p. 214 | Education Versus Culture: Learning Into Character

Seventh-Day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · April 1, 1880

FromThe Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, Vol. 55, No. 14

Education Versus Culture: Learning Into Character

—The words “education” and “culture” are by no means synonymous terms. It often happens that a person upon whose education many long years of study have been spent, and of whose learning and acquirements there can be no question, is almost wholly deficient in that gentle deportment and that evident mental aptitude and discipline which mark the man of culture. On the other hand, real culture is not infrequently to be found among those whose opportunities for study and learning have been few, and whose field of observation and action has been limited. One of the surest marks of culture is a power of assimilating that which is learned, and of so disposing of it, in the mental structure, that it may best be used when it shall be called for. The person of culture has a large view, and a ready, but graceful, command of his knowledge. Learning should not be a matter of mere accumulation; it should also be made subservient to a desire to build up a rounded, full, and usable character and disposition. When there is a constant endeavor to attach to each thing learned its reason, and to put it in its proper place in the whole intellectual fabric, it will be found that a well-rounded culture is thus more likely to be attained than by any mere accumulation of wisdom, or by any process of intellectual miserliness in the hoarding of facts in the memory.—S. S. Times.