EDUCATION.
THE MINISTER’S WOOING.
[Sidenote: Habit.]
A man cannot ravel out the stitches in which early days have knit him.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Human error.]
All systems that deal with the infinite are, besides, exposed to
danger from small, unsuspected admixtures of human error, which
become deadly when carried to such vast results. The smallest speck
of earth’s dust, in the focus of an infinite lens, appears magnified
among the heavenly orbs as a frightful monster.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Defective education.]
True it is, that one can scarcely call _that_ education which teaches
woman everything except herself,—except the things that relate to
her own peculiar womanly destiny, and, on plea of the holiness
of ignorance, sends her without a word of just counsel into the
temptations of life.
OLDTOWN FOLKS.
[Sidenote: Education of man and woman.]
The problem of education is seriously complicated by the
peculiarities of womanhood. If we suppose two souls, exactly alike,
sent into bodies, the one of man, the other of woman, that mere fact
alone alters the whole mental and mortal history of the two.
SAM LAWSON’S STORIES.
[Sidenote: “Keep straight on.”]
“Wal, ye see, boys, that ’ere’s jest the way to fight the Devil. Jest
keep straight on with what ye’re doin’, an’ don’t ye mind him, an’ he
can’t do nothin’ to ye.”
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Letting go.]
“Lordy massy! what can any on us do? There’s places where folks jest
lets go ’cause they hes to. Things ain’t as they want ’em, an’ they
can’t alter ’em.”
PEARL OF ORR’S ISLAND.
[Sidenote: A mutual education.]
Those who contend against giving woman the same education as man
do it on the ground that it would make the woman unfeminine,—as if
Nature had done her work so slightly that it could be so easily
raveled and knit over. In fact, there is a masculine and feminine
element in all knowledge, and a man and a woman, put to the same
study, extract only what their nature fits them to see—so that
knowledge can be fully orbed only when the two unite in the search
and share the spoils.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Baiting the boy.]
“But don’t you think Moses shows some taste for reading and study?”
“Pretty well, pretty well!” said Zephaniah. “Jist keep him a little
hungry, not let him get all he wants, you see, and he’ll bite the
sharper. If I want to catch cod I don’t begin with flingin’ over a
barrel o’ bait. So with the boys, jist bait ’em with a book here
an’ a book there, an’ kind o’ let ’em feel their own way, an’ then,
if nothin’ will do but a feller must go to college, give in to
him,—that’d be my way.”
* * * * *
[Sidenote: A natural education.]
“Colleges is well enough for your smooth, straight-grained lumber,
for gen’ral buildin’; but come to fellers that’s got knots an’
streaks, an’ cross-grains, like Moses Pennel, an’ the best way is to
let ’em eddicate ’emselves, as he’s a-doin’. He’s cut out for the
sea, plain enough, an’ he’d better be up to Umbagog, cuttin’ timber
for his ship, than havin’ rows with tutors, an’ blowin’ the roof off
the colleges, as one o’ them ’ere kind o’ fellers is apt to, when he
don’t have work to use up his steam. Why, mother, there’s more gas
got up in them Brunswick buildin’s from young men that are spilin’
for hard work than you could shake a stick at.”
LITTLE FOXES.
[Sidenote: Recreation.]
The true manner of judging of the worth of amusements is to try
them by their effects on the nerves and spirits the day after. True
amusement ought to be, as the word indicates, _recreation_,—something
that refreshes, turns us out anew, rests the mind and body by change,
and gives cheerfulness and alacrity to our return to duty.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Making the best of it.]
The principal of a large and complicated public institution was
complimented on maintaining such uniformity of cheerfulness amid such
a diversity of cares. “I’ve made up my mind to be satisfied, when
things are done half as well as I would have them,” was his answer,
and the same philosophy would apply with cheering results to the
domestic sphere.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Individuality.]
Every human being has some handle by which he may be lifted, some
groove in which he was meant to run; and the great work of life, as
far as our relations with each other are concerned, is to lift each
one by his own proper handle, and run each one in his own proper
groove.
HOUSE AND HOME PAPERS.
[Sidenote: Need of home attractions.]
Parents may depend upon it that, if they do not make an attractive
resort for their boys, Satan will. There are places enough, kept warm
and light, and bright and merry, where boys can go whose mothers’
parlors are too fine for them to sit in. There are enough to be found
to clap them on the back, and tell them stories that their mothers
must not hear, and laugh when they compass with their little piping
voices the dreadful litanies of sin and shame.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Home education.]
The word home has in it the elements of love, rest, permanency, and
liberty; but besides these it has in it the idea of an education by
which all that is purest within us is developed into nobler forms,
fit for a higher life. The little child by the home fireside was
taken on the Master’s knee when he would explain to his disciples the
mysteries of the kingdom.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: The education of the parent.]
Education is the highest object of home, but education in the widest
sense—education of the parents no less than of the children. In a
true home, the man and the woman receive, through their cares, their
watchings, their hospitality, their charity, the last and highest
finish that earth can put upon them. From that they must pass upward,
for earth can teach them no more.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Perfection in little things.]
To do common things perfectly is far better worth our endeavor than
to do uncommon things respectably.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: The cross.]
Right on the threshold of all perfection lies the _cross_ to be taken
up. No one can go over or around that cross in science or in art.
Without labor and self-denial neither Raphael nor Michael Angelo nor
Newton was made perfect.
THE CHIMNEY CORNER.
[Sidenote: A well-developed man.]
We still incline to class distinctions and aristocracies. We incline
to the scheme of dividing the world’s work into two classes: first,
physical labor, which is held to be rude and vulgar, and the province
of a lower class; and second, brain-labor, held to be refined
and aristocratic, and the province of a higher class. Meanwhile
the Creator, who is the greatest of levelers, has given to every
human being _both_ a physical system, needing to be kept in order
by physical labor, and an intellectual or brain power, needing to
be kept in order by brain labor. _Work_, use, employment, is the
condition of health in both; and he who works either to the neglect
of the other lives but a half-life, and is an imperfect human being.
THE MAYFLOWER.
[Sidenote: Intemperance.]
It is a great mistake to call nothing intemperance but that degree of
physical excitement which completely overthrows the mental powers.
There is a state of nervous excitability, resulting from what is
often called moderate stimulation, which often long precedes this,
and is, in regard to it, like the premonitory warnings of the fatal
cholera—an unsuspected draft on the vital powers, from which, at any
moment, they may sink into irremediable collapse.
It is in this state, often, that the spirit of gambling or of wild
speculation is induced by the morbid cravings of an over-stimulated
system. Unsatisfied with the healthy and regular routine of business,
and the laws of gradual and solid prosperity, the excited and
unsteady imagination leads its subjects to daring risks, with the
alternative of unbounded gain on the one side, or of utter ruin on
the other. And when, as is too often the case, that ruin comes,
unrestrained and desperate intemperance is the wretched resort to
allay the ravings of disappointment and despair.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Religious instruction at home.]
The only difficulty, after all, is that the keeping of the Sabbath
and the imparting of religious instruction are not made enough of
a _home_ object. Parents pass off the responsibility on to the
Sunday-school teacher, and suppose, of course, if they send their
children to Sunday-school, they do the best they can for them. Now,
I am satisfied, from my experience as a Sabbath-school teacher, that
the best religious instruction imparted abroad still stands in need
of the coöperation of a systematic plan of religious discipline and
instruction at home; for, after all, God gives a power to the efforts
of a _parent_ that can never be transferred to other hands.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: What girls should be taught.]
If, amid the multiplied schools, whose advertisements now throng
our papers, purporting to teach girls everything, both ancient
and modern, high and low, from playing on the harp and working
pin-cushions up to civil engineering, surveying, and navigation,
there were any which could teach them to be women,—to have thoughts,
opinions, and modes of action of their own,—such a school would be
worth having. If one half of the good purposes which are in the
hearts of the ladies of our nation were only acted out without fear
of anybody’s opinion, we should certainly be a step nearer the
millennium.
PINK AND WHITE TYRANNY.
[Sidenote: Dangers of vanity.]
She had the misfortune—and a great one it is—to have been singularly
beautiful from the cradle, and so was praised and exclaimed over and
caressed as she walked the streets. She was sent for far and near;
borrowed to be looked at; her picture taken by photographers. If one
reflects how many foolish and inconsiderate people there are in the
world, who have no scruple in making a pet and plaything of a pretty
child, one will see how this one unlucky lot of being beautiful in
childhood spoiled Lillie’s chances of an average share of good sense
and goodness. The only hope for such a case lies in the chance of
possessing judicious parents.
AGNES OF SORRENTO.
[Sidenote: Patient waiting.]
“Gently, my son! gently!” said the monk; “nothing is lost by
patience. See how long it takes the good Lord to make a fair flower
out of a little seed; and He does all quietly, without bluster. Wait
on Him a little in peacefulness and prayer, and see what He will do
for thee.”
UNCLE TOM’S CABIN.
[Sidenote: “Bobservation.”]
“Well, yer see,” said Sam, proceeding gravely to wash down Haley’s
pony, “I’se ’quired what ye may call a habit o’ _bobservation_,
Andy. It’s a very ’portant habit, Andy, and I ’commend yer to be
cultivatin’ it, now ye ’r’ young. Hist up that hind foot, Andy. Yer
see, Andy, it’s bobservation makes all der difference in niggers.
Didn’t I see which way de wind blew dis yer mornin’? Didn’t I see
what missis wanted, though she never let on? Dat ar’ ’s bobservation,
Andy. I ’spects it’s what you may call a faculty. Faculties is
different in different peoples, but cultivatin’ of ’em goes a great
way.”
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Honoring mother.]
“Now, Mas’r George,” said Tom, “ye must be a good boy; ’member how
many hearts is sot on ye. Al’ays keep close to yer mother. Don’t be
gettin’ into any o’ them foolish ways boys has of gettin’ too big
to mind their mothers. Tell ye what, Mas’r George, the Lord gives
good many things twice over; but he don’t give ye a mother but once.
Ye’ll never see sich another woman, Mas’r George, if ye live to be a
hundred years old. So, now, you hold on to her, and grow up and be a
comfort to her, thar’s my own good boy,—you will, now, won’t ye?”
DRED.
[Sidenote: Silent influence.]
“Nina, I know, will love you; and if you never _try_ to advise her
and influence her, you will influence her very much. Good people are
a long while learning _that_, Anne. They think to do good to others
by interfering and advising. They don’t know that all they have to do
is to live.”
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Starting right.]
It is only the first step that costs.
LITTLE PUSSY WILLOW.
[Sidenote: The right way to study.]
“Knowledge has just been rubbed on to me upon the outside, while you
have opened your mind, and stretched out your arms to it, and taken
it in with all your heart.”
A DOG’S MISSION.
[Sidenote: The turning-point in life.]
There is an age when the waves of manhood pour in on the boy like
the tides in the Bay of Fundy. He does not know himself what to do
with himself, and nobody else knows either; and it is exactly at this
point that many a fine fellow has been ruined for want of faith and
patience and hope in those who have the care of him.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: “What shall we do with Charley?”]
But, after all, Charley is not to be wholly shirked, for he is an
institution, a solemn and awful _fact_; and on the answer of the
question, What is to be done with him? depends a future. Many a
hard, morose, and bitter man has come from a Charley turned off and
neglected; many a parental heartache has come from a Charley left to
run the streets, that mamma and sisters might play on the piano and
write letters in peace. It is easy to get rid of him—there are fifty
ways of doing that—he is a spirit that can be promptly laid for a
season, but if not laid aright, will come back by and by a strong man
armed, when you cannot send him off at pleasure.
Mamma and sisters had better pay a little tax to Charley now, than
a terrible one by and by. There is something significant in the old
English phrase, with which our Scriptures make us familiar,—a _man_
child! A _man_ child! There you have the word that should make you
think more than twice before you answer the question, What shall we
do with Charley?
For to-day he is at your feet—to-day you can make him laugh; you
can make him cry; you can persuade, and coax, and turn him to your
pleasure; you can make his eyes fill and his bosom swell with
recitals of good and noble deeds; in short, you can mold him, if you
will take the trouble.
But look ahead some years, when that little voice shall ring in deep
bass tones; when that small foot shall have a man’s weight and tramp;
when a rough beard shall cover that little round chin, and all the
strength of manhood fill out that little form. Then, you would give
worlds to have the key to his heart, to be able to turn and guide
him to your will; but if you lose that key now he is little, you may
search for it carefully with tears some other day, and not find it.
Old housekeepers have a proverb that one hour lost in the morning is
never found all day—it has a significance in this case.
MY WIFE AND I.
[Sidenote: Limit of responsibility.]
One part of the science of living is to learn just what our own
responsibility is, and to let other people’s alone.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Starved faculties.]
People don’t realize what it is to starve faculties; they understand
physical starvation, but the slow fainting and dying of desires and
capabilities for want of anything to feed upon, the withering of
powers for want of exercise, is what they do not understand.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Idealizing our work.]
The chief evil of poverty is the crushing of ideality out of life,
taking away its poetry and substituting hard prose;—and this, with
them, was impossible. My father loved the work he did as the artist
loves his painting, and the sculptor his chisel. A man needs less
money when he is doing only what he loves to do—what, in fact, he
_must_ do,—pay or no pay.... My mother, from her deep spiritual
nature, was one soul with my father in his life-work. With the moral
organization of a prophetess she stood nearer to heaven than he, and
looking in told him what she saw, and he, holding her hand, felt the
thrill of celestial electricity.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: True greatness.]
“I want you to be a good man. A great many have tried to be great
men, and failed, but nobody ever sincerely tried to be a _good_ man
and failed.”
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Lack of religious instruction.]
But I speak from experience when I say that the course of study in
Christian America is so arranged that a boy, from the grammar school
upward till he graduates, is so fully pressed and overloaded with all
other studies that there is no probability that he will find the time
or the inclination for such (religious) investigations.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Educating boys for husbands.]
In our days we have heard much said of the importance of training
women to be wives. Is there not something to be said on the
importance of training men to be husbands? Is the wide latitude of
thought and reading and expression which has been accorded as a
matter of course to the boy and the young man, the conventionally
allowed familiarity with coarseness and indelicacy, a fair
preparation to enable him to be the intimate companion of a pure
woman? For how many ages has it been the doctrine that man and woman
were to meet in marriage, the one crystal-pure, the other foul with
the permitted garbage of all sorts of uncleansed literature and
license?
If the man is to be the head of the woman, even as Christ is the head
of the Church, should he not be her equal, at least, in purity?
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Moral courage.]
The pain-giving power is a most necessary part of a well-organized
human being. Nobody can ever do anything without the courage to be
disagreeable at times.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Appreciating individuality.]
Who is appreciative and many-sided enough to guide the first efforts
of genius just coming to consciousness? How many could profitably
have advised Hawthorne when his peculiar Rembrandt style was forming?
As a race, we Anglo-Saxons are so self-sphered that we lack the power
to enter into the individuality of another mind, and give profitable
advice for its direction.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Truth told by an enemy.]
The truth, bitterly told by an enemy with a vivid power of statement,
is a tonic oftentimes too strong for one’s powers of endurance.
WE AND OUR NEIGHBORS.
[Sidenote: Immutability of Nature’s laws.]
In some constitutions, with some hereditary predispositions, the
indiscretions and ignorances of youth leave a fatal, irremediable
injury. Though the sin be in the first place one of inexperience
and ignorance, it is one that nature never forgives. The evil once
done can never be undone; no prayers, no entreaties, no resolutions,
can change the consequences of violated law. The brain and nerve
force once vitiated by poisonous stimulants become thereafter subtle
tempters and traitors, forever lying in wait to deceive, and urging
to ruin; and he who is saved is saved so as by fire.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Doing our _own_ work.]
“There must be second fiddles in an orchestra, and it’s fortunate
that I have precisely the talent for playing one, and my doctrine is
that the second fiddle _well_ played is quite as good as the first.
What would the first be without it?”
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Courage.]
“Well, there’s no way to get through the world but to keep doing, and
to attack every emergency with courage.”
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Value of truth.]
“We’ve got to get truth as we can in this world, just as miners dig
gold out of the mines, with all the quartz, and dirt, and dross; but
it pays.”