The C. L. S. C. as an Educational Force.
This is an age of educational activity. Universities, colleges and seminaries are being multiplied. The public school system is being perfected and in some form is in effective operation in all parts of the Union. Lectures on science, literature and religion impart instruction to the masses, so that this generation is highly favored with facilities for acquiring knowledge. The result of these advantages is already seen in the increased intellectual quickening of the times, in the wide diffusion of information among all classes, and in the spirit of intelligence which characterizes the average citizen.
Among these educational forces the C. L. S. C. has won its place. It is of recent origin, but its growth has been rapid and vigorous, and its power is being felt everywhere. Institutions of learning exert a direct educational influence mainly upon those who are, or have been, enrolled as actual students in their various departments. This number must always be comparatively small, inasmuch as but few persons can command the time and means necessary to enable them to pursue the courses of study laid down in a college curriculum. And if any desire to do this, they must be present in college halls and at educational centers. Hence the educational force of schools of learning is for the most part confined to the locality where they exist, and even there are concentrated mainly upon those enrolled as students.
But the influence of the C. L. S. C. is felt in almost every hamlet in the land. Every circle, however small, is an educational center, which exerts an educational influence, not on its members alone, but on the community as well, through the books and periodicals used, lectures given, and the higher culture attained by the individual members.
The attendance at each of the higher educational institutions in this country will not average more than three hundred students per annum, if it does that. But the C. L. S. C. has on its rolls more than forty thousand names, so that, compared as to its direct influence on the student classes, it is equal in influence to not less than one hundred and twenty educational institutions. From this standpoint, it must be recognized as one of the greatest educational forces of the age.
It has, however, been urged against the C. L. S. C. that its course of study is but meagre when compared with college curriculums, and for this reason its educational tendencies are of but little worth, or even deleterious. We are not of those who believe that a “little learning is a dangerous thing,” but rather think that a “little learning” is far better than absolute ignorance, and that it will always exert a benign influence on its possessor. Whatever affords opportunities for the intellectual awakening and improvement of the people, is worthy of being classed among the educational forces of the age. Certain it is, that many humble artisans, toiling mothers, and overworked seamstresses have found in the C. L. S. C. a force that has elevated them above the drudgery of their daily toil, and has inspired their mental faculties for a new and worthy work, while it has also been the means of bringing increased cultivation and refinement into many homes.
We urge as another reason for regarding the C. L. S. C. as an educational force, that it begets habits of study independent of direct oversight and supervision. Many of the students in our institutions of learning are kept at their tasks with regularity, only by the pressure brought to bear on them by the presence of professors and tutors, and by class rivalries, and whenever they are removed from their college surroundings, and from these constraining forces, they at once relinquish their pursuit of knowledge, and cease to make any further efforts after intellectual development. Such is not the case with the C. L. S. C. Its students are carried forward in their course, not by an impulse from without, but from within, which is continually active, and which is ever operating on their mental energies to secure a more thorough training. But the C. L. S. C. is by no means to be looked upon as a rival to the regular institutions of learning. Far otherwise! It has already become a valuable helper to the schools, and every circle may become a recruiting station from which the colleges and universities may draw many of their best and brightest students. Without doubt many of the young people who enter upon the course of study prescribed for the C. L. S. C. will have such an intense thirst for knowledge created in their souls that they will be impelled to pursue more extended courses of study, and will turn to the colleges and universities to obtain all the advantages they have to offer.
