Chapter VI

The two friends had descended, not without care and labor, to reach the children, who were now lying in a shady spot down below. With almost greater eagerness than their picnic repast, the collected rock specimens were unpacked by Montan and Felix. The latter had much to ask, the former much to nominate. Felix was delighted that his new teacher could give him names for all, and he speedily committed them to memory. At length he produced another specimen, and asked, “What do you call this, then?”

Montan viewed it with surprise, and said, “Where did you get it?”

Fitz answered promptly, “I found it myself: it is of this country.”

“Not of this quarter,” said Montan. Felix rejoiced to see his master somewhat puzzled. “Thou shalt have a ducat,” said Montan, “if thou bring me to the spot where it lies.”

“That is easy to earn,” answered Fitz, “but not immediately.”

“Then, describe the place to me accurately, that I may not fail to find it: but the thing is impossible; for this is a cross-stone, which comes from Santiago in Compostella, and which some stranger has lost,--if, indeed, thou hast not stolen it from him, for its curious look.”.

“Give your ducat into my master’s hands,” said Fitz, “and I will honestly confess where I got the stone. In the ruined church at St. Joseph there is likewise a ruined altar. Under the top-stones, which are all broken and heaped together, I discovered a layer of this rock, which has been the foundation of the other, and broke off from it as much as I could come at. If the upper stones were cleared away, one might find much more of it there.”

“Take thy ducat,” said Montan: “thou deservest it for this discovery. It is pretty enough. Men naturally rejoice when inanimate nature produces any likeness of what they love and reverence. Nature then appears to us in the form of a sibyl, who has beforehand laid down a testimony of what had been determined from eternity, and was not to be realized till late in time. On this rock, as on a sacred, mysterious, primeval basis, the priests had built their altar.”

Wilhelm, who had listened for a while, and observed that many names, many designations, were repeatedly mentioned, again signified his former wish, that Montan would impart to him so much as was required for the primary instruction of the boy. “Give that up,” replied Montan. “There is nothing more frightful than a teacher who knows only what his scholars are intended to know. He who means to teach others may, indeed, often suppress the best of what he knows; but he must not be half instructed.”

“But where are such perfect teachers to be had?”

“These thou wilt find very easily,” replied Montan.

“Where, then?” said Wilhelm, with some unbelief.

“Where the thing thou art wishing to learn is in practice,” said Montan. “Our best instruction we obtain from complete conversance. Dost thou not learn foreign languages best in the countries where they are at home?--where only these and no other strike thy ear?”

“And so it was among the mountains,” inquired Wilhelm, “that thy knowledge of mountains was acquired?”

“Of course.”

“Without help from men?”

“At least only from men who were miners. There, where the pygmies, allured by the metallic veins, bore through the rock, making the interior of the earth accessible, and in a thousand ways endeavoring to solve the hardest problems,--there is the place where an inquiring thinker ought to take his stand. He looks on action and effort, watches the progress of enterprises, and rejoices in the successful and the unsuccessful. What is useful forms but a part of the important. Fully to possess, to command, and rule an object, we must first study it for its own sake.”

“Is there such a place in the neighborhood?” said Wilhelm. “I should like to take Felix thither.”

“The question I can answer in the affirmative,” replied Montan, “the project not exactly assent to. At least, I must first tell thee, that thou hast the power of choosing among many other branches of activity, of knowledge, of art, for thy Felix, some of which might, perhaps, suit him better than this sudden fancy which he has taken up at the moment, most probably from mere imitation.”

“Explain thyself more clearly,” interrupted Wilhelm.

“Thou must know, then,” said Montan, “that we are here on the borders of a province, which I might justly call a Pedagogic Utopia. In the conviction that only one thing can be carried on, taught, and communicated with full advantages, several such points of active instruction have been, as it were, sown over a large tract of country. At each of these places thou wilt find a little world, but so complete within its limitation, that it may represent and model any other of these worlds, nay, the great busy world itself.”

“I do not altogether comprehend what thou canst mean by this,” interrupted Wilhelm.

“Thou shalt soon comprehend it,” said the other. “As down, not far from this, among the mountains, thou wilt, in the first place, find collected round a mass of metalliferous rocks, whatever is of use for enabling man to appropriate these treasures of Nature, and, at the same time, to acquire general conceptions of moulding the ruggedness of inanimate things more dexterously to his own purposes; so down in the lowest level, far out on the plain, where the soil spreads into large meadows and pastures, thou wilt find establishments for managing another important treasure which Nature has given to men.”

“And this?” inquired Wilhelm.

“Is the horse,” replied the other. “In that last quarter thou art in the midst of every thing which can instruct one on the training, diet, growth, and likewise employment, of this noble animal. As in these hills all are busy digging, boring, climbing; so there nothing is more anxiously attended to than the young brood, springing, as it were, out of the ground: and every one is occupied foddering, grazing, driving, leading, curbing them, mounting their backs, and in all sorts of movements, natural and artificial, coursing with them over the plain.”

Felix, who had approached in the deepest attention, exclaimed, interrupting him, “Oh, thither will we! That is the prettiest, the best, of all.”

“It is far thither,” answered Jarno; “and thou wilt find something more agreeable and suitable, perhaps, by the way. Any species of activity,” continued he, “attracts the fondness of a child; for every thing looks easy that is practised to perfection. All beginnings are hard, says the proverb. This, in a certain sense, may be true: but we might say, with a more universal application, All beginnings are easy; and it is the last steps that are climbed most rarely and with greatest difficulty.”

Wilhelm, who had been reflecting in the mean while, now said to Montan, “Is it actually so, as thou sayest, that these people have separated the various sorts of activity, both in the practice and teaching of them?”

“They have done it,” said Montan, “and with reason. Whatever any man has to effect, must emanate from him like a second self; and how could this be possible, were not his first self entirely pervaded by it?”

“Yet has not a general culture been reckoned very advantageous?”

“It may really be so,” replied the other: “every thing in its time. Now is the time of specialties. Happy he who understands this, and works for himself and others in that spirit.”

“In my spirit it cannot be,” replied Wilhelm; “but tell me, if I thought of sending Felix, for a while, into one of these circles, which wouldst thou recommend to me?”

“It is all one,” said Jarno. “You cannot readily tell which way a child’s capacity particularly points. For me, I should still advise the merriest trade. Take him to those horse-subduers. Beginning as a groom is, in truth, little easier than beginning as an ore-beater: but the prospect is always gayer; you can hope at least to get through the world riding.”

It is easy to conceive that Wilhelm had many other doubts to state, and many further explanations to require: these Jarno settled in his usual laconic way, but at last he broke out as follows: “In all things, to serve from the lowest station upwards is necessary. To restrict yourself to a trade is best. For the narrow mind, whatever he attempts is still a trade; for the higher, an art; and the highest, in doing one thing, does all; or, to speak less paradoxically, in the one thing which he does rightly, he sees the likeness of all that is done rightly. Take thy Felix,” continued he, “through the province: let the directors see him; they will soon judge him, and dispose of him to the best advantage. The boy should be placed among his equals, otherwise he seeks them for himself, and then, in his associates, finds only flatterers or tyrants.”

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