PROFESSOR BLACKIES ADVICE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 8986, 25 February 1888, Page 2 (Supplement)

PROFESSOR BLACKIES ADVICE.

" Education Reform" was the subject of a lecture delivered by Emeritus Professor Blackie in Junction-street Hall, Leith, under the auspices of the Excelsior Mutual Improvement Society. Mr. Gilbert Archer occupied the chair. Professor Blackie, in beginning his lecture, said that old men had nothing to do but to tell young men their ripe experience, that they might avoid the reefs and shoals in their way. Commending strongly the subject of physical education, he denounced the game of football, as he now a days saw it played by young men, rushing about exhibiting the qualities of mere brute force, and acting otherwise like a parcel of drunk tigers. (Laughter.) Golf and walking exercise he regarded as the most healthy of all human exercises—talking was so, too, for he had been a walking and talking animal all his life, and they saw where he stood. (Laughter. ) A great deal of the pious drivel they often heard in the pujpit arose from the want of good vigorous health. 1 (Applause.) Botany, geology, and drawing were studies thai should be practically taught to all young people. Logic he would not propose till at least the fourth year at college ; they must remember that it was necessary to possess the steam and the engine before they could apply the regulator. (Applause.) Referring to moral education, he said that the mother was everywhere the great educator. Great men nearly all owed their moral education to their mothers, and it was better to them than genius. (Applause.) It was fully two-thirds of the whole business, for

The heart's aye the part aye That mak's us richt or wrang. (Applause.) Burns was as good as Aristotle. (Applause.) The Bible must be in the school, but not the Catechism. They ought nob to bring that between them and Jesus Christ. He would open the schools daily with a Psalm of David or anybody they liked. They might sing, "Lead, kindly Light," for example anywhere bub in Dingwall. Oh! not in Dingwall! (Laughter.) They would think of the Pope and everything else that was awful. There should be in use in our schools a Scottish Plutarch that would remind our youth of our great heroes, soldiers, apostles, preachers, Bruce, Wallace, John Knox, the Covenanters, and Jenny Geddes. (Laughter).