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��THE GRANITE MONTHLY.
��whose only means of education were their own earnings. He had felt the weight of the burden they were carry- ing, and it was his joy to lighten it where he could, and where he could not, to inspire the hearers with pluck and perseverance to carry it through.
Third. He was not merely an in- structor, he was an educator. In teaching, his chief aim was, not to stuff in what was without, but to draw out what was within. It was not his way to do for learners the work of solving their hard problems and unraveling their tangled difficulties, but first, to inspire them with the conviction that they had the ability to do this for themselves, if they would only go to work in the right way, and then, insist that they should go to work in the right way. With respect to mental education, the ultimate achievement at which he aimed — to which he made all other acquirements subordinate, and all teaching, discipline, and drill to contribute, was to elaborate and estab- lish in the mind right habits in doing its work ; the habit of beginning what- ever study or occupation at the right point and mastering the first difficulty in the process before advancing to the next, — of conquering all enemies in the rear before attacking any in front ; of maintaining a sharp distinction be- tween knowledge clearly gained and dubious guess-work ; of regarding no information as clearly in possession until it could be clearly stated ; and of working, in the season of work, with clear method, concentrated force, and stead)- application. These modes of working, wrought out and fixed in the mind as its habitual methods in what- ever employment, he regarded as the sum and substance of a good, practi- cal education. The results of experi- ments and observation had convinced him that pupils, among the slowest and dullest by nature, if they can only have the elements of mental power in them systematized, concentrated, and fashioned into permanent habits of working with logical method, persistent application, and thorough mastery of
��the first thing to be learned before ad- vancing to the next depending upon it, will eventually outstrip the quickest and brightest who fail to acquire these mental habits. It is reported that a tew weeks before his death "a promi- nent and wealthy manufacturer," of Newport, said : "I owe more to Pro- fessor Crosby than to any other man in the world, — in fact I owe all that I am to him. I was a very dull boy at school, so dull that my parents and teachers gave my case up as hopeless, until he came to Newport to teach ; when I came under his influence and instruction. He saw what my mind required. He put me into mental arithmetic and kept the drill up until my mind expanded and took on a new turn entirely. That was many years ago, but I date my success in life from his instruction." Doubtless many others, once dull and self-distrusting, can look back to "many years ago," and see how, under his sagacious dis- cipline, they acquired self-reliance, and their minds expanded and took on a new turn entirely, and their suc- cess in life was assured.
Fourth. He combined with intel- lectual moral education, and that based on the essentials of Christianity. The modern notion of excluding from ed- ucation in public schools, all inculca- tion of duty to any government higher than human, the notion of teaching morality by substituting, for the author- ity of the Divine Law-giver, the au- thority of the maxim. " honesty is the best policy," in which the judge is the same that has decided in favor of all the dishonesty, vices, and crimes ever indulged in, namely — selfishness ; this notion, carried out in practice, he be- lieved would convert the best govern- ment into the worst, — republicanism into communism with all its anarchic horrors. In contrast with it, he sedu- lously nurtured and stimulated a sense of obligation, not to what one might judge his best policy, but to the moral law of our Creator and Final Judge. He sedulously taught, as he believed, that the best, noblest, and most enduring
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