word which means all that God asks of us, all we owe the world or
ourselves. It expresses the sum total of human duty. Nor is it confined
to the present period of life. For aught we know education may be
continued in heaven. Reason may continue to widen its powers and deepen
its sanctities there. The affections may grow in beauty and fervor
through innumerable ages. Mind may expand and intensify through
eternity. Education is a work of progress. It begins in life, but has no
end. Death does not terminate it. We learn the elements of things below;
above, we will study their essence. We progress only by efforts.
Whatever expands the affection or enlarges the sphere of our sympathies,
whatever makes us feel our relation to the universe, to the great and
beneficial cause of all, must unquestionably refine our nature and
elevate us in the scale of being.
It requires extensive observation to enable us even partially to
appreciate the wonderful extent to which all the faculties are developed
by mental cultivation. The nervous system grows more vigorous and
active, the touch is more sensitive, and there is greater mobility to
the hand. Men are often like knives with many blades. They know how to
open one and only one; the rest are buried in the handle, and from
misuse become useless. Education is the knowledge of how to use the
whole of one's self. He is educated who knows how to make a tool of
every faculty, how to open it, how to keep it sharp, and how to apply it
to all practical purposes. Education is of three parts,—from nature,
from man, and from things. The development of our faculties and organs
is the education of nature; that of man is the application we learn to
make of this very developing; and that of things is the experience we
acquire in regard to different objects by which we are affected. All
that we have not at our birth, and all that we have acquired in the
years of our maturity, shows the need and effect of education. The power
of education is shown in that it hath power to give to children
resources that will endure as long as life endures, habits that time
will ameliorate but not destroy, in that it renders sickness tolerable,
solitude pleasant, age venerable, life more dignified and useful, and
death less terrible.
Education may be right or wrong, good or bad. Reason may grow strong in
error and revel in falsities. The heart may grow in vice, and the
passions expand in misrule. It has been wisely ordained that light
should have no color, water no taste, and air no odor; so knowledge
should be equally pure and without admixture. If it comes to us through
the medium of prejudice it will be discolored; through the channels of
custom, it will be adulterated; through the Gothic walls of the college
or of the cloister, it will smell of the lamp. It is not what a man
eats, but what he digests that makes him strong; not what he gains, but
what he saves that makes him rich; so it is not what he reads or hears,
but what he remembers and applies that makes him learned. He who knows
men and how to deal with them, whose mind by any means whatever has
received that discipline which gives to its action power and facility,
has been educated.
We can not be too careful to have our education proceed in the right
direction. It is almost as difficult to make a man unlearn his errors as
to acquire his knowledge. Error is more hopeless than ignorance, for
error is always the more busy. Ignorance is a blank sheet, on which we
can write, but error is a scribbled one, from which we must first erase.
Ignorance is content to stand still without advancing towards wisdom,
but error, more presumptuous, proceeds in the contrary direction.
Ignorance has no light to guide her, but error follows a false one. The
consequences are that error, when she retraces her footsteps, has a long
distance to go before she is in as good condition for the acquiring of
truth as ignorance.
A right conception of the value and power of wisdom is a great incentive
in stimulating us to proceed in the work of educating ourselves. It is
knowledge that has converted the world from a desert abode of savage men
to the beautiful homes of civilization. Human knowledge is permitted to
approximate, in some degree and on certain occasions, with that of the
Deity—its pure and primary source. And this assimilation is never more
conspicuous than when from evil it gathers its opposite good. What, at
first sight, appears to be so insurmountable an obstacle to the
intercourse of nations as the ocean? But knowledge has converted it into
the best and most expeditious means by which they may supply their
mutual wants and carry on their intimate communications. What so violent
as steam, or so destructive as fire? What so uncertain as the winds, or
so uncontrollable as the wave? Yet wisdom has rendered these
unmanageable things instrumental and subsidiary to the necessities, the
comforts, and even the elegancies of life. What so hard, so cold, so
insensible as marble? Yet the sculptors can warm it into life and bid it
breathe an eternity of love. What so variable as color, so swift as
light, or so empty as shade? Yet the painter's pencil can give these
fleeting fancies both a body and a soul; can confer upon them an
imperishable vigor, a beauty which increases with age, and which will
continue to captivate generations. In short, wisdom can draw expedients
from obstacles, invention from difficulties, remedies from poisons. In
her hands all things become beautiful by adaptation, subservient by
their use, and salutary by their application.
Since, then, intellectual attainments are so precious and wisdom so
grand in its achievements, he who neglects to improve his mental
faculties, or fails to train all his powers of mind and body, is not
walking in those paths that, under God's guidance, conduce most surely
to happiness and content. This can be done by all, since education is
within the reach of all, even the most humble. The youth who believes it
is impossible for him to get an education is deficient in courage and
energy. Too many have imbibed the idea that to obtain a sufficient
education to enable a man to appear advantageously upon the theater of
public life his boyhood and youth must be spent within the walls of some
classical seminary of learning, that he may commence his career under
the banner of a collegiate diploma, and with it win the first round in
the ladder of fame. That a refined, classical education is desirable all
will admit; that it is indispensably necessary does not follow. He who
has been incarcerated from his childhood to majority within the limited
circumference of his school and boarding room, though he may have
mastered all the classics, is destitute of that knowledge of men and
things indispensably necessary to enable him to act with vigor and
dispatch either in public or private life.
Classical lore and polite literature are very different from that vast
amount of practical intelligence, fit for every-day use, that one _must
have_ to render his intercourse with society pleasing to himself or
agreeable to others. Let boys and girls be taught first what is
necessary to prepare them for the common duties of life; then all that
can be gained from fields of classic lore or works of polite erudition
is of the utmost value. In this enlightened age ignorance is a voluntary
misfortune, for all who will may drink deeply at the fountain of
knowledge. By the proper improvement of time the mechanic's apprentice
may lay in a store of information that will enable him to take a stand
by the side of those persons who have grown up in the full blaze of a
collegiate education.
Learn thoroughly what you learn, be it ever so little, and you may speak
of it with confidence. A few well-defined facts and ideas are worth a
whole library of uncertain knowledge. We are frequently placed in
position where we can learn with scarcely an effort on our part, and yet
we hang back because it takes so long to acquire a mastery of any thing.
Let the end alone! Begin at the beginning, and though, after all, it
prove but a mere smattering, you are informed on one point more, and
your life will be happier for making the effort. By gaining an education
you shall have your reward in the rich stores of knowledge you have thus
collected, and which shall ever be at your command, more valuable than
material treasures. While fleets may sink, storehouses consume, and
riches fade, the intellectual stores you have thus gathered will be
permanent and enduring, as unfailing as the constant flow of Niagara—a
bank whose dividends are perpetual, whose wealth is undiminished,
however frequent the drafts upon it. How wise, then, to secure, as far
as possible, a complete and lasting education.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: MENTAL TRAINING.]
[Illustration]
The mind has a certain vegetative power which can not be wholly idle. If
it is not laid out and cultivated into a beautiful garden, it will shoot
up in weeds and flowers of a wild growth. From this, then, is seen the
necessity of careful mental cultivation—a training of all the faculties
in the right direction. This should be the first great object in any
system of education, public or private. The value of an education
depends far less upon varied and extensive acquirements than upon the
cultivation of just powers of thought and the general regulation of the
faculties of the understanding. That it is not the amount of knowledge,
but the capacity to apply it, which promises success and usefulness in
life, is a truth which can not be too often inculcated by instructors
and recollected by pupils. If youths are taught _how_ to think, they
will soon learn _what_ to think. Exercise is not more necessary to a
healthful state of the body than is the employment of the various
faculties of the mind to mental efficiency. The practical sciences are
as barren of useful products as the speculative where facts only are the
objects of knowledge, and the understanding is not habituated to a
continual process of examination and reflection.
It is the trained and disciplined intellect which rules the world of
literature, science, and art. It is knowledge put in action by trained
mental faculties which is powerful. Knowledge merely gathered together,
whether in books or in brains, is devoid of power, unless quickened into
life by the thoughts and reflections of some practical worker. But when
this is supplied knowledge becomes an engine of power. It is this which
forms the philosopher's stone, the true alchemy, that converts every
thing it touches into gold. It is the scepter that gives us our dominion
over nature; the key that unlocks the storehouse of creation, and opens
to us the treasures of the universe. It is this which forms the
difference between savage and civilized nations, and marks the
distinction between men as they appear in society. It is this which has
raised men from the humblest walks of life to positions of influence and
power.
The lack of mental training and discipline explains, in a large measure,
why we so often meet with men who are the possessors of vast stores of
erudition, and yet make a failure of every thing they try. We shall at
all times chance upon men of profound and recondite acquirements, but
whose qualifications, from a lack of practical application on their
owners' part, are as utterly useless to them as though they had them
not. A person of this class may be compared to a fine chronometer which
has no hands to its dial; both are constantly right without correcting
any that are wrong, and may be carried around the world without
assisting one individual either in making a discovery or taking an
observation. Every faculty of the mind is worthy of cultivation; indeed,
all must be cultivated, if we would round and perfect our mental powers
as to secure therefrom the greatest good. Memory must be ready with her
stores of useful knowledge, gathered from fields far and near. She must
be trained to classify and arrange them, so as to hold them in her
grasp. Observation must be quick to perceive the apparently trivial
events which are constantly occurring, and diligent to ascertain the
cause. The judgment must pronounce its decision without undue delay; the
will move to execution in accordance with the fiat of an enlightened
understanding.
This work of mental training, apparently so vast, is really so pleasant
and easy that it sweetens every day's life. There is no excuse for the
youth who is content to grow up to mature life and its duties with a
mind whose powers are untrained, and which has not received the
advantages of a practical education. Some may think they are excused by
poverty; but lack of means has not robbed them of a single intellectual
power. On the contrary, it sharpens them all. Has poverty shut them out
from nature, from truth, or from God? Wealth can not convert a dunce
into a genius. Gold will not store a mind with wisdom; more likely it
will fill it with folly. It may decorate the body, but it can not adorn
the soul. No business is so urgent but that time may be spent in mental
training. One can not well help thinking and studying; for the mind is
ever active. What is needful is to direct it to proper objects and in
proper channels, and it will cultivate itself. There is nothing to
prevent but the will. Whoever forms a resolute determination to
cultivate his mind will find nothing in his way sufficient to stop him.
If he finds barriers they only strengthen him by overcoming them.
Whoever lives to thirty years of age without cultivating his mind is
guilty of a great waste of time. If during that period he does not form
a habit of reading, of observation, and reflection, he will never form
such a habit, but go through the world none the wiser for all the
wonders that are spread around him. A small portion of that leisure time
which by too many is given to dissipation and idleness, would enable any
young man to acquire a very general knowledge of men and things. One can
live a life-time and get no instruction; but as soon as he begins to
look for wisdom it is given him. Even in the pursuits of practical,
every-day life numberless instances are constantly arising to aid in
mental training. There are few persons so engrossed by the cares and
labors of their calling that they can not give thirty minutes a day to
mental training; and even that time, wisely spent, will tell at the end
of a year. The affections, it is well known, sometimes crowd years into
moments; and the intellect has something of the same power. If you
really prize mental cultivation, or are deeply anxious to do any good
thing, you will _find_ time or _make_ time for it sooner or later,
however, engrossed with other employments. A failure to accomplish it
can only demonstrate the feebleness of your will, not that you lacked
time for its execution.
It is impossible to overestimate the importance of reading as a means of
training the mental faculties. It is by this means that you gather food
for thoughts, principles, and actions. If your books are wisely selected
and properly studied, they will enlighten your minds, improve your
hearts, and establish your character. To acquire useful information, to
improve the mind in knowledge and the heart in goodness, to become
qualified to perform with honor and usefulness the duties of life, and
prepare for immortality beyond the grave, are the great objects which
ought to be kept in view in reading.
There are four classes of readers. The first is like the hour-glass,
and, their reading being on the sand, it runs in and runs out, and
leaves no vestige behind. A second is like a sponge, which imbibes every
thing, and returns it in the same state, only a little dirtier. A third
is like a jelly-bag, allowing all that is pure to pass away, retaining
only the refuse and the dregs. The fourth is like the slaves in the
diamond-mines of Golconda, who, casting away all that is worthless,
obtain only pure gems.
We should read with discrimination. The world is full of books, no small
portion of which are either worthless or decidedly hurtful in their
tendency. And as no man has time to read every thing, he ought to make a
selection of the ablest and best writers on the subjects which he wishes
to investigate, and dismiss wholly from his attention the entire crowd
of unworthy and useless ones. Always read with your thoughts
concentrated, and your mind entirely engaged on the subject you are
pursuing. Any other course tends to form a habit of desultory, indolent
thought, and incapacitate the mind from confining its attention to close
and accurate investigation. One book read thoroughly and with careful
reflection will do more to improve the mind and enrich the understanding
than skimming over the surface of a whole library. The more one reads in
a busy, superficial manner, the worse. It is like loading the stomach
with a great quantity of food, which lies there undigested. It enfeebles
the intellect, and sheds darkness and confusion over all the operations
of the mind. The mind, like the body, is strengthened by exercise, and
the severer the exercise the greater the increase of strength. One hour
of thorough, close application to study does more to invigorate and
improve the mind than a week spent in the ordinary exercise of its
powers. We should read slowly, carefully, and with reflection. We
sometimes rush over pages of valuable matter because at a glance they
seem to be dull, and we hurry along to see how the story, if it be a
story, is to end.
At every action and enterprise ask yourself this question: What shall
the consequences of this be to me? Am I not likely to repent of it?
Whatever thou takest in hand, remember the end, and thou shalt never do
amiss. Take time to deliberate and advise, but lose no time in executing
your resolution. To perceive accurately and to think correctly is the
aim of all mental training. Heart and conscience are more than the mere
intellect. Yet we know not how much the clear, clean-cut thought, the
intellectual vision, sharp and true, may aid even these. Undigested
learning is as oppressive as undigested food; and, as with the dyspeptic
patient, the appetite for food often grows with the inability to digest
it, so in the unthinking patient an overweening desire to know often
accompanies the inability to know to any purpose. To learn merely for
the sake of learning is like eating merely for the taste of the food. To
learn in order to become wise makes the mind active and powerful, like
the body of one who is temperate and judicious in meat and drink.
Thought is to the brain what gastric juice is to the stomach—a solvent
to reduce whatever is received to a condition in which all that is
wholesome and nutritive may be appropriated, and that alone. Learning is
healthfully digested by the mind when it reflects upon what is learned,
classifies and arranges facts and circumstances, considers the relations
of one to another, and places what is taken into the mind at different
times in relation to the same subjects under their appropriate heads, so
that the various stores are not heterogeneously piled up, but laid away
in order, and may be examined with ease when wanted. This is the
perfection of mental training and discipline,—memory well trained,
judgment quick to act, and attention sharp to observe. We invite and
urge all to turn their attention to this subject as something worthy of
those endowed with reasoning powers. It is not a wearying task, but one
which repays for its undertaking by making much more rich in its joys
and inspiring in its hopes all the after-life of the man or woman who
went forth bravely to the work which heaven has decreed as the lot of
all who would enjoy the greatest good of life.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: SELF-CULTURE.]
[Illustration]
Man is a wonderful union of mind and body, and to form a perfect being a
high degree of cultivation is required for each component part. Those
who cultivate the mental to the exclusion of the mere bodily, or at
least carelessly pass by its claims, are no less in error than those who
cultivate the bodily faculties to the exclusion of the mental. The aim
of all attempts at self-cultivation should be the highest and most
appropriate development of the entire being—physical, intellectual, and
moral. It comprehends the health of the body, the expansion of the
intellect, the purification of the heart. It guards the health, because
a feeble body acts powerfully on the mind, and is a clog to its
progress. It cherishes the intellect, because it is the glory of the
human being. It trains the moral nature, because if that is weak and
misdirected a blight falls upon the soul and a curse rests upon the
body. As each faculty reacts upon all the others, true self-culture
attends with a due proportion of care to each. It strives to retain one
power whose action is too intense, and to stimulate another which is
torpid, until they act in delightful harmony with each other, and the
result is the healthful progress toward the highest point of attainable
good.
Self-culture includes a proper care of the health of the body. To be
careless of your health is to be stunted in intellect and miserable in
feelings. You might as well expect to enjoy life in a dilapidated and
ruined habitation, which affords free admission to the freezing
blast and the pitiless rain, as to be happy in a body ruined by
self-indulgence. The body is the home of the soul. Can its mysterious
tenant find rest and unmixed joy within its chambers if daily exposed to
sharp and shivering shocks through its aching joints or quivering
nerves? How many bright intellects have failed of making any impression
upon the world simply because they neglected the most obvious of
hygienic laws! If God has bestowed upon you the inestimable gift of good
health and a good constitution, it is your duty, as a rational creature,
to preserve it. To expect vigorous health and the enjoyment which it
brings, and at the same time live in open defiance of the laws of
health, is to expect what can not take place. Not only is good health
thus of value and one of the most important ends of self-cultivation,
but we would impress on all the fact that the body is just as important
a factor as the mind in the work of success, that it is just as worthy
to be cultivated, so as to grow in strength and beauty, and the
development of all those faculties which go to make a physically perfect
man or woman.
It is a sad sight to see a brilliant mind that has dragged down a strong
body, because it has been so imperious in its demands, leaving its
companion to suffer for lack of attention to some of its plainest wants.
It reminds one of a crazy building, tottering under its own weight, yet
full of the most costly machinery, which can be run, if at all, only
with the greatest caution, or the entire fabric will crumble to ruins.
The lesson can not be too soon learned that, while the human body is
most wonderfully complex in its organization, still such is the
perfection of all nature's works that all that is demanded of us is
compliance with simple rules, to enable us to enjoy health. That it is
our duty as well as our privilege to so train and cultivate the body
that it will answer readily all demands made upon it by an enlightened
mind, and will perform all its appropriate functions in the great work
of life.
Self-culture also implies suitable efforts to expand and strengthen the
intellect by reading, by reflection, and by writing down your thoughts.
The strength and vigor given to the mind by self-culture is not
materially different from that expressed by the term education in its
broad and comprehensive meaning. Intellect being the crowning glory and
chief attribute of man, there can be no nobler aim to set before one's
self than that of expanding and quickening all of its powers. Rightly
lived our every-day life and actions conduce to this result. Our
education is by no means entirely the product of organized schools. Our
hired teachers and printed books are not all that act on our powers to
develop them. Life is one grand school, and its every circumstance a
teacher. Society pours in its influence upon us like the thousand
streams that flood the ocean.