But every morning of the year,
when it is not a vacation day, you may think of this vast number
leaving home and going to school to be taught. I am sure the picture
will make us all think how wise a Government is that devotes so much
to making us know more, because by learning more we are able to enjoy
more, to do more, to be more. And this makes us better citizens.
Year after year, as men study and learn about what is best to have
children taught in school, the clearer it becomes that what is given
is dictated because of its usefulness. Arithmetic teaches us to
calculate our daily affairs. Grammar teaches us to listen and to speak
understandingly. Penmanship and Spelling teach us properly to make the
signs which represent speech. Geography teaches us of the earth on
which we live, and how we may travel about it. History teaches us how
to understand the doings of our own day and makes us acquainted with
great men of former times, who by striving have earned a place in our
remembrance.
As we go on in our school education, taking up new studies, we find to
a still greater degree that what we learn is for usefulness.
Arithmetic becomes mathematics in general. Grammar is brought before
us in other languages, and branches out into the study of Rhetoric and
Literature. History is taught us of many lands, particularly of
Greece, Rome, and England.
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