard could be followed more closely, we should have a better class of graduates from our high schools than those usually turned out, and college education would be less of a prob- lem. To give a boy a thorough course in classics, when he is a natural mechanic, is quite contrary to the theories of proper development. Knowledge is becoming too complex for one per- son to be a master of more than one subject or department, hence the all-important question is, what shall be best for my boy? Whose is the duty of determining just what course the young man shall take? Teachers find that the parent ofttimes knows about the real genius of the child. little On the other hand, many teachers are incompetent to advise the youth properly. It THE PURPOSE OF EDUCATION. 241 is evident that the co-operation of student, parent and teacher is the only successful method. Mainly as a result of improper development, we see on all sides young men who have studied their sciences and their arts, and still are not that which they wished themselves to be, and not the class of trained citizens which the state and nation needs most. Perhaps our commercial spirit is partly responsible for the produc- tion of young people trained, but still unfitted, for practical life. "How much money can I earn?" is the ever-present problem before the average young man. In order to get students, the monetary side of an education has been made too prominent by various schools, the result being that young people go to school mainly for the purpose of finding a way, in order that they may get along with less work and more money. The fact that all earth-creatures were adapted for activity, and that man must actually labor, both with his hands and with his brain, is almost lost sight of in many schools. Idleness has killed far more people than war, disease and natural calamities ever killed. Work, good, honest toil, is the maker of men, without which no man can properly develop or evolve. There are other results of faulty or wrongly directed education, chief among which is the production of arrogance and vanity. If education does not prove a sure cure for conceit, then there is something wrong with the system or methods. Educators generally agree that to train a youth properly due attention must be given to the spiritual, the intellectual and the physical. Accepting this self-evident proposition, it is quite remarkable how unbalanced some training really appears. It is not enough that students be taught that every cause has its effect, and that each effect is the result of a definite cause. In training the young man, he should at all times be instructed to classify and correlate his knowledge. Leaving aside the improve- ment of the physical, let us look into the results of the lack of correlation between the intellectual and the spiritual instruction. The writer has met hundreds of young men who have received high school and college training, and yet are very deficient in spirituality. Having taken the best that good parents have accu- mulated; having been given all the love that fond parents can bestow, still there are those who scoff at the ideas and modes of 242 IMPROVEMENT ERA. life of "father and mother." One can often hear the young man say, "0 I have learned more than they. I find that all religions are man-made, and that all men are working for their own wel- fares. If I live a good life, pay my debts, and help the poor, I shall get along about as well as my forefathers." For such reasons as these he quits his church, or allows his name to remain on the record while he does nothing for the advancement of the faith of his fathers. The cause of such conclusions is a lack of assimilation of truths. Harmonization of all facts is not suffi- ciently prominent in education. If such correlation and harmo- nization of truths, for the purpose of solving life's secrets, were given due attention, a remedy for low spirituality would soon be disclosed. Our young men study sociology, and yet fail to apply the truth that the grade of a society can be found from the degree in which people unite to form co-operative assemblages. Instead of getting out of all church work, because he does not agree with every detail of doctrine, the broad-minded man will endeavor to improve the weak places and harmonize the apparent discords. There are many who wear a sure sign of superficiality and lack of proper reasoning by claiming they need no religion, and acting as though they really require no assistance from anyone. The interde- pendence of social units is lost sight of in the mist which improp- erly correlated truths have cast over the sight.Many forget that men were like themselves, there would be no religions and no if all governments— no civilization. The fact that all men are trying to follow the line of least resistance means too much to our young people. They forget that Old Earth was specially created for just such a class of creatures; that one who slumbers too long must lose his identity, his name passing away from among men. Only three generations from "shirt sleeves to shirt sleeves" still rules in the families of the aristocrats. The rich father sel- dom has a son like the sire, because improper education over-bal- anced the youth. The heart of religion is brotherhood. The man who fails to do all in his power to assist the spirit of brotherly love has received wrong education. One can see many men who refuse to have anything to do with religion because they cannot understand all its principles. Of THE PURPOSE OF EDUCATION. 243 course when a doctrine is proved to be wrong it should be cast aside, but because an idea is not understood, is no indication of its being illogical. Because he cannot grasp the whole, and understand every detail, the young man leaves the church. One can see the same person relying on his arithmetic, and yet, perhaps, he never did master its principles; he may use and enjoy an elec- tric light without knowing the secrets of electricity; survey with the transit, without knowing much about magnetism, or get mar- ried on slight acquaintance. Is he consistent in demanding that religion be entirely explained? President Eliot recently spoke about a new religion. Judg- ing from the records of the past, this new religion will contain all the essentials of true religion as we have it, and have added to it a constant stream of truth, correlated and arranged about the same. This great educator recognized the fact that we need religion and must ever have it. Man has developed far enough to prove as true the fundamentals of religion. The duality of man demands religion. Science is a real brother to religion, and in no case has she weakened the faith, of the properly educated man, in God. We have dreamed a greater God, that is all. To him who has been blinded by superficial facts, "God is lost amid his stars." Science tends to prove that matter is becoming crystallized. There is some good evidence to show that the moon is gradually becoming purified by crystallization. Judging from the luxuriant growth of vegetation and varied and huge animals that once grew on this globe, compared with present flora and fauna, our sphere is traveling towards a state of freedom through being crystallized. The sea of glass, which John the Revelator saw, may actually yet be seen. Any man who is broadly and properly educated must surely be- come humble and prayerful - there is no knowledge, properly corre- lated, that should make him otherwise. True humility is a sign of pro- gress, especially when the humble man possesses a good store of knowledge, gleaned from life's many sources. There is no ground on which any argument against spiritual education can rest; on the contrary we have a thousand facts to justify faith in the dictates of the inner man. Milford, Utah.