Chapter VI: Part 6

The most learned of men do not always make the best of teachers; the lawyer who has achieved a classical education is not always the most successful. The men who have wielded power have not always been graduates. Brindley and Stephenson did not learn to read and write until they were twenty years old; yet the one gave England her railroads, and the other her canals. The great inventor is one who has walked forth upon the industrial world, not from universities, but from hovels; not as clad in silks and decked with honors, but as clad in fustian and grimed with soot and oil. It is not known where he who invented the plow was born, or where he died; yet he has effected more for the happiness of the world than the whole race of heroes and conquerors who drenched it in tears and blood, whose birth, parentage, and education have been handed down to us with a precision proportionate to the mischief they have done. Mankind owes more of its real happiness to this humble inventor than to some of the most acute minds in the realm of literature.

Education, indeed, accomplishes wonders in fitting a man for the work of success, but we sometimes forget that it is of more consequence to have the mind well disciplined rather than richly stored,—strong rather than full. Every day we see men of high culture distanced in the race of life by the upstart who can not spell. The practical dunce outstrips the theorizing genius. Life teems with such illustrations. Men have ruled well who could not define a commonwealth; and they who did not understand the shape of the earth have commanded a greater portion of it. The want of practical talent in men of fine intellectual powers has often excited the wonder of the crowd. They are astonished that one who has grasped, perhaps, the mightiest themes, and shed a light on the path to be pursued by others, should be unable to manage his own affairs with dexterity. But this is not strange. Deep thinking and practical talents require habits of mind almost entirely dissimilar, and though they may, and often do, exist conjointly, and while it is the duty of all to strive to cultivate both, yet such is the constitution of the human mind that it is apt to go to extremes. And he who accustoms himself to deep prying into nature's secrets, to exploring the hidden mysteries of the past, is too apt to forget the practical details of every-day life, to pass them by with disgust, as altogether beneath his attention. This is an error, and none the less reprehensible on that account than is the conduct of those who become so engrossed with the practical affairs of their calling or profession as to forget that they have a higher nature, and sink the man in the pursuit of their ambitious dreams.

A man who sees limitedly and clearly is both more sure of himself and is more direct in dealing with circumstances and with men than is a man who has a large horizon of thought, whose many-sided capacity embraces an immense extent of objects, just as the somnambulist treads with safety where the wide-awake man could not hope to follow. Practical men cut the knots which they can not untie, and, overleaping all preliminaries, come at once to a conclusion. Men of theoretical knowledge, on the other hand, are tempted to waste time in comparing and meditating when they should be up and doing. Practical knowledge will not always of itself raise a man to eminence, but for want of it many a man has fallen short of distinction. Without it the best runner, straining for the prize, finds himself suddenly tripped up and lying on his back in the midst of the race. Without it the subtlest theologian will live and die in an obscure country village, and the acutest legal mind fail of adorning the bench. The man who lacks it may be a great thinker or a great worker. He may be an acute reasoner and an eloquent speaker, and yet, in spite of all this, fail of success. There is a hitch, a stand-still, a mysterious want somewhere. Little, impalpable trifles weave themselves into a web which holds him back. The fact is, he is not sufficiently in accord with his surroundings. He has never seen the importance of adjusting his scale of weights and measures to the popular standard. In a word, he is not a man of the world, in a popular sense.

While it may be very difficult to define this practical ability, which is so all-important, yet the path to be pursued by him who would advance therein is visible to all. It requires a shrewd and careful observance of men and things rather than of books. It requires that the judgment be strengthened by being called upon in apparently trivial affairs. The memory must be trained to recall principles rather than statements. All the faculties of the mind must be trained to act with decision and dispatch. Education must be regarded as a means and not as an end. By these means, while admitting that practical talents are, in their true sense, a gift of God, still we can cultivate and bring them to perfection, and by education and experience convert that which before lay dormant in the rough pebble into a dazzling diamond.

From time immemorial intellectual endowments have been crowned with bays of honor. Men have worshiped at the shrine of intellect with an almost Eastern idolatry. Men of more than an average endowment of intellect have been regarded as superior beings. The multitude have looked upon them with wonder. With reverent hands the world at large has crowned intellect with its richest honors. Its pathway has been strewn with flowers; its brow has worn the loftiest plume; it has held the mightiest scepter of power, and sat upon the proudest throne. Evidence mightier than the plaudits of admiring multitudes is every-where found in the universe proclaiming the worth and power of the human intellect. There can not be a grander theme to engross the attention of all classes than that subject which has to do with the training of the intellect. The subject of education is fraught with a deep interest to all who have a just appreciation of its merits. It should be of interest to all within the pale of civilization, inasmuch as the happiness of all classes is connected with the subject of education.

Education is development. It is not simply instruction, facts, and rules communicated by the teacher, but it is discipline, a waking up, a development of latent powers, a growth of the mind. It finds the child's mind passive; it trains it to think independently; it awakens its powers to observe, to reflect, to combine. It aims to bring into harmonious action all the powers of the mind, not, as some suppose, a cultivation of a few to the neglect of all the rest. Education should have reference to the whole man—the body, the mind, and the heart. Its object, and, when rightly conducted, its effect, is to make him a complete creature of his kind. To his frame it would give vigor, activity, and beauty; to his heart virtue; to his senses correctness and acuteness. The educated man is not the gladiator, nor the scholar, nor the upright man alone, but a well balanced combination of the three. The well-developed tree is not one simply well rooted, nor with giant branches, nor resplendent with rich foliage, but all of these together. If you mark the perfect man you must not look for him in the gymnasium, the university, or the Church exclusively, but you look for the healthful mind in the healthful body, with a virtuous heart. The being in whom you find this union is the only one worthy to be called educated.

Education, strictly speaking, covers the whole area of life. It is the 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.

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.

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.

Scholastic men and women speak of book education; there is also a life education—that great, common arena where men and women do battle with the forces around them. Our duty is so to guide and control these influences as to be educated in the right direction. We should recognize the fact that we are educating all the time, and the great question for us to settle is, "What manner of education are we receiving?" Some are educated in vice, some in folly, some in selfishness, some in deception, some in goodness, some in truth. Every day gives us many lessons in life. Every thought leaves its impression on the mind. Every feeling weaves a garment for the spirit. Every passion plows a furrow in the soul. It is our duty as sentient, moral beings so to guide and direct these thoughts, feelings, and passions that they shall educate us in the right direction. We are lax in duty to ourselves to let the world educate us as it will, for we are running a great risk to yield ourselves up to the circumstances life has thrown about us, to plunge into the stream of popular custom and allow ourselves to drift with the current.

But aside from the practical education of everyday life we are to remember, in our efforts after self-culture, that it is also obligatory upon us to seek the discipline afforded by books and study. In the pursuit of knowledge follow it wherever it is to be found; like fern, it is the product of all climates, and, like air, its circulation is not restricted to any particular class. Any and every legitimate means of acquiring information is to be pursued, and all the odds and bits of time pressed into use. Set a high price upon your leisure moments. They are sands of precious gold; properly expended they will procure for you a stock of great thoughts—thoughts that will fill, stir, invigorate, and expand the soul. As the magnificent river, rolling in the pride of its mighty waters, owes its greatness to the hidden springs of the mountain nook, so does the wide, sweeping influence of distinguished men date its origin from hours of privacy resolutely employed in efforts after self-development.

We should esteem those moments best improved which are employed in developing our own thoughts, rather than in acquiring those of others, since in this kind of intellectual exercise our powers are best brought into action and disciplined for use. Knowledge acquired by labor becomes a possession—a property entirely our own. A greater vividness of impression is secured, and facts thus acquired become registered in the mind in a way that mere imparted information fails of securing. A habit of observation and reflection is well-nigh every thing. He who has spent his whole life in traveling may live and die a thorough novice in most of the important affairs of life, while, on the other hand, a man may be confined to a narrow sphere and be engrossed in the prosaic affairs of every-day life, and yet have very correct ideas of the manners and customs of other nations. He that studies only men will get the body of knowledge without the soul; he that studies only books, the soul without the body. He that to what he sees adds observation, and to what he reads, reflection, is in the right road to knowledge, provided that in scrutinizing the hearts of others he neglects not his own. Be not dismayed at doubts, for remember that doubt is the vestibule through which all must pass before they can enter into the temple of wisdom; therefore, when we are in doubt and puzzle out the truth by our own exertions, we have gained a something which will stay by us and serve us again. But if to avoid the trouble of a search we avail ourselves of the superior information of a friend, such knowledge will not remain with us; we have _borrowed_ it and not _bought_ it.

But man possesses something more than a mere body and intellect; he is the possessor of moral faculties as well. A true self-culture will be none the less careful to have the actions of these refined and pure than it is to possess physical health on the one hand and mental vigor on the other. Indeed, since your happiness depends upon their healthful condition more than upon the state of your body and intellect, your first care should be devoted to giving careful attention to your moral nature. With disordered moral faculties you will be as a ship without a helm, dashed on bars and rocks at the will of winds and waves. It is the vice of the age to substitute learning for wisdom, to educate the head, and to forget that there is a more important education necessary for the heart. Let the heart be opened and a thousand virtues rush in. There is dew in one flower and not in another, because one opens its cup and takes it in, while the other closes itself and the drop runs off. God rains his goodness and mercy as widespread as the dew, and if we lack them it is because we know not how to open our hearts to receive them. No man can tell whether he is rich or poor by turning to his ledger. It is the heart that makes a man rich. He is rich or poor according to what he is, and not what he has. Cultivate your moral nature, then, as well as bodily strength and mental vigor. The heart is the center of vitality in the physical body; so the moral senses seem to give vitality to all the various faculties of the mind. If the moral nature becomes stunted in its development the mind is apt to become chaotic in its action. How often we meet with examples of this character in the common walks of life! Many lose their balance of mind and become wrecks from want of _heart culture_. Is the _head_ of more importance than the _heart_? It is true that wealth is the child of the one, but it is equally true that happiness is the offspring of the other.

Such, then, is an outline of the great problem of self-culture. We can not escape its claims; from the time reason dawns until death closes the scene they are pressing upon you. Much of the happiness of life, both here and hereafter, depends on how you meet its demands. You can, if you but will it, grow apace in all that is manly or womanly in life; or, by neglecting the claims of your manifold nature, as utterly fail of so doing as the stunted shrub fails of being the stately tree with waving branches and luxuriant foliage.

The influence of literature upon a country is well-nigh incalculable. The Druid warriors were incited to deeds of desperate valor by the songs of their bards; and in modern times victories are achieved by the writers of books no less important than many won on tented fields. The literature of a nation molds the thoughts of a whole people, guides their actions, and impresses its indelible mark upon the lives and conduct of its citizens. Who can estimate the effect of Voltaire's writings on the French people? The results for which many philanthropists toiled in vain were achieved by the works of Dickens. The power of books and literature is no less marked in the individual than in the mass. To the weak, and to the strong in their times of weakness, books are inspiring friends and teachers. Against the feebleness of individual efforts they proclaim the victory of faith and patience, and against the uncertainties and discouragement of one day's work they set forth the richer and more complete life that results from perseverance in right actions. It sets the mind more and more in harmony with the noblest aims, and holds before it a crown of honor and power.

There is a certain monotony in daily life, and there are those whose aims are high, but who lack the inherent strength to stand true to them amid adverse influences, and so gradually drop out of the ever-thinning ranks of those who would wrest from Fame her richest trophies. They are conquered by routine, and disheartened by the discipline and labor that guard the prizes of life. Even to the resolute, persevering ones there are hours of weakness and weariness. To all such literature comes with its helping hand in hours of discouragement. It revives hope in the minds of those almost discouraged, and brings the comforts of philosophy to the cast-down. Books are a guide to youth and an inspiration for age. They support us under solitude, and keep us from becoming a burden to ourselves. They lessen our cares, compose our passions, and lay our disappointments asleep. When weary of the living, we may, by their aid, repair to the dead, who have nothing of peevishness, pride, or design in their conversation.

In books we live continually in the decisive moments of history, and in the deepest experience of individual lives. The flowers which we cull painfully and at long intervals in our personal history blossom in profusion here, and the air is full of fragrance which touches our own life only in its happier times. In our libraries we meet great minds on an equality, and feel at ease with them. We come to know them better, perhaps, than those who bear their names and sit at their tables. The reserve that makes so many fine natures difficult of access is here entirely lost. No carelessness of manner, no poverty of speech or unfortunate personal peculiarity, mars the intercourse of author and reader. It is a relation in which the exchange of thought is undisturbed by outward conditions. We lose our narrow selves in the broader life that is open to us. We forget the hindrance and limitation of our own work in the full comprehension of that stronger life that can not be bound nor confined, but grows in all soils, and climbs heavenward under every sky.

Literature is the soul of action, the only sensible articulate voice of the accomplished facts of the past. The men of antiquity are dead; their cities are ruins; their temples are dust; their fleets and armies have disappeared; yet all these exist in magic preservation in the literature which they have bequeathed to us, and their manners and their deeds are as familiar to us as the events of yesterday. Papers and books are really the teachers, guides, and lawgivers of the world to-day. Their influence is very much like that of a companion to whom we are attached. Hence it is of more consequence to know what class to avoid than what to choose; for good books are as scarce as good companions, and in both instances all we can learn from bad ones is that so much time has been worse than thrown away.

We should choose our books as we do our friends, for their sterling and intrinsic merit, not for the accidental circumstances in their favor. For, with books as with men, it seldom happens that their performances are fully equal to their pretensions, nor their capital to their credit. As we should always seek the companionship of the best class of people, so we should always seek the companionship of the best books. He that will have no books but such as are scarce evinces about as correct a taste in literature as he would do in friendship who should have no friends but those whom the rest of the world have discarded. Some books we should make our constant companions and associates; others we should receive only as occasional acquaintances and visitors. Some we should take with us wherever we go; others we should leave behind us forever. Some, of gilded outsides, are full of depravity, and we should shun them as we would the actual vices which they represent. Some books we should keep in our hands and lay on our hearts, while the best we could dispose of others would be to throw them in the fire.

You may judge a man more truly by the books and papers that he reads than by the company which he keeps, for his associates are in a measure imposed upon him; but his reading is the result of choice; and the man who chooses a certain class of books and papers unconsciously becomes more colored in their views, more rooted in their opinions, and the mind becomes trained to their way of thinking. All the life and feeling of a young girl fascinated by some glowing love romance is colored and shaped by the page she reads. If it is false and weak and foolish, she is false and weak and foolish too; but if it is true and tender and inspiring, then something of its truth and tenderness and inspiration will grow into her soul, and will become a part of her very self. The boy who reads of deeds of manliness, of bravery and noble doing, feels the spirit of emulation grow within him, and the seed is planted which will bring forth fruit of heroic endeavor and exalted life.

In literature our tastes will be discovered by what we give, our judgment by that which we withhold. That writer does the most who gives his readers the most knowledge and takes from them the least time, for that period of existence is alone deserving the name of life which is rationally employed. Those books are most profitable to read which make the readers think most. Diminutive books, like diminutive men and women, may be of greater value than they seem to be; but great tomes are greatly dreaded. It is a saying that "books file away the mind." Much reading is certainly not profitable without much meditation, and many vigorous and profound thinkers have read comparatively little, though it must be admitted most great minds have been very devout and ardent readers. There is scarcely any thing that is not to be found in books, but it does not follow that we shall find every thing in them unless we handle them with great care.

A beautiful literature springs from the depths and fullness of intellectual and moral life, from an energy of thought and feeling. It deals with questions of life in a plain, practical manner. It holds up the past for your inspection. It brings to light the secrets of nature. It enables us to discover the infinity of things, the immensity of nature, the wonders of the heavens, the earth, and the seas. Works of fiction are the ornamental parts of literature and learning. They are agreeable embellishments of the edifice, but poor foundations for it to rest upon. The literature of the day is largely composed of newspapers and periodicals. No one can too highly appreciate the magic power of the press or too highly depreciate its abuse. Newspapers have become the great highway of that intelligence which exerts a controlling power over a nation, catering the every-day food of the mind. Show us an intelligent family of boys and girls, and we will show you a family where newspapers and periodicals are plenty. Nobody who has been without these private tutors can know their educating power for good or for evil. Think of the innumerable topics of discussion which they suggest at the table; the important public measures with which the children thus early become acquainted; of the great philanthropic questions to which, unconsciously perhaps, their attention is called, and the general spirit of intelligence which is evoked by these quiet visitors. This vast world moves along lines of thought and sentiment and principles, and the press gives to these wings to fly and tongues to speak.

"My mind to me a kingdom is;
Such perfect joy therein I find
As far exceeds all earthly bliss.
Though much I want that most would have,
Yet still my mind forbids to crave."

—SIR EDMUND DYER.

The triumph of cultivated intellect over the forces of nature is indeed a wonderful subject for contemplation. The most deadly poisons are made to conduce to human health and welfare. Electricity does the writing and talking, and annihilates space. Steam and iron are made to do the work of nerves and muscles, and lay the four corners of the world under contribution for our benefit. In view of these and many similar facts, how full of meaning becomes the old saying, "Knowledge is power!" Reason, like the magnetic influence imparted to iron, may be said to give to matter properties and powers which it did not possess before; but, without extending its bulk, augmenting its weight, or altering its organization, it is visible only by its effects and perceptible only by its operations.

Unlike those of the warriors, the triumphs of intellect derive all their luster, not from the evil they have produced, but from the good. Her successes and her conquests are the common property of the world, and succeeding ages will be the watchful guardians of the rich legacies she bequeathes. The trophies and titles of the conqueror are on the quick march to oblivion, and amid that desolation where they were planted will decay. As the mind must govern the hand, so in every society the man of intelligence must direct and govern the man of ignorance. There is no exception to this law. It is the natural sequence of the dominion of mind over matter—a dominion so strong that for a time it can make flesh and nerves impregnable, and string the sinews like steel, so that the weak become strong. Some men of a secluded and studious life have sent forth from their closet or cloister rays of intellectual light that have agitated courts and revolutionized kingdoms, as the moon, that far removed from the ocean, and shining upon it with a serene and sober light, is the chief cause of all those ebbings and flowings which incessantly disturb that world of waters.

The triumph of mind is shown in various ways. It enables us to surmount difficulties with facility. Like imprisoned steam, the more it is pressed, the more it rises to resist the pressure. The more we are obliged to do, the more we are able to accomplish. Perhaps in no other respect is the power of mind more signally shown than when it opens to our view avenues of pleasure before unthought of. Happiness is the great aim of life. In one form or another we are all striving for it. There are no pleasures so pure as mental pleasures. We never tire of them. A lofty mind always thinks loftily. It easily creates vivid, agreeable, and natural fancies, places them in their best light, clothes them with all appropriate adornments, studies others' tastes, and clears away from its own thoughts all that is useless and disagreeable. Mental force or power is not the inheritance of birth, nor the result of a few years' spasmodic study; it is only acquired as the result of long and patient exertion. There is no age at which it can not be increased. There is absolutely no branch of literature which, when properly digested and stowed away in the mind, will not show its effect in after life by increased vigor in the whole mind. Those intellectually strong men and women who have left their influence on the world's history are almost without exception found to be those who have possessed broad and deep acquirements; who have permitted no opportunity for obtaining information to pass unimproved; who have been content for years to store away knowledge, confident that in the fullness of time they would reap the reward.