SYMMETRY IN EDUCATION by Eliza H. Morton

Seventh-Day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Thursday, February 12, 1880

FromThe Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, Vol. 55, No. 7

SYMMETRY IN EDUCATION.

By Eliza H. Morton

EXERCISE gives strength and power. Learning the principles of music will not make a man a musician. Practice is necessary in order to give the fingers that flexibility which is so indispensable to the accomplished performer. It is so with every power of the mind and every member of the body. Exercise is the power which causes growth and progress.

Teachers should recognize this principle, and not suffer their pupils to exercise any one faculty to the neglect of others. Pupils who have a taste for mathematics should be encouraged to study the natural sciences and language, and vice versa. In the perfect body all the members are equally attended to, and all the muscles are properly exercised. So, also, in the perfect mind all the faculties are developed and exercised in like proportion. None are dormant; none have excessive growth.

It is, no doubt, better for individuals to follow that trade or profession for which they have a natural inclination. This they can do without allowing it to monopolize them altogether. Of course it is impossible for one man to become conversant with all knowledge, or to thoroughly understand all trades; yet he can become posted on subjects of general interest, and cultivate to a good extent all the legitimate powers of his mind.

If these principles were more generally understood and practiced by parents and teachers, we should not have so many one-sided men and women in the world. Physical deformity is more noticeable than mental deformity. If a man were habitually to use his right hand to the neglect of his left, until that member became large and strong and the other weak and puny, he would be looked upon as insane; yet men may be met with on every hand who exercise one faculty of the mind, and suffer the others to remain dormant (although it is as inconsistent as the case cited above), and it is of such a common occurrence as to escape remark.—ELIZA H. MORTON, in College Record.