370 
 
 S4 
 
 REESE LIBRARY 
 
 OK THK 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 
 
 Deceive J 
 
 Accessions No. 
 
THINGS OF THE MIND 
 
EDUCATION AND THE HIGHER LIFE. 
 
 i2tno. $1.00. 
 
 THINGS OF THE MIND. iamo. $1.00. 
 MEANS AND ENDS OF EDUCATION. 
 
 i2mo. $1.00. 
 
 A. C. McCLURG AND CO. 
 CHICAGO. 
 
THINGS OF THE MIND 
 
 BY 
 
 J. L. SPALDING 
 
 of 
 
 A genuine interest in problems of education helps to keep us young, 
 for it carries us back to our own springtime and to the company of chil- 
 dren. It is also an evidence that we ourselves have not ceased to grow, 
 and are therefore not yet old. 
 
 ^ft>\ 
 
 OF THE r \ 
 
 .UNIVERSITY) 
 *-i^X 
 
 CHICAGO 
 A. C. McCLURG AND COMPANY 
 
 1895 
 
,UBS7<5 
 
 COPYRIGHT 
 BY A. C. MCCLURG & Co, 
 
 A. D. 1894 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. VIEWS OF EDUCATION 7 
 
 II. VIEWS OF EDUCATION ....... 40 
 
 III. VIEWS OF EDUCATION 66 
 
 IV. PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION 94 
 
 V. THEORIES OF LIFE AND EDUCATION . . 128 
 
 VI. CULTURE AND RELIGION 173 
 
 VII. PATRIOTISM 220 
 
THINGS OF THE MIND. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 VIEWS OF EDUCATION. 
 
 To be an interpreter and relater of the best and sagest 
 things among mine own citizens. MILTON. 
 
 WHETHER it be beautiful scenery, or 
 noble monuments, or venerable ruins, 
 or painting, or sculpture, or music, or books, 
 or contact with life, things presented to us 
 educate us only inasmuch as we react upon 
 them. Lead the listless savage through all 
 that is most worth seeing, knowing, admiring, 
 and loving, and at the end he is what he was 
 at the start. The general problem of educa- 
 tion is how best to place instinct and passion 
 under the control of reason and conscience, of 
 higher motives and tastes, that men may learn 
 to find their pleasure and their happiness in 
 doing what brings health, knowledge, and 
 virtue. The educator's aim is to create in- 
 
8 THINGS OF THE MIND. 
 
 terest, for thus alone is it possible to awaken 
 mind. How often it happens, where dulness 
 and listlessness had prevailed, a new-comer 
 brings joy and fresh thoughts. This the 
 teacher should do ; when he appears, he should 
 call forth a sense of glad expectancy, just as 
 a true actor at once lifts a heavy scene into 
 the region of active interest. He is wholly 
 free from the pedant's vanity and conceit, and 
 in his skill there is the play of life. Mechani- 
 cal iteration is the radical fault in education. 
 We pardon our instructors almost anything 
 if only they be not tiresome. Better not to 
 teach or preach than to weary. When the 
 pupil's intercourse with the teacher opens to 
 him glimpses into higher worlds, he is quick 
 to believe all that is told him of heroes, saints, 
 and sages. Sowers, reapers, and gardeners, 
 hunters, fishermen, and the feeders of flocks 
 are the best society for boys; they stimulate 
 an observant interest in the things which are 
 always around them, and touch the sources of 
 pure delight in nature in her most beneficent 
 and pleasant manifestations. To watch, when 
 one is young, the sun with gradual wheel sink 
 slowly from sight, or the stars, as one by one 
 they break upon the view, or the birds when 
 with gentle flutterings they settle to rest amid 
 the leaves, or the full-fed cattle as they lie in 
 
VIEWS OF EDUCATION'. 9 
 
 wakeful dreams, or the young of animals dis- 
 porting themselves upon the green, or the 
 bees plying their task amid the flowers, or 
 ants providing their hoard, or any of the thou- 
 sand things nature offers so prodigally to our 
 gaze, is to drink at the purest and freshest 
 fountain of knowledge, is to store the mind 
 with thoughts and images which, as the years 
 go on, remain with us fragrant and wholesome 
 as a breath of air from life's fair dawn. To 
 look on the fierce battles of bulls, of boars, 
 and of cocks is to feel the might of courage 
 and endurance. To see the little martens as 
 they sally forth to attack the hawk is to learn 
 what pluck and daring, what a union of several 
 may accomplish. The great source of sym- 
 pathy with mankind, as with nature, are those 
 early recollections which bring back to us 
 fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, and 
 all the fair, fresh world which circled about 
 our childhood. Read no book unless it in- 
 terest thee. When thou readest, or speakest, 
 or hearest, look steadfastly with the mind at 
 the things the words symbolize. If there be 
 question of mountains, let them loom before 
 thee; if of the ocean, let its billows roll 
 beneath thy eyes. This habit will give to thy 
 voice even pliancy and meaning. The more 
 sources of interest we have, the richer is our 
 
10 THINGS OF THE MIND. 
 
 life. To hold any portion of truth in a vital 
 way is better than to have its whole baggage 
 stored merely in one's memory. The self- 
 taught look at the world with their own eyes 
 and think their own thoughts. Thy own mind 
 is the first and final court of evidence, and 
 what it receives it should receive on the 
 authority of evidence or on the evidence of 
 authority; in other words, it should accept 
 only what it sees to be true, or has sufficient 
 warrant for believing. The more cultivated 
 a man is, the greater the number of things 
 which interest him. Where others see nothing 
 he finds a well-spring of fresh thoughts; he 
 observes, and attends to what he observes; 
 he receives much because he brings much ; he 
 discovers truth and beauty and goodness in 
 things because he bears them within himself. 
 His mind is a light which clothes what he 
 contemplates in well-defined forms and rightly 
 shaded colors; his heart is an alembic in 
 which the fine spirit of love is distilled; his 
 imagination, like a god, calls forth a living 
 world from the waste and void abyss of matter. 
 He who thinks for himself is rarely persuaded 
 by another. Information and inspiration he 
 gladly receives, but he forms his own judg- 
 ment. Arguments and reasons which to the 
 thoughtful sound like mockery satisfy the 
 
VIE WS OF EDUCA TION. 1 1 
 
 superficial and the ignorant. An enlightened 
 mind sympathizes with the multitude as he 
 sympathizes with children, not so much for 
 what they are as for what it is possible to 
 make of them. 
 
 "To be a fool after the fashion, " says Kant, 
 "is better than to be a downright fool." 
 Noble thoughts and pure loves inform the 
 countenance, and give dignity and grace to 
 one's whole bearing. A fair and luminous 
 soul makes its body beautiful. Take up anew 
 each day the task set thee, to make thy- 
 self more truly a rational, social, and moral 
 
 being. 
 
 
 
 Hasteless, but restless, O my soul, follow after the light 
 That still gleams as brightly as the stars that follow the night. 
 
 Man is not born, he is made by education, - 
 by the education he receives and by the educa- 
 tion he gives himself. Imagination rules our 
 life. It creates the ideals by which we live; 
 from point to point it beckons us on to the 
 unattained. Over vulgar reality it throws a 
 mystic veil; it draws the charmed circle 
 wherein move friendship, love, and freedom. 
 It blows the trumpet of honor and fame; it 
 leads the way to glorious death. 
 
 Superficial minds are fond of dwelling upon 
 the evils religion has wrought; but serious 
 
12 THINGS OF THE MIND. 
 
 thinkers know that the ever open and inex- 
 haustible fountain of faith, hope, and love, is 
 belief in God, or in gods, if you will. 
 
 If men have fought and persecuted and died 
 for their religion, it is because they have held 
 it to be a priceless blessing. This breath from 
 higher worlds, unseen but felt to be real, is 
 to young unfolding souls what sunshine and 
 rain are to the growing corn, 
 
 When the vital current flows rich and 
 healthful, as in the young, life is believed, 
 without the remotest shadow of doubt, to be 
 good; but this is largely unconscious life, and 
 the question is, whether consciousness is a 
 blessing, whether to see things as they are 
 brings joy and peace. The problem therefore 
 resolves itself into this, whether, at the 
 heart of being, behind, within, and above all, 
 there is truth and love; in other words, whether 
 the ultimate fact is conscious life. They who 
 are unable to think that this is so must hold 
 that to think is to be sad, whereas they who 
 believe in God cannot but think that the 
 misery of conscious existence is accidental. 
 Theism is optimism, atheism is pessimism. 
 If there were no God, ignorance would be 
 bliss, and education a crime. Hope and love 
 are the expression of faith in life's goodness. 
 He alone is a true pessimist who neither hopes 
 
VIEWS OF EDUCATION. 13 
 
 nor loves. The end of education is the forma- 
 tion of character; character rests on the basis 
 of morality; and morality, if it have life and 
 vigor, is interfused with religion. True reli- 
 gion is inseparable from morality, and morality 
 from right life, and therefore from right edu- 
 cation. Hence religion, morality, and educa- 
 tion, are a trinity. "Religion," says Herbart, 
 "will never hold the tranquil place in the 
 depths of the heart which it ought to have, 
 if its fundamental ideas are not among the 
 earliest which belong to recollection, if it is 
 not bound up and blended with all that chang- 
 ing life leaves behind in the centre of person- 
 ality." As we should strive to teach ourselves 
 to take delight in whatever is fair in nature, 
 in whatever is true or beautiful in literature 
 or art, so we should learn to find pleasure in 
 whatever brings good to men, and first of all 
 in the welfare and success of those around us, 
 though they be our foes and rivals. A noble 
 man feels that no human being, not even his 
 enemy, is as happy as he would have him be, 
 and thus he finds satisfaction in what only 
 embitters and saddens mean and narrow souls. 
 This enlightened good-will which enables us' 
 to have genuine sympathy with all men, is the 
 very soul of the moral character which it is 
 the aim and end of education to form. Why 
 
14 THINGS OF THE MIND. 
 
 do men choose an avocation? To gain a liveli- 
 hood. But the better sort, whatever their 
 special occupation, labor to fit themselves for 
 life in the higher world of thought and love. 
 Let every faculty be developed in the mild 
 and wholesome air of religion. Good teachers 
 feel they are educating themselves as well as 
 their pupils, and when this belief is not found 
 the power to educate is lacking. He who is 
 led by the ideal of intellectual culture con- 
 cerns himself little with mere questions of 
 social order and political economy, for he feels 
 that if he can but make reason prevail it will 
 put right whatever may need ordering. They 
 who are able to draw forth the mind and 
 illumine the soul should be relieved from all 
 other tasks. In our social gatherings we 
 ascend from out the true self, to glide on the 
 surface amid the forms and shows of life. 
 Hence nothing deeply interesting is ever heard 
 where men meet to eat and talk. Do what it 
 is right thou shouldst do now; but strive 
 ceaselessly that it may become possible for 
 thee to do the work thou wast born to do. 
 
 The craving for applause is as morbid as the 
 craving for alcohol. He alone is strong who 
 is self-sufficient, since he is wh^,t he is through 
 communion with God and the world of truth. 
 When the great man poet, philosopher, states- 
 
VIE WS OF ED UCA TION, I 5 
 
 man, orator, or captain has gained recogni- 
 tion, he becomes indifferent to the praise he 
 once longed for. Happier is he who dies know- 
 ing his own worth, himself unknown, "and 
 what most merits fame in silence hid." Let 
 the young be made to understand that the 
 desire to appear, to be seen, to be noticed, to 
 be talked of, springs from a crude and bar- 
 barous nature. When we look to changes to 
 be wrought in the social and religious world, 
 it may be permitted to feel discouragement, 
 but when there is question of upbuilding and 
 transforming our own being we should be filled 
 with a divine confidence, knowing that the 
 aids to noble life, like the kingdom of God, lie 
 within us. Be a man, not a partisan. " Great 
 moral energy," says Herbart, "is the result of 
 broad views and of whole unbroken masses of 
 thought." Every secret, for those who can 
 see, is an open secret. How any man achieved 
 any godlike thing, any man may know. 
 
 Thou mayst not be an artist who works in 
 stone or on canvas, or who breathes harmo- 
 nious numbers, but an artist thou shouldst 
 become, in the ceaseless effort to fashion thy 
 own life into the likeness of what is true, 
 beautiful, and good. Though thou shouldst 
 think all the world a stage, learn at least, like 
 Augustus, to play well thy part. For a cen- 
 
1 6 THINGS OF THE MIND, 
 
 ' tury now and more, the world resounds with 
 much speech about the rights of man. His 
 first and chief right is the right to grow, to 
 unfold his being on many sides, and to bring 
 himself into conscious harmony with all that 
 is. Heed not the tempter's voice, seeking to 
 persuade thee thou hast done thy best. To 
 have done the best he can is little for the man 
 who feels that his ever urgent duty is to make 
 himself capable of still better things by push- 
 ing day by day into wider and serener worlds. 
 Each man is the maker of himself, the power 
 he uses being God's; and each present moment 
 bears within itself the future's form and 
 substance. To be a man is to be a fighter, 
 a combatant on the world's wide battlefield, 
 where the cohorts of ignorance and sin wage 
 ceaseless warfare against the soul. No one is 
 by nature good or great or wise, but whoever 
 attains such height reaches it by hard toil and 
 long struggles with temptations and hindrances 
 of many kinds. Education lays the foundation, 
 self-education erects the building. Another 
 may show the way, but if we would reach the 
 goal we must ourselves walk therein. What- 
 ever may strengthen body, mind, or soul, the 
 educator needs and should make use of. The 
 strong man, in the right sense, is also wise 
 and good, helpful and loving. They who 
 
VIEWS OF EDUCATION I/ 
 
 starve the body cannot nourish the mind, and 
 if the heads of institutions of learning have 
 not the means to supply copious, wholesome 
 food, they should be made to withdraw from 
 the business of education; but if, having the 
 means, they seek to save money at the expense 
 of health and life, they should be dealt with as 
 criminals. To educate to passive obedience 
 is to predestine to failure. 
 
 When Demosthenes was asked what makes 
 an orator, he replied, "Action, action, action." 
 Had the question been, "What makes a man? " 
 the answer should have been the same, 
 "Action, action, action. " We know what will 
 is only when we begin to act, for action begets 
 will. When we clearly see a thing to be pos- 
 sible we have begun to teach ourselves how to 
 make it real. The circle of thought which 
 we create for ourselves and in which we habit- 
 ually move, makes us what we -are. As the 
 gardener by engrafting can produce the most 
 precious fruit from an inferior stock, so the 
 educator, by implanting fresh thoughts and 
 principles, new aims and desires in the mind 
 of his pupil, may recreate and transform his 
 whole being. The supreme problem for the 
 individual, the family, the school, the State, 
 and the Church, is how to harmonize liberty 
 with order. The higher the source of author- 
 
1 8 THINGS OF THE MIND. 
 
 ity, and the head of rule, the easier the solu- 
 tion. The rhythmic movement of life is the 
 mark of health in the physical, the domestic, 
 and the social body. In every ill-ordered 
 household there is degeneracy. 
 
 The power within and behind nature is the 
 power within and behind man, and the more 
 we realize that we are part of nature, that what 
 we call nature is a force which streams through 
 us as a type of law and order, of wisdom and 
 harmony, of strength and goodness, the more 
 do we advance in dignity of being as rational 
 and moral men. Endowments are possibilities 
 merely; each one's self-activity must deter- 
 mine what for him they shall become. 
 
 When we say man is born free we mean 
 nothing more than that he is born capable of 
 making himself free by a process of gradual 
 emancipation from the thraldom of ignorance, 
 selfishness, and sensuality. This, self-educa- 
 tion must accomplish for him. In a world 
 where multitudes strive for knowledge, power, 
 and wealth, the indolent and the listless are 
 made use of or thrust back. The law of 
 affinity, beginning with chemical atoms, runs 
 upward to souls and God. The mind is drawn 
 to what is akin to it, as planets are drawn to 
 suns. 
 
 Our talents come to us largely from our social 
 
VIEWS OF EDUCATION. 19 
 
 inheritance and environment, and they should 
 be used for the common good. We begin with 
 studying how to learn, and we end with learn- 
 ing how to study. The more we advance the 
 more conscious we become of obeying ideal 
 aims and ends. Only he who strives to dis- 
 tinguish himself, to make himself different 
 from the crowd around him, .becomes L.wis_e_and 
 strong. Be many kinds of man, but be sincere 
 and high... What a wise man knows and loves 
 is more interesting- than himself, and if he 
 write he will write of that, not of himself. 
 The proper attitude of the mind toward the 
 objective world is that of philosophical indif- 
 ference. Things are what they are, and we, 
 too, from moment to moment, are what we 
 are; let the relation be seen and recognized. 
 Beware of the will-o'-the-wisp which would 
 lead thee to defend whatever thou mayst at 
 any time have said or written. Little of what 
 the best have written has significance for more 
 than one generation. They who have learned 
 most have had most to unlearn. 
 
 All the child and youth has been taught, the 
 man must relearn if he is to arrive at insight. 
 Possession makes us indifferent or self-satis- 
 fied; the ceaseless striving after better things 
 makes us men. When we consider the dis- 
 eases to which man is subject it seems mar- 
 
2O THINGS OF THE MIND. 
 
 vellous that any one should have good health; 
 and when we attend to the innumerable sources 
 of his errors, it seems almost incredible that 
 any one should think and judge rightly ; for 
 his mind is swayed from the line of truth by 
 youth and by age, by ignorance and by learn- 
 ing, by feebleness, as by excessive vigor of 
 body, by imagination, and by the lack of it, 
 by love and by hate, by hope and by despair, by 
 wealth and by poverty, by sluggishness and 
 by haste, by fear and by envy, by lust and by 
 greed, by pride and by conceit, by rationalism 
 and by fanaticism, by cowardice and by hypoc- 
 risy, by credulity and by incredulity. How 
 then shall he learn to see things as they are ? 
 Not malice and self-interest alone, but pity, 
 sympathy, love, and prudence prompt us to 
 deceive. The truth is sometimes cruel and 
 brutal, or shocking in its nakedness, and they 
 who soften its harshness, or throw a veil over 
 its hideousness, will not believe they are 
 wicked. The mother hides it from her child, 
 the physician from his patient. We soon 
 learn all our friends have to tell us; our intel- 
 lectual shocks and surprises come from those 
 who disagree with us, and they are our best 
 teachers. The more we know, the more we 
 doubt. Doubt is the shadow which the splen- 
 dor of truth as it falls upon the mind always 
 
VIEWS OF EDUCATION. 21 
 
 casts. It is easy to speak or write of what we 
 know little; they whose know! edge is large 
 and profound find less to_say. Whoever turns 
 his mind habitually and strongly in a given 
 direction will find that, little by little, it 
 loses the power of taking any other. The 
 scientist becomes unable to think poetically 
 or religiously; the poet and the mystic lose 
 sight of the defmiteness of things. Thus the 
 soul, like the body, is subdued to what it 
 works in. No state of things is good, no 
 theory is practice, the real is never the ideal, 
 the spirit whereby and wherein thou livest 
 and workest is the all in all. 
 
 O for a thrill of love, a thrill from life's fair prime, 
 
 To make my being start and blossom into rhyme, 
 
 Bring heaven near and give to stars their appealing light 
 
 And to my soul the wings which tempt infinite flight. 
 
 By love we live, when love is dead all things are dead, 
 
 And in a world we move whence God and the soul have fled. 
 
 " Never," says Jean Paul, " has one forgotten 
 his pure, right-educating mother. On the blue 
 mountains of our dim childhood toward which 
 we ever turn and look, stand the mothers who 
 marked out to us from thence our life ; the most 
 blessed age must be forgotten ere we can forget 
 the warmest heart." 
 
 At her death Laura appeared to Petrarch, in a 
 dream, and holding out her hand she asked: 
 
22 THINGS OF THE MIND. 
 
 <% Do you not remember her who influenced 
 your youth and led you out of the common road 
 of life?" 
 
 A woman cannot hope to make a sage or a 
 saint or a hero of the man who loves her, but 
 she may, of the child. Contempt for women is 
 the mark of a crude mind or of a corrupt heart. 
 What strength is there not in the rich joyfulness 
 of youth, bursting forth into glad song and 
 laughter, and passing lightly away from hard- 
 ship and disappointment, out again to where the 
 glorious sunshine plays upon the rippling waters 
 and the happy flowers. The very memory of 
 it all comes back to us like a message from God 
 to bid us be stout of heart and to keep growing. 
 Those we love sanctify for us the places where 
 they have lived ; the spots even where they have 
 but passed are sacred. < 
 
 The philosophy of life is the philosophy of 
 education, and sympathy with the race tends to 
 resolve itself into the desire to give to all a right 
 culture; for it is plain that in this way better 
 than in any other we are able to be of help to 
 our fellows. Our interest in education is the 
 measure of our interest in the world and in 
 humanity. He alone is a true believer in the 
 ideal of culture who is persuaded that culture, 
 like virtue, is its own reward, that nothing an 
 enlightened mind may enable him to obtain is 
 
VIEWS OF EDUCATION. 2$ 
 
 as good as the enlightened mind itself. The 
 aim of culture, as it is also the aim of religion, 
 is to create an inner strength and enlightenment 
 which supersedes and makes superfluous mere 
 legalism. 
 
 Power of concentration, of persevering appli- 
 cation of the whole mind to what ought to be 
 known and done, is a mark of genius, and it is 
 also one of the best results of right education. 
 The educational value of the study of physical 
 science is found in the sense it awakens of the 
 universal presence of law and order, and also in 
 the training to close and accurate observation 
 which it enforces. 
 
 It is easy to educate too much, to put one's 
 own mind and will in the place of the learner's ; 
 but we are always safe when we help the pupil 
 to educate himself. " The mind," says Schiller, 
 " possesses only what it does." All of us, the 
 most ignorant even, know more than we know 
 how to put to right use. Prejudices are idols 
 to which we sometimes sacrifice the most pre- 
 cious things, the light of the mind, the joy of 
 the soul, the free play of the imagination, the 
 love of truth itself, and yet a man without pre- 
 judices is like a man without a home or a coun- 
 try. He is a stranger who finds no fellows, no 
 company in which he will gain recognition, for 
 nothing makes the crowd so uncomfortable as 
 
24 THINGS OF THE MIND. 
 
 dispassionate reason, the pure light of the intel- 
 lect. It is easy to meet with well-informed 
 minds, but we seldom find one who has a real 
 world-view and a circle of thought in which he 
 is at home, whose life rests upon unity of pur- 
 pose, whose conduct is controlled by principle, 
 whose thinking has truth for its single aim. In 
 former times to assert truth was to risk life, or, 
 at the least, loss of name and goods ; but now, 
 when there is no danger and the whole rabble 
 rush in each with his torch to enlighten the 
 world, truth, grown ashamed of its nakedness, 
 hides from the eyes of men. 
 
 "Work and enthusiasm," says Goethe, "are 
 the pinions on which great deeds are borne." 
 If the pupil see that his teacher is mean or arbi- 
 trary, the school becomes for him a place of 
 perversion. Language is interesting because it 
 is the garb and medium of thought and feeling; 
 it is a symbol which has educational value only 
 when it brings us into conscious communion 
 with the things symbolized. All experience is 
 first of all a mental fact. The word " matter/* 
 like matter itself, is the expression of a condition 
 of mind. 
 
 Culture enables us to see how little worth 
 most of our knowledge has, how little it deserves 
 the name of knowledge. Learn to know and 
 feel the soul of goodness, truth, and beauty, 
 
VIEWS OF EDUCATION. 2$ 
 
 which, however hidden, acts everywhere in man 
 and in the universe, making the world fair and 
 life precious. " There is no easy way of learn- 
 ing what is difficult/' says De Maistre ; " the 
 unique method is to shut one's door, to say one 
 is not at home, and to work." In education the? 
 essential is not programmes and methods, but 
 able and devoted men ; not the things taught, but : 
 the spirit in which they are taught. To attempt 
 to teach morality as a separate something, and 
 not to recognize that it ought to penetrate and 
 dominate all our studies, is a fatal error. In 
 high men the highest happiness springs from 
 the consciousness of being and doing right. To 
 be truthful and honorable are the most difficult 
 virtues, for truth and honor spring from the 
 finest sense of duty of which the soul is capable. 
 The educator's ceaseless endeavor should be to 
 prevent the formation of habits of wrong-doing; 
 for such habits are enfeeblement of will, are the 
 weakness which is misery. Character is edu- 
 cated will. Will is dark, mind is luminous ; and 
 it is the purpose of education to flood the will 
 with intellectual light. What we steadfastly will 
 to be, we become. A mighty purpose gives us 
 now, in a way, what we are resolved to have. 
 It is hardly a paradox to maintain that it is 
 better not to read at all than to read only news- 
 papers. Health and wealth are appreciated 
 
26 THINGS OF THE MIND. 
 
 when they have been lost ; knowledge and virtue 
 when they have been found. He teaches best 
 who enables his pupil to dispense with his aid, 
 as he governs best who makes his rule unneces- 
 sary. The virtue of the intellect makes us take 
 delight in truth and beauty simply because they 
 are true and beautiful, as moral virtue makes us 
 love goodness simply because it is good. The 
 shallowness and triviality of man's spirit is the 
 most perplexing puzzle for a serious mind. 
 Since he is not really concerned in any intelli- 
 gent way, even for his bodily health and well- 
 being, is it not idle to suppose in him a yearning 
 for truth and love? If he takes little pains to 
 make the best of this life, how shall we believe 
 that he truly longs for immortal life? Have we 
 not all, like blasts viveurs, lost the sense of the 
 joy and sweetness of life? To see, to hear, to 
 feel, to drink the light of day and star-illumined 
 night, to breathe the perfume of flowers and 
 ripening corn, to watch the pageant of the 
 changing year, the play of children and the 
 flight of birds, to dream, to think, to know, to 
 believe, to hope, to love, this and all else which 
 only God could give, were bliss and pure de- 
 light if we were but sensible of the boundless 
 boon. 
 
 " Gods are we, bards, saints, heroes, if we 
 will." The finding pleasure in doing right is a 
 
VIEWS OF EDUCATION. 2/ 
 
 certain result of a habit of right-doing. Im- 
 moral conduct is a mark of retrogression toward 
 the life of primitive man; and as savages, 
 when thrown into contact with civilized races, 
 disappear, so in a healthful society there should 
 be an irresistible tendency to eliminate the 
 vicious and criminal. Base pleasures deaden 
 the relish for life. They who are most con- 
 scious of the need of self-improvement are most 
 humble, and they who devote themselves most 
 assiduously to this task are most wise. The 
 best men have no price ; they can be bought 
 neither with hope of reward nor with fear of 
 punishment, purchased neither with money nor 
 with place nor with pleasure. Let money be thy 
 servant and procurator, not thy lord and master. 
 Formerly culture was to be had only in half 
 a dozen centres, in Athens, Rome, or Alexan- 
 dria, in Paris, Oxford, or Leipsic; but this is 
 true no longer, and when young men tell me 
 they cannot pursue the work of self-education 
 in a Western village, I believe them. The fault 
 lies within themselves. If I have only bread, 
 and you want water, you will go to some one 
 else; if you want muscle and I have only 
 brains, if you want money and I have only vir- 
 tue, you will not care for me. ( To have the 
 best of everything is possible only for those 
 who are themselves the best. The best thoughts 
 
28 THINGS OF THE MIND. 
 
 are to be found in literature, but who loves them? 
 The best eloquence, poetry, and music, like the 
 glories of nature, are wasted merely on clowns 
 and boors. The best which has been made 
 known to man is the power of love, as it is 
 revealed in Christ, but who believes it? Until 
 our faith and knowledge enter into our very 
 flesh and blood, we neither believe nor rightly 
 understand. We truly know only what we have 
 undergone, what suffering has taught us. Over 
 those who lack the spirit of self-sacrifice, ideals 
 have little power; they live in the present, 
 absorbed in the selfish desire of possessing and 
 enjoying. The discipline of want and sorrow 
 by which man has been hammered into shape, 
 purified, and made human, is for them simply 
 an evil. They must indulge themselves; or, if 
 this is denied them they are filled with envy and 
 hate. Knowing nothing of the inner aids to 
 life, they would grasp everything. They do not 
 see that wisdom is taught by suffering, and that 
 consciousness of higher needs is indispensable 
 to the attainment of wealth of heart and mind. 
 Knowledge makes us unafraid, while love ever 
 fills us with dread of loss. 
 
 '* Not one but many lives are his 
 Who carries the world in his sympathies." 
 
 Enthusiasm is a flame which leaps, not from 
 mind to mind, but from heart to heart. It is blown 
 
VIEWS OF EDUCATION. 2Q 
 
 into intenser heat by a single heroic example 
 than by all the proverbs. Whenever a man of 
 genius appears he comes to remain ; and whether 
 we love or hate him, he is our master. He who, 
 in utter sincerity, devotes his life to a noble cause 
 to religion, freedom, science, or art maybe 
 tempted to think, when the end approaches, that 
 he has failed; but such work can no more 
 fail than God can fail. 
 
 To-day of all is best : 
 The others are quite dead 
 And lie deep in the breast 
 Of changeless past at rest : 
 Crown, then, to-day thy head ; 
 To-day be thou God's guest. 
 
 What are numbers? One only God makes 
 the universe, one soul may stand against a 
 world, one mind see higher truth than a parlia- 
 ment of nations. Do we not turn from a thou- 
 sand chattering daws to listen to one nightingale 
 singing to its love alone? 
 
 Galileo was thought to be a perverter of reli- 
 gious truth, but when men came to understand 
 him they saw he was a light-bearer through 
 God's heavens. Napoleon, the supreme man- 
 killer, was a poor shot. The secret of power in 
 the world of action lies in the ability to make \ 
 the many do what even the strongest cannot do 
 himself ; but this secret, like that of the poet, is 
 
30 THINGS OF THE MIND. 
 
 known only to those to whom it reveals itself; 
 it cannot be taught. The sense of power is an 
 essential element in all pleasure, as consciousness 
 of defect is always painful. The highest power 
 is intellectual and moral, and to know that it is 
 ours gives therefore the purest pleasure. The 
 greatest minds and hearts run greatest perils. 
 
 Consciousness of defect is the evolutionary 
 principle which urges us toward completeness. 
 In those who feel they know enough, love 
 enough, believe enough, and are all they care to 
 be, this principle is lacking. The finer and 
 deeper the intellect, the keener and subtler is 
 the intellectual conscience, the love of truth 
 for itself, as being our best equivalent of the 
 supreme reality, the absolute. Contentment 
 with what we have and longing for what we 
 have not are the positive and negative poles of 
 life. Common natures circle about the positive, 
 while the nobler, feeling that this positive is, in 
 truth, negative, reach out for the infinite ideal, 
 which it is impossible indeed to grasp, but which 
 they perceive to be the only essentially real. 
 
 The heart we bear within us makes us men ; 
 It is the fountainhead of noble thoughts, 
 The source of noble living and of power. 
 For there is placed the central seat of God, 
 Who to the pure and strong of heart gives peace, 
 And courage without weakness to endure 
 The worst that may befall a guiltless soul. 
 
VIEWS OP EDUCATION. 31 
 
 The higher and purer our happiness, the more 
 peaceful and tolerant we become. 
 
 Whatever is, is a manifestation of force. This 
 is the sum of all ideas of being, of that of the 
 absolute even, for God is pure act. " I think, 
 therefore am/ 1 is but the affirmation of the 
 identity of force and being. The measure of 
 worth consequently is quantity and quality of 
 power. Nothing distinguishes men of genius 
 from other men so much as their exceptional 
 power of attention. They may not be able to 
 bear a greater weight of thought than others, 
 but they can bear it for a longer time, holding 
 it all the while under the pure light of the mind. 
 The strength of the strong is developed by 
 opposition, by neglect, by threats, and scorn. 
 They know their ability, and indignation at the 
 wrongs they suffer calls it forth. 
 
 Our fatal fault is facility. Ten thousand 
 Americans speak, write, teach, govern, and re- 
 form the world with facility, but hardly one of 
 us is a master in anything. We are busy with 
 many things, but with ourselves scarcely at all. 
 And we therefore lack the consciousness of 
 defect which impels to the struggle for higher 
 worth. Culture lifts us out of the class in which 
 we were born, for it takes us away from all 
 classes into worlds where only the best live and 
 love. The way is hard and long which, out of 
 
32 THINGS OF THE MIND. 
 
 the dark prison of ignorance wherein we are 
 born, leads up to intellectual light and liberty; 
 but the goal once reached, the memory of the 
 toil and pain is lost in pure delight. The objec- 
 tions to culture are, at bottom, objections to 
 education ; or they are arguments against a par- 
 tial, superficial, and false cultivation. Like the 
 prejudices of the poor against the rich, they 
 spring generally from envy, from a sense of 
 inferiority, and not from a real view of the aims 
 and ends of culture. Our word " culture " finds 
 its best equivalent in the Latin kumanitas. It im- 
 plies a fine humanity, or humaneness, in thought, 
 word, and deed ; it is an enlightened and sym- 
 pathetic consciousness of all that is best in human 
 experience and achievement. It looks away 
 from what is personal and partial, from temper- 
 ament and whim, from calling and position, 
 from family and people, to what is of universal 
 and permanent interest ; and in this world of 
 the universally and permanently interesting, it 
 embraces all things, whether they belong to soul 
 or body, whether they relate to thought or 
 action. That knowledge alone is fruitful which, 
 amid struggle and contradiction, ripens within 
 the depths of one's own heart and is made part 
 of his very being, is, indeed, himself. Coinci- 
 dences and harmonies between different nerve- 
 centres of the brain, which have been established 
 
VIEWS OF EDUCATION. 33 
 
 by education, may disappear through disuse ; 
 but as steeds, turned loose to graze, when taken 
 in hand again, quickly strike the gaits to which 
 they have once been trained, so the channels of 
 habitual thought are never wholly obliterated, 
 but, at the worst, they are choked with a kind 
 of mental drift, which a flood of fresh ideas will 
 carry away. In the highest poetry there is a 
 two-fold life, that of men and deeds as they 
 stand forth in history, and that which genius 
 pours in and around them; and, since life begets 
 life, this kind of poetry has supreme educational 
 value. To understand a poet, we must feel in 
 reading him the emotion which inspired his 
 song. His words are set to melody, and the 
 music reveals their meaning. 
 
 Best happiness is health of heart, and mind 
 Which in sound body works to worthy ends ; 
 This is the soul of life, this makes a man, 
 And gives to all his being a God-ward trend. 
 
 The true view of life is the religious ; for no 
 other explains our aspirations and longings, or 
 justifies enthusiasm and self-sacrifice. 
 
 The worst consequences of the newspaper 
 habit may be seen in the young, for whom each 
 morning, like a daily meal, accounts of vice and 
 crime are served up, to make them incapable of 
 admiration, reverence, and awe. What father 
 
 3 
 
34 THINGS OF THE MIND. 
 
 employs burglars, murderers, and adulterers, or 
 quacks, liars, and sophists, as tutors for his 
 children? A man's daily reading, like his habit- 
 ual conversation, is a symbol of his life and 
 character. To one who was presented to him, 
 Socrates said : " Speak, that I may see thee." 
 Now he would say: " Show me what thou read- 
 est, that I may see thee." 
 
 " Most readers, like good-natured cows, 
 Keep browsing and forever browse ; 
 If a fair flower come in their way 
 They take it too, nor ask, ' What, pray?' 
 Like other fodder it is food, 
 And for the stomach quite as good." 
 
 To free ourselves from the rudeness of our 
 early manner and speech is comparatively an 
 easy task; what is difficult is to clear the mind 
 of prejudice, and to purify the heart from greed 
 and sensuality. Galton says that not more than 
 one in four thousand may be expected to attain 
 distinction. It is to this chosen one among the 
 thousands that philosophers, poets, and educators 
 always look; and some of them believe that, as 
 there is a love which may create life under the 
 ribs of death, so genius may evoke, with almost 
 m/raculous power, thought and desire even from 
 the most unpromising sources. When a nation's 
 thinkers and poets, heroes and saints are all 
 dead, the best part of its life is with the dead. 
 
VIEWS OF EDUCATION. 35 
 
 He who is born to lead finds followers, for nearly 
 all men are born to follow. There is radical 
 wrong in the education which diminishes or 
 weakens the freshness and vigor of the youthful 
 mind and body. The best work the student 
 does is that which teaches him the love of work. 
 Zeal lacks discretion, and a zealous teacher may 
 easily overdo his task, just as an anxious mother 
 spoils her child with too much care. It is with 
 schools as with doctors. If the patient get 
 well or die, we praise or blame the physician ; 
 if the pupil succeed or fail, we accredit it to the 
 school, though the cause lie elsewhere. In the 
 things of the mind that which is decisive is not 
 the length of time, but the concentration of 
 power with which we apply ourselves. " The 
 writing of a single page," says Jean Paul, " stim- 
 ulates the desire to learn, more than the reading 
 of a whole volume." Work to satisfy thine own 
 nature, thine innermost craving for truth, beauty, 
 and love, not to please another. Should it 
 occur to thee to think thyself worthy of higher 
 honor or place, recall to mind the great poets 
 and philosophers who have lived and died poor 
 and neglected by the world, but " by their own 
 spirit deified." 
 
 Failures, for those conscious of inner power, 
 are like trumpe trails to rally to renewed 
 attacks- 
 
36 THINGS OF THE MIND. 
 
 He who has a few facts and arguments at his 
 fingers' ends, thinks highly of his learning, as a 
 well-dressed fellow with a few dollars in his 
 pocket feels rich; but a man of real culture 
 gives little heed to his mere facts and argu- 
 ments, as one of real wealth hardly knows what 
 he has on or in his pocket. To know one thing 
 thoroughly, it is necessary to know many things ; 
 but the one thoroughly known is decisive, is the 
 test of one's intellectual grasp. Accuracy is a 
 result of the habit of observation and attention. 
 Variety and wealth of vocabulary indicate range 
 of thought and degree of culture. When to 
 appreciate an author it is necessary to take a 
 special point of view, he will, at the most, prove 
 interesting only for a few. A fair knowledge of 
 some other language than one's mother-tongue 
 liberates from the bondage of words. 
 
 A true teacher is a pioneer through the tan- 
 gled forest, a shepherd who leads to wholesome 
 pastures, a guide who shows the most practicable 
 road, a physician who tells what diet best suits, 
 a captain who inspires the confidence which is 
 half the battle, a friend who makes the long 
 way seem short. He has himself become and 
 achieved all that he would have his pupil accom- 
 plish and be. His example is of more value 
 than many lessons, and to know him and to 
 live in his presence is joy and enlightenment. 
 
VIEWS OF EDUCATION. 37 
 
 How does not intoxicated youth," says Jean 
 Paul, " hang, like bees on flowering lime-trees, 
 drinking in the spirit of a celebrated teacher." 
 A coward makes a coward ; a dullard, a dullard ; 
 a liar, a liar. Alexander risked drinking poi- 
 son rather than suffer the poison of distrust. 
 "Heavens!" says Jean Paul again, "how is it 
 that always we find something good in books 
 on education, and so seldom anything of it 
 in teachers?" Not what the teacher says, but 
 what he is and does, draws the young brood 
 after him. I remember how I went on in happy, 
 healthful ignorance until I was eight years old, 
 taught only to look forward to the school as to 
 some Fortunate Isle where Wonderland would 
 be shown. I have not been disappointed. 
 
 The teacher's confidence in him gives the pupil 
 \ confidence in himself; and self-confidence lies at 
 the root of all achievement. It gives strength, 
 and invites help from others ; it is half the wis- 
 dom of life. To arouse the educational sense is 
 better than to teach rules ; for this is the living 
 fountain from which rules have sprung. " The 
 difference between good and bad teaching," says 
 Freeman, " mainly consists in this, whether the 
 words are really clothed with meaning or not." 
 To do any right or useful thing is better than to 
 have the fame of Caesar. Let neither thy own 
 nor thy party's success lead thee astray, by 
 
38 THINGS OF THE MIND. 
 
 filling thee with a love of ease or with self- 
 complacent thoughts. Love truth ; every lie is 
 a lie to God, and he alone is truthful who 
 shrinks from a lie as an honest man shrinks from 
 a theft. Reverence for all goodness is the 
 fragrant flower and ripe fruit of a noble life. 
 He who has not learned to find pleasure in the 
 good of others is not only uneducated, but un- 
 civilized. As we learn to control nature by 
 obeying her laws, so we learn to govern our- 
 selves and others by obedience to the laws that 
 make us men. Solon, when asked how wrong- 
 doing in the State could be prevented, made this 
 reply : " By teaching those who are not wronged 
 to feel the same indignation at wrong as the 
 sufferers themselves feel." If a merchant, sell 
 honest wares ; if an author, write honest truth ; 
 if a preacher, speak honest faith. Sincerity is 
 1 the virtue God and men most love. Let thy 
 ceaseless aim be to gain strength, to develop 
 strength, to preserve strength, strength of 
 body, strength of mind, strength of will. If 
 thou art a gentleman thou wilt be kindly, 
 modest and brave, sincere and gracious. " No 
 true luxury, wealth, or religion," says Ruskin, 
 " is possible to dirty persons." Behavior, it 
 may be said, is the all in all. It is conduct and 
 more than conduct. It is what poetry is to 
 truth, what style is to thought it is the fine 
 
VIEWS OF EDUCATION. 39 
 
 flower and fair body of noble and righteous life. 
 He who can not behave has no claim on our 
 attention, no right to appear at all. The reward 
 the lover of culture seeks, is the having a culti- 
 vated mind, as the reward the lover of God 
 hopes for is the having a godlike soul. 
 
 " That I to-morrow shall be alive 
 
 I frankly do not know ; 
 But if to-morrow for me arrive, 
 That I to-morrow shall fearless strive, 
 Beyond all doubt I know." 
 
 " Who shootes at the midday sonne," says Sir 
 Philip Sidney, " though he be sure he shall 
 never hit the marke ; yet as sure he is he shall 
 shoote higher than who aymes but at a bush." 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 VIEWS OF EDUCATION. 
 
 I seek not to make men read, but to make them think. 
 MONTESQUIEU. 
 
 T^HE ear is made for the thrill of pulsing air, 
 but it is fashioned in the silent chamber of 
 the womb ; the eye's home is the luminous 
 ether, but it is formed in darkness; and the 
 mind which receives all messages from the outer 
 world, all intimations from the inner, and weaves 
 them into the rich harmony of truth and beauty, 
 gains this divine power in solitude, in lonely 
 dreams and uninterrupted meditations, far from 
 crowds and the noisy contests of vulgar ambi- 
 tion. The highest natures are the most respon- 
 sive, not only to what speaks to the soul, but 
 also to what appeals to the senses. He who 
 takes genuine delight in life finds the secret of 
 fresh thoughts and inspired words. The phys- 
 ical universe is a school, the State is a school, 
 the Church is a school, life is a school, and in all 
 actual or possible schools, the soul is still its 
 
VIEWS OF EDUCATION. 41 
 
 own best teacher. To live and work in the hope 
 that it shall be well for those who follow us that 
 we have lived, is to breathe the bracing air of 
 health and happiness ; but this faith is possible 
 only to the unselfish and brave. Morality is 
 the victory of man's higher nature over his 
 lower. The mark of the lower is that it looks 
 to self; of the higher that it looks to God and 
 all things. A nation's power and wealth is never 
 so well employed as in promoting right educa- 
 tion. Love of truth is the basis of character. 
 Some emphasize love, others truth ; but neither, 
 parted from the other, suffices. No truth has 
 worth unless it be associated with something 
 we love ; no love is real unless it be grounded 
 in truth. Sensation is a treadmill, thought leads 
 to new worlds. Whatever widens and enriches 
 life, whatever emancipates the soul, is good. 
 
 As the fairest fruit-tree is chiefly wood, break- 
 ing only here and there into fragrant blossom and 
 luscious meat, so even the best books are mostly 
 dull matter, where, at intervals, heavenly truth, 
 kissed by the sun of genius, buds and flowers 
 into perfect form. The original thoughts and 
 words of the most inspired author, a little vol- 
 ume will easily contain. 
 
 The Philistine thinks lightly of a work of 
 genius, though in some thousand millions of 
 men, there was but one able to do this work. 
 
 OF THE 
 
 (UNIVERSITY. 
 
42 THINGS OF THE MIND, 
 
 Whoever is able to do what is worth doing, and 
 able to do it better than any one else, may, 
 without misgivings, set to work. Accomplish- 
 ment makes cavil absurd. In seeking to raise 
 men above the spirit of the age, let us not lose 
 sight of what is strong and beneficent in this 
 spirit. They who diffuse truth and love belong 
 to a higher race than conquerors and shop- 
 keepers. It is with books as with men, it is 
 easiest to acquaint one's self with those least worth 
 knowing. Plato will no more speak to the dull 
 and heedless from the printed page than he 
 would have stooped to their level had he met 
 them in his Attic grove. " Privileged minds," 
 said Frederick the Great, " take rank with sov- 
 ereigns." Nay, they outrank them, just as a 
 real man makes a merely titular personage ridic- 
 ulous. The impulse to deliver one's self from 
 scorn is a motive not less powerful than the 
 love of praise. Hence poverty or physical de- 
 formity is often a stimulus to exercise of mind. 
 Amid the noise critics and readers make about 
 reverberant names, from some obscure corner 
 or the gloom of a prison cell a Milton or a 
 Pascal, a Goldsmith or a Bunyan, a Cervantes 
 or an A Kempis, steals in with his little book 
 and is immortal. Like men, books have their 
 fortunes, but circumstance cannot make what is 
 excellent worthless or what is worthless excel- 
 
VIEWS OF EDUCATION. 43 
 
 lent. Popularity is won and kept by a noise of 
 words, and when the name is no longer sounded 
 it is forgotten; but what the best minds once 
 approve the best minds will always approve. 
 He who finds his pleasure in the mind has what 
 pleases ever with him. The thinker is never 
 lonely, as the lover is never poor. The best 
 legacy a man can leave is a good book. Emer- 
 son thought nothing so much wanting in our 
 colleges as a professor of books. It is as diffi- 
 cult to teach the young to know books as to 
 know men. What is best in literature, as in life, 
 is seen to be so only by those who have made 
 themselves worthy of the heavenly knowledge. 
 Richard de Bury says of books : " They are the 
 masters that instruct us without rods and ferulas, 
 without hard words and anger. If you ap- 
 proach them they are not asleep : if you inter- 
 rogate them, they conceal nothing: if you 
 mistake them, they never complain : if you are 
 ignorant they will not laugh at you." 
 
 Books console us for the world of men. Now 
 that printed sheets are scattered fast and thick 
 as snowflakes from wintry skies, who may hope 
 to write aught that shall endure? If any one, 
 he who utters sweetest truth in fewest words. 
 
 We live within the mind and heart alone, 
 And whatsoever is not there, for us 
 Need not exist : and therefore we may find 
 Or make a home in every place and clime, 
 
44 THINGS OF THE MIND. 
 
 And be ourselves the same, though all else change : 
 For we are what we know and love, and not 
 The things that strike upon the outer sense. 
 So even we may live beneath the eye 
 Of God and dwell in His eternity, 
 While hurrying time with all its roaring sound 
 Sinks into nothingness. But truth and love 
 Remain always, and we also with them. 
 
 Like a setter afield, be all alive, with eye and 
 ear and nose, to catch whatever message may 
 be borne to thee from God's boundless game- 
 park. The mind is tinged with the colors the 
 eye habitually rests upon, and there is an unsus- 
 pected relation between our habits of looking 
 and our habits of thinking. It is easy to speak 
 ill of books, the best of them being imperfect 
 enough, but they alone bring us close to the 
 thought and love of the greatest and noblest 
 who have lived. It is hard to meet with a 
 superior man, and when he is found he will not 
 tell his secret; but we are forever in the com- 
 pany of God, and in the books of men of genius 
 the best that is known lies open to us. What 
 innumerable lamps night after night are set 
 aglow to illumine the shrines which hold the 
 thoughts of genius, and what devout eyes bend 
 over them and find therein light for the mind, 
 refreshment for the heart, and solace for the 
 soul. Thy days are few, O man of genius, more 
 brief it would seem than those of other men. 
 
VIEWS OF EDUCATION. 45 
 
 Work, then, while time is given thee; clothe 
 truth and love in words which for ages shall be 
 as full of cheer and comfort as the thought of 
 hearthfires to travellers who through the dark- 
 ness of wintry nights turn their faces homeward. 
 Thy gifts are fatal, but thou wouldst not ex- 
 change them for empires. 
 
 The more we live within the mind, the more 
 our thought and love take root in eternity: for 
 the soul floating in the awful stream of matter 
 where all things flow on and change ceaselessly, 
 fastens its view upon what is forever the same ; 
 and hence when we are truly awake we find 
 ourselves in an ever during and infinite world. 
 As the diver who wearies not will at last bring 
 up a priceless pearl, so the tireless thinker who 
 plunges into the ocean of being will be rewarded, 
 at the least, by glimpses of truth. Wait for a 
 thought, as a fisher for a bite. The curiosity 
 of the noblest minds to learn what cannot be 
 known would seem to be morbid. They still 
 seek what they feel can never be found. But is 
 not this bent of the soul an evidence rather that 
 we are born for God, for eternal life? Dead 
 hopes and vanished dreams, fallen races and 
 mouldering ruins lie along the way of progress. 
 Whoever advances leaves behind something 
 that was dear. But why regret illusions which 
 had power to lead us astray? The loss increas- 
 ing knowledge brings is gain. 
 
46 THINGS OF THE MIND. 
 
 When we cease to learn we cease to be inter- 
 esting. To learn is to teach one's self; for 
 whether we gain intellectual power and knowl- 
 edge by observation, by reading, or by listening, 
 the result is the outcome of our self-activity. We 
 are self-taught, and the educator does best 
 when he awakens interest and attention, keeps 
 his pupils mentally alive, makes them as eager 
 to exercise the mind as lusty boys are to run 
 or ride or swim. It is his business to set them 
 thinking. Thousands can tell what they know, 
 but few can rouse to energetic and persevering 
 activity. In a more enlightened age the teach- 
 er's chair will be refused to whoever lacks the 
 power to awaken interest. All is wrong when 
 able men are busy with questions of finance, 
 and the training of human beings is left to 
 dolts and dullards. The information the teacher 
 imparts may be had in any encyclopaedia, but 
 the impulse to thought and love can be given 
 only by a living soul. 
 
 Hast thou sometimes seen a foolish dog rush, 
 with furious barkings, from a farm-yard to attack 
 a train? Such is the wisdom of those who growl 
 at the nature of things, or who would arrest the 
 widening and deepening consciousness of the 
 human mind. Whoever loves may hate, who- 
 ever thinks may doubt, whoever is free may 
 fail. This is a permanent condition of human 
 
VIEWS OF EDUCATION. 47 
 
 life, which, whatever changes science and prog- 
 ress may make in man's environment, will con- 
 tinue to be the law of his existence. It may 
 happen that the more a thing is proved, the less 
 it is believed. We believe in God before we are 
 capable of understanding what proof means, and 
 no force of argument can strengthen our faith. 
 
 Sometimes when I read a line of Horace or 
 Virgil, a sense of pleasure, as from the fragrance 
 of moist woodlands in spring, overcomes me, 
 and memories of my college days start to life 
 like the bursting of buds and the songs of birds. 
 The more life we have, the more we feel that to 
 be alive is a good and happy thing. Pessimism 
 is born of waning vitality, of lack of faith, hope, 
 and love. Love clothes the very body of the 
 beloved with beauty and sacredness; it is the 
 soul throwing itself like a veil about the flesh ; 
 it is purity and reverence. Its worship and 
 adoration spring from itself without thought of 
 good or evil. They who have more faith in 
 majorities than in God and the soul do not know 
 what truth and freedom are. To wish that the 
 crowd agree with us is evidence of bad taste, it 
 is a mark of vulgarity. Truth cannot be fitted 
 to the mind as clothes are fitted to the body ; it is 
 not the conclusion of a syllogism, but the result 
 of a habit of listening and observing, of doing 
 and thinking. Fortunate are they who have 
 
48 THINGS OF THE MIND. 
 
 learned to love to do what they ought to do. 
 The desire for what we lack makes us men. 
 ^"Tew friends," says Landor, " fewer acquaint- 
 ances, no familiars." A great part of wisdom 
 consists in knowing how to get along with fools. 
 Great truths are never perfectly luminous. As 
 the uncertainty of the hour of death gives zest 
 to life, so the obscurity which envelops our 
 highest thoughts adds to their charm. What is 
 manifest is uninteresting. Our very bodies re- 
 quire the mystery of drapery to prevent them 
 from becoming vulgar. The suggestion rather 
 than the revelation of the Infinite is the charac- 
 teristic of high art. " The naked truth " is a 
 mistaken phrase, for truth to be known must be 
 clothed. The baser metal is the jewel's foil. 
 The fine air of pure truth is too rare for our 
 breathing. The divine thoughts and inspired 
 words of Plato or Shakespeare would never have 
 made their way in the world had they not been 
 imbedded in a grosser element of trivial ideas 
 and vulgar interests. 
 
 What the great number of intelligent and 
 enlightened minds accept is but another name 
 for truth. The infinite reason is revealed in the 
 consent of those who know and think. The 
 best work of genius is unintentional, not what 
 it sets itself to do, but what inner necessity drives 
 it to do ; and it is only when it thus utters itself 
 
VIEWS OF EDUCATION. 49 
 
 that it is creative. Events solve the great prob- 
 lems, and our discussions and contentions are 
 but the foam that crests the wave. In the world 
 of ideas, the multitude hesitate and are as unset- 
 tled as children who give fantastic shapes to 
 clouds. Truth for them takes the form given to 
 it by vivid imaginations, and while they assent, 
 they doubt whether they see what the cloud- 
 gazer points out, or they are undecided whether 
 it is like a whale, or a lion, or a human being. 
 The cloud, indeed, keeps no shape, and the 
 view the common mind has of the ideal world 
 is a view of what is ever changing and dissolving. 
 
 Women are aristocrats, and it is always the 
 mother who makes us feel that we belong to the 
 better sort. He who lives within lives with 
 God, and needs no other friend. This is the 
 sum of Christ's life and teaching, the divine wis- 
 dom of which the world still fails to comprehend. 
 The master need not sign his name ; it is uttered 
 by his work. It is not worth while to live if 
 life bring not higher knowledge and purer love. 
 
 If he is fortunate who, whenever it pleases 
 him, may call together the most select company, 
 what shall we say of him who, at any moment, 
 can summon from every age and every land, 
 their choice spirits, and hold converse with them 
 as their equal? Is he not among mortals an 
 immortal? Does he not live in serene and 
 4 
 
50 THINGS OF THE MIND. 
 
 enduring worlds, to which nor strength of body, 
 nor beauty, nor youth, nor wealth, nor kingly 
 power can lead? The fundamental precept of 
 pedagogy is this : Study things rather than 
 words, which are but the symbols of things. 
 "Words," says Hobbes, " are wise men's coun- 
 ters, they do but reckon with them, but they 
 are the money of fools." The animal hardly 
 distinguishes between itself and the external 
 world, and the thoroughly conscious mind knows 
 that such distinction is largely illusory. Sight, 
 whether of the eye or the mind, makes objections 
 ridiculous. Reason is God's noblest gift, and to 
 discourage its use, whatever the pretext, is impi- 
 ous. The mere intellect is perverse ; it takes all 
 sides, maintains all paradoxes, and comes to 
 understanding only when it listens to the whis- 
 perings of common-sense. It is the true enfant 
 terrible. In the individual, self-consciousness is 
 awakened by self-conscious man ; in the race, it 
 is awakened by God. The supernatural is God 
 and the soul. It is better to give than to receive, 
 for giving makes us generous, and receiving 
 makes us helpless. He who has done honest 
 work may die with hope. A new thought con- 
 soles us for a day which else were lost. Though 
 we fail, we shall help the universal cause, if we 
 strive under the impulse, not of a party, but of 
 God. The more we fall back upon the inner 
 
VIEWS OF EDUCATION. 51 
 
 source of life, the truer our thoughts become. 
 The first and highest need of man is faith in the 
 worth and goodness of life and the source of 
 life. To understand the foolishness of the people, 
 study popular men. Sad infirmity of the thinker 
 and the poet, they resent the criticism of those 
 whom neither intellect nor imagination controls. 
 The worth of the gift lies in the heart of the 
 receiver. There has been a time when the 
 thought of a game of marbles awakened in me a 
 more pleasant expectancy than could anything 
 now which pope or king or people might 
 promise. 
 
 Infinite riches and variety belong to life, and 
 if all seems vain and unprofitable, life's source 
 is running low. To imagine we could do some 
 worthy thing if we but had a proper field is the 
 mark of imbecility. Are not God and his uni- 
 verse with thee? Be true to thy better self, 
 without thought of what purpose thy word and 
 deed may serve. To be weak is to be misera- 
 ble, but to be strong is not necessarily to be 
 happy. In the right mood the opaque earth 
 seems to become transparent; in the wrong 
 mood the soul itself is but dull matter. If our 
 thought and love were great enough the uni- 
 verse would drift in the line of our desire. 
 
 The mark of a cultivated mind is ability to 
 look at all things from an impersonal standpoint, 
 
52 THINGS OF THE MIND. 
 
 to lose sight of itself and to see with the eyes of 
 others and of God. Only the noblest souls feel 
 how impossible it is to be wholly sincere and 
 loving, to attain to the ideal which is perfect 
 truth and love. Upon those who give them- 
 selves through a lifetime to high and noble 
 aims, the shadow of their light at least will fall. 
 The wish to be left alone, to be lost sight of, is 
 thought to be insincere, but only by those who 
 live in the transitory rather than in the abiding 
 world. The unhappy, if they are noble, are 
 often the noblest; for their misery ceaselessly 
 drives them to self-development. When we 
 grow weary of an occupation, a place, or a 
 friend, it is of ourselves we are weary. We 
 seek new surroundings, but what we need is a 
 new self. Thrift is a virtue we all praise. The 
 thrifty succeed ; they gain wealth, place, and 
 honor; that they generally unfit themselves for 
 knowledge and the rational enjoyment of life 
 seems to be a minor thing. The aim and pur- 
 pose of nearly all men is to improve, not them- 
 selves, but their circumstances, and so long as 
 this is so there is no hope of any real improve- 
 ment at all A blow in the prize-ring sets 
 millions to reading and talking, but after a 
 month it is forgotten ; a stroke of the pen passes 
 unnoticed, but after a thousand years it may still 
 be an impulse to noble thoughts and deeds. 
 
VIEWS OF EDUCATION. 53 
 
 " Other delight than to learn I know not/' says 
 Petrarch. The best any one may know of life 
 and literature lies open to all, but in the pres- 
 ence of the highest truth and beauty the multi- 
 tude are indifferent or incredulous. Genius is 
 attention ; it is a mind held to the contempla- 
 tion of truth and beauty with a fascination like 
 that the fairest objects exert upon the eye. It 
 exists to reveal God's thought to the world, 
 and its most favorable environment is poverty, 
 opposition, and solitude. If thou desirest the 
 approbation of fools, be foolish. He who holds 
 no responsible position, but is simply a looker-on, 
 has a reserved seat at life's spectacle. Let him 
 learn to see things as they are, and to make 
 authentic report. The only interests worthy of 
 the serious attention of a lover of truth are those 
 of the mind. Literature is the result of a per- 
 sonal view of things, and science, therefore, can 
 never, in the strict sense, be literature ; that is, 
 it can never be a subject of the profoundest 
 interest to man. The mere sequence of phe- 
 nomena concerns us little; what does concern 
 us is the relation of the whole to our own life, 
 and this is the proper business of literature. 
 The impulse to higher and freer life is given 
 by individuals, never by the crowd, who are 
 always swayed and dominated by the lower 
 needs and common instincts. Profound books 
 
54 THINGS OF THE MIND. 
 
 are not popular, not because they are hard to 
 understand, but because only a few take genuine 
 interest in the questions which underlie every 
 theory of being and of life. The many are con- 
 tent to see and hear, to taste and touch, and 
 what is beyond is for them as though it did not 
 exist. And when one driven by irresistible 
 impulse takes ultimate problems in utter serious- 
 ness, he is misunderstood and called irreligious 
 for being religious. Thought cannot compass 
 thee, O God, words cannot name thee. We 
 can but adore with boundless yearning, know- 
 ing thou art above, beyond, and in all, the all in 
 all of every soul that thinks and loves. Only 
 an habitual student can exercise an intellectual 
 influence ; only an habitual meditator and holy 
 liver can exercise a moral and religious influ- 
 ence. To teach the child religion is doubtless 
 a difficult task, but in the right environment 
 it will insinuate itself into his life, to elevate his 
 thoughts, widen his sympathies, and purify his 
 desires. " Learning," says Fuller, " hath gained 
 most by those books by which the printers have 
 lost." He is a wise man who uses even the 
 most trifling happenings in his daily life for his 
 own improvement. For purposes of education 
 a true man is worth more than all manuals, 
 codes, systems, and apparatus. Better listen to 
 Socrates on a street corner than to Dryasdust 
 
.NIVERSITT; 
 
 VIEWS OF EDUCATION. 55 
 
 in a marble palace. Repetition is nature's 
 secret. Keep on, and how far thou shalt go, 
 only God knows. The most moral thing in 
 nature is fidelity to fact; change a word, add 
 a line, and if there is an eye to see it is patent. 
 What form genius shall take, God alone can 
 determine ; but whatever form it take, men will 
 be grateful. 
 
 Occupations which deform and stiffen the 
 body Aristotle calls crafts, and by the same 
 word he designates all money-getting pursuits, 
 because they preoccupy and degrade the intel- 
 lect. The highest man, he says, finds his 
 pleasure in the noblest things. 
 
 "The Ephesians," says Heraclitus, "cast out 
 Hermodorus, the worthiest man among them, 
 saying: ' No one of us shall be worthiest, or let 
 him be so elsewhere and among others. 1 " De- 
 velopment of faculty is the educator's aim and 
 end, the imparting of information is incidental 
 and subsidiary. The making education free 
 weakens the sense of responsibility in parents. 
 There is a restless activity in the breast of youth, 
 and he is the best educator who turns this energy 
 to high and generous ends. In pursuing our 
 personal aims we run in the dark; when we 
 seek nothing but truth and love, God's light 
 shines about us. I buy many books, and at 
 rare intervals find one worth more than I paid 
 
56 THINGS OF THE MIND. 
 
 for all the others. These are the pure metal in 
 the mine which consists for the most part of 
 clay and rock. The newspaper is the sewer 
 of average opinion. It is well this should have 
 issue, but when we drink or bathe we seek pure 
 fountains and clear streams. Say boldly what 
 thou holdest to be true; however mistaken, 
 thy thought and speech will not upset God's 
 world. Seek not what thou mayst do, but seek 
 the spirit from which all true work proceeds. 
 What we feel, not what we think, determines 
 conduct; doctrines which have no power to 
 inspire emotion have none to impel to action. 
 We may educate ourselves in every direction ; 
 and they are not the least wise who strive to 
 learn the secret of simple cheerfulness. Who 
 shall teach men to find their pleasure in what 
 strengthens, refines, and enlightens? Idleness, 
 ennui, listlessness, trifling occupations, and friv- 
 olous amusements consume the time, which, 
 rightly used, would make us all strong, wise, and 
 happy. 
 
 The memory of our purest and noblest joys 
 remains with us like a fountain of perpetual 
 youth, while that of the wrong we have done is 
 the only pain which follows us with unrelent- 
 ing persistence. " The fool/' says Confucius, 
 " complains because he is unknown, the wise 
 man because he does not know.'* It matters 
 
VIEWS OF EDUCATION. 57 
 
 little what our special studies may be, if the 
 issue is mental cultivation and moral worth. An 
 elephant that has lived a hundred years has had 
 less of life than a boor who has lived but fifty, 
 and the boor of fifty has had less of life than is 
 given to a poet within an hour. " Glory is so 
 sweet," says Pascal, " that whatever it is asso- 
 ciated with, though it be death itself, seems 
 desirable." Acquaintance with the best spoils 
 everything else. We can never make the world 
 of thought a world of facts. Since, however, 
 the world of facts is everywhere and at all times 
 unlovely, they are fortunate who learn to live 
 habitually in the high regions which only the 
 mind can inhabit. Books are an ever present 
 opportunity to turn each idle or weary hour to 
 profit or delight. " The soul of a people," says 
 Voltaire, " dwells in the few who employ, sup- 
 port, and govern the multitude." Let us say, 
 rather, in the few who inspire, enlighten, and 
 guide the many. 
 
 Strength and energy are not the same. The 
 energetic are often weak ; and the strong, be- 
 cause they are restful and self-contained, seem to 
 want energy. The American has too much en- 
 ergy and too little strength. He is hurried, and 
 lacks the repose which is the sign and symbol 
 of strength. Not what happens, but the way in 
 which we take what happens, is decisive. 
 
58 THINGS OF THE MIND. 
 
 The scholar among his books is in paradise, 
 the swineherd is happier among his pigs. Take 
 information from whoever can give it, but follow 
 thy judgment. " He who first praises a book 
 becomingly/* says Landor, " is next in merit to 
 the author." He who utters a truth with new 
 depth and intensity makes it new, though the 
 doctrine be old. Is it not a divine privilege to 
 speak a word, to write a phrase, to do a deed, 
 which one's fellow-men shall never be willing 
 to forget? Those who love us understand us 
 better than those who hate. Let us take cour- 
 age, then, and not think too meanly of ourselves. 
 " Those who trust us," says George Eliot, " edu- 
 cate us." A people's importance lies not in its 
 numbers or its wealth, but in the contribution it 
 makes to the higher good of mankind. If we 
 talk often with a man of profound and vigorous 
 mind we come to see things in the light in 
 which they appear to him ; and if we make 
 ourselves familiar with a great book into which 
 he has put the best of his life, we shall be trans- 
 formed into his likeness in a yet more effectual 
 way. Love divines the destiny of the beloved, 
 and while it points to the rugged way which 
 leads to high achievement, inspires the courage 
 to walk therein with as fresh a heart as though 
 it were some flowery path, illumined by the 
 light of Beauty's eye. They who know and 
 
VIEWS OF EDUCATION. 59 
 
 love are able to render the best service. Gifts 
 leave us what we were, but whoever loves and 
 teaches us bestows new and richer life. Per- 
 fection consists in realizing the completest ac- 
 cord among the variety of fully developed en- 
 dowments. The loving heart, the thinking 
 mind, the glowing imagination, the command- 
 ing conscience, all acting with freedom and 
 with power, form the pure light of a perfect 
 human life. What is so wonderful as a plastic 
 soul, which, coming into this world of fatal laws 
 and fixed forms, moults its wings and, taking 
 new flight, looks on the whole as though it but 
 now created its universe? 
 
 When the high hope and thought of youth 
 remain real and living in the mature man, the 
 result is a great and noble character. 
 
 Believe in no triumph which is won by the 
 loss of self-respect or the deadening of faculty. 
 There is no formula for the discovery of truth. 
 Genuine life is life for others. The faith, the 
 hope, the love, the joy, the strength which we 
 impart thereby first become truly our own. 
 The strongest cannot always soar: the eagle 
 himself stoops to earth for food and rest. All 
 work and no play is the dullard's way. The 
 more men think, the less will they agree ; but it 
 is more important that they should think than 
 that they should think alike. Questions of 
 
60 THINGS OF THE MIND. 
 
 money separate husband from wife, brother 
 from brother, and friend from friend. They 
 make all men suspicious and less loving, be- 
 cause questions of money are questions of life, 
 they mean labor, self-denial, endurance, the 
 long and hard struggle for independence, for 
 the possession of what keeps us from beggary, 
 from sneers and taunts and kicks. Envy, re- 
 sentment, and hatred are painful feelings, and 
 if virtue permitted us to entertain them, wisdom 
 would forbid. The saddest truth is better than 
 the most pleasant lie. In the best poetry is 
 found the most perfect expression of the purest 
 truth. Truth is most honored when 't is matched 
 with deeds. The most useful things are those 
 which make life good and fair. He who is 
 familiar with the best that has been written 
 thinks modestly of himself; he does not mis- 
 take his crotchet for a panacea, or imagine that 
 irritation is enlightenment. 
 
 The dogged will to excel effects its purpose. 
 The intellect which analyzes and weakens all 
 else is powerless in the presence of feeling; 
 what we truly love is our very life and resists 
 the destructive force of the critical faculty. 
 
 The mind is drawn out and made capable of 
 knowledge when it is aglow with emotion, as 
 the smith forges the metal into shape when it is 
 at white heat. From every flower genius sucks 
 
VIEWS OF EDUCATION. 6 1 
 
 its sweet, but bears within itself the power to 
 make it honey. 
 
 There are books whose disappearance would 
 impoverish the whole race. Keep striving ; 
 God alone knows what sweet and helpful work 
 thou mayst be appointed to do. 
 
 " In nature there 's no blemish but the mind," 
 No beauty but the mind doth make it fair. 
 
 Good fortune is the happy ordering of circum- 
 stance, making knowledge and virtue easy. 
 In the company of noble minds we grow strong 
 and serene. Power to think is like a mother's 
 breast the more it is appealed to, the more 
 abundantly it yields. Where emphasis is needed 
 the writer has failed ; emphasis is vulgar. The 
 superlative is false style. The secret of style is 
 high thought and pure feeling. Right expres- 
 sion of true thought is final. " Ideas, " says 
 Rivarol, " make the round of the world; they 
 pass from tongue to tongue, from century to 
 century, until they clothe themselves in a liv- 
 ing and luminous phrase and become the pat- 
 rimony of mankind." It takes half a lifetime to 
 learn to know the studies we should neglect. 
 The higher thy gifts, the easier it is for thee to 
 go astray. Agree with thyself; with another, 
 agreement can, at the best, be but superficial. 
 " The temple of literary fame," says D'Alem- 
 
62 THINGS OF THE MIND, 
 
 bert, " is the home of the dead who dwelt not 
 there when they were alive, and of a few of the 
 living who for the most part shall be thrust 
 forth as soon as they are dead." Memory 
 obeys the heart; where there is love, there is 
 no forgetfulness. We are worth what our love 
 is worth. The perennial charm of erotic writ- 
 ing witnesses to the feebleness of reason ; man's 
 thought circles forever and forever about an 
 animal instinct, meant not for the happiness of 
 the individual, but for the propagation of the 
 race. " Not the morning nor the evening star," 
 says .^Eneas Sylvius, " is so fair as the wisdom 
 which is learned by the study of literature." 
 
 Rest in thy weary, helpless hour ; 
 So shall the good have double power. 
 
 We can know so little; let us at least not be 
 afraid to learn. He is noble who is inspired 
 by thoughts which mean blessings for men. 
 What is worthless in life and literature, we easily 
 learn to know; what is best only patient labor 
 and long experience will teach us. 
 
 Whether education bestows power or merely 
 gives freer and more varied action to original 
 endowments is a question of words. It brings 
 into play faculties which without it do not exist 
 or are in abeyance. 
 
 Our highest yearnings mark the degree of 
 
VIEWS OF EDUCATION. 63 
 
 culture we have attained ; the rude desire pleas- 
 ure, wealth, and notoriety, the enlightened long 
 for truth and love. 
 
 In the best poetry is found the highest ex- 
 pression of the deepest truth. Socrates looked 
 upon himself simply as one who took interest 
 in noble-minded and high-hearted young men, 
 and the favorite disciple of the blessed Saviour 
 was a pure and generous youth, who has given 
 to the world the deepest insight into the Mas- 
 ter's spirit and teaching. The thought of the 
 books I have not read, and which like unknown 
 friends are waiting for me, keeps me young. 
 The ideal of peace, of repose, which Words- 
 worth calls the central feeling of all happiness, 
 is that of the weak or weary. Strong and eager 
 men prefer almost any kind of existence to the 
 tranquil flow of uneventful days. 
 
 Haste is the mark of immaturity. He who 
 is master of his tools and certain of himself 
 knows that he is able, and neither hurries nor 
 worries, but works and waits. As what one can 
 lift or bear depends on strength and training 
 of body, so what one can understand or appre- 
 ciate depends on vigor and discipline of mind. 
 Thou wouldst pour truth into the hearts of men, 
 but wouldst thou pour water into a sieve? Thy 
 doctrines will be of little help unless the heart 
 and mind be made whole. There are no sadder 
 
64 THINGS OF THE MIND. 
 
 words than these : whiskey and women. They 
 are the epitaph which should be written on so 
 many thousand tombstones on which only lies 
 are engraved. World-moving ideas spring from 
 single minds and never from the deliberations 
 of many; and the men of genius from whom 
 we receive this deeper insight into the nature of 
 things^ dwell habitually in thought with what is 
 permanent, eternal, and infinite. Herbert Spen- 
 cer utters a caution " against striving too strenu- 
 ously to reach the ideal. " In other words, he 
 bids the young beware lest perchance they be- 
 come too earnest in their efforts to think highly, 
 to act nobly, to love purely, to believe sincerely 
 and to hope steadfastly. Habitual intercourse 
 with nature inspires the love of life, and it rec- 
 onciles to death; for everywhere in earth and 
 air, there is fulness of life, content and blest 
 within itself; and when death comes, it comes 
 like sleep to tired children who, having played 
 the whole day long, sink quietly to rest. We 
 cannot have full sympathy with our fellows, if 
 we have none with nature and with lower ani- 
 mals. " Sad, indeed," says Herbert Spencer, 
 " is it to see how men occupy themselves with 
 trivialities and are indifferent to the grandest 
 phenomena, care not to understand the archi- 
 tecture of the heavens, but are deeply interested 
 in some contemptible controversy about the 
 
VIEWS OF EDUCATION. 65 
 
 intrigues of Mary Queen of Scots ; are learn- 
 edly critical over a Greek ode, and pass by 
 without a glance that grand epic written by the 
 finger of God on the strata of the earth.'* 
 
 He who writes need not, but he who publishes 
 must think of a reader; and his hope is that 
 some of the pleasure and strength his thoughts 
 have given to himself will be communicated to 
 others ; for if to him they have not been a source 
 of light and joy, in printing them he is but a 
 coiner and passer of counterfeit money. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 VIEWS OF EDUCATION. 
 
 'Tis in the advance of individual minds, 
 That the slow crowd should ground their expectation, 
 Eventually to follow. 
 
 BROWNING. 
 
 I. 
 
 THE popular idea of education is that it is 
 a process whereby the young are fash- 
 ioned into money-earning machines. Whether 
 the machine is called an artisan, a merchant, 
 a lawyer, or a physician is of minor importance. 
 The ideal of the State is good citizenship, the 
 ideal of the Church is Christian obedience; 
 but where shall we find a school which simply 
 aims to bring all the scholar's endowments 
 into free, full, and harmonious play? Who 
 understands that man is more than a money- 
 earning machine, more than a citizen, more 
 than a member of a church, being nothing less 
 than a son of God, who is infinitely strong, 
 all-knowing, all-loving, all-fair? Go boldly 
 forward along the path thy inmost heart feels 
 to have been made for thee, nor stop to ask 
 
VIEWS OF EDUCATION, 6/ 
 
 whither it lead. The way is thine, the end is 
 in God's keeping. Education is emancipa- 
 tion; it breaks down the prison walls in which 
 the soul is immured, takes it into the light, 
 and bids it soar through the boundless universe, 
 upborne on the wings of truth and love. 
 
 Every organism holds within itself the seed 
 of something better than itself, for the infinite 
 God lives within and broods over all. To 
 remain stationary is hardly better than death; 
 imitation is a kind of servitude; the unfolding 
 and upbuilding of one's own being is life and 
 liberty. Political liberty is not freedom; it 
 is, at the best, but opportunity to make one's 
 self free. An enlightened mind is a sanctuary 
 where no tryant may enter. There the Eternal 
 stands guard. He who leads the mind to new 
 worlds or to new ways of contemplating God 
 and the universe is a general benefactor, whose 
 life-enlarging influence all who think shall 
 feel. The tendency which is in things and 
 times requires the shaping and guiding hand 
 of great personalities to turn it to human pur- 
 poses and ends. An original force is from 
 God and without inner limitation. Its bound- 
 aries can be fixed only by its environment. 
 Repression inevitably turns to evil, and the 
 teacher does best work when he wisely stimu- 
 lates and directs the energies of his pupils. 
 
 or THE 
 iCFNIVERSITY 
 
68 THINGS OF THE MIND. 
 
 The best school is that which best helps the 
 free and healthful development of each one's 
 individual endowments; which best enables 
 the youth to become such a man as God and 
 nature intend him to be, not such a one as 
 another's whim would make him. He whom 
 the wanderer's heart drives to far lands sad- 
 dens his friends who love to stay at home; he 
 whom a divine thirst for truth impels ever 
 into new regions of thought grieves his near 
 ones whom conventional opinions satisfy. To 
 become an ethical fact, to have moral worth, 
 knowledge must pass into action. When 
 scholars become doers the new order will 
 begin. In the presence of whatever system 
 of thought, ask yourself whether it can be 
 made a rule of life; for life, and not specula- 
 tion, is the test of truth. 
 
 Our educators take advantage of the igno- 
 rance and inexperience of the young to draw 
 them away from true ideals. They educate 
 with a view to institutions, and not with a 
 view to the Eternal. Their idea of truth is 
 that it is a conventional something; their God 
 is current opinion. The preservation of insti- 
 tutions can never be the end for which we 
 educate. On the contrary, a right education 
 would form a race which would create for 
 itself a higher and nobler environment than 
 
VIEWS OF EDUCATION. 69 
 
 any we know. Individuality of power and cul- 
 ture is the ideal each one should strive to 
 attain. Each soul, worth calling a soul, comes 
 into this world unlike all other souls; and the 
 urgency of God and nature within it cries out : 
 Be thyself, not another. Do the work, speak 
 the word thou wast born to do and speak. God 
 makes each one; the inner voice each one 
 hears is God's; become God's man, and let 
 God's word find embodiment in the air thou 
 coinest into human speech. Be not a machine 
 to utter again what others have said; be an 
 aboriginal soul, alive in God, acting and speak- 
 ing from out the infinite source of all things. 
 It is not conceivable that God should wish to 
 dwarf or paralyze human activity. Let no 
 lesser power, then, bid us keep reason and 
 conscience in abeyance. 
 
 Public opinion is a tyrant, who would make 
 men cowards and hypocrites ; and it is so easy 
 to make them cowards and hypocrites. That 
 which dwarfs or darkens our being, though it 
 should bring boundless wealth or endless fame, 
 is simply evil. For what life-period do we 
 educate? Childhood and youth are sacrificed 
 to manhood, manhood to old age, which, for 
 the few who reach it, is made miserable by 
 this vicious philosophy. Strong, free, and 
 joyous self-activity, during the whole course 
 
70 THINGS OF THE MIND. 
 
 of life, can alone develop high, gracious and 
 noble men and women. Whoever or whatever 
 impedes thought and love is evil. When once 
 we accept repression as a legitimate principle, 
 there is no degradation to which we may not 
 descend. Uniformity and equality are pos- 
 sible only when the play of man's nobler 
 faculties is hindered. Why should we think 
 it desirable to make all men alike, since God 
 makes them unlike, and since the more truly 
 they are alive, the greater their unlikeness 
 becomes? Passion is the surging of life's 
 current, and the effort to weaken or destroy it 
 is an attempt on life. The wise educator seeks 
 not to lessen passion, but to increase the intel- 
 lectual and moral power by which it may be 
 controlled. 
 
 Life is the supreme good, and whatever 
 lowers or impoverishes it is evil. God cannot 
 place himself above truth, and a real mind 
 would not suffer dictation from a parliament 
 of mankind. Live not in a great city, for a 
 great city is a mill which grinds all grain into 
 flour. Go there to get money or to preach re- 
 pentance, but go not there to make thyself a 
 nobler man. The tendency to place educa- 
 tion elementary education at least almost 
 wholly in the hands of women is wrong. The 
 educator's secret lies in the power to stimu- 
 
VIEWS OF EDUCATION. Jl 
 
 late, and this power man possesses in a very 
 much greater degree than woman. He is 
 the active, she the passive principle. The 
 result of the social evolution, of the reign of 
 democracy, seems to be the destruction of the 
 finer varieties and the formation of a homo- 
 geneous mass of coarse fibre. The making 
 use of human beings as means rather than 
 ends is immoral. In this lies the condemna- 
 tion of our industrialism. 
 
 The decisive inequalities are those of mind 
 and heart. The great dividing line is that 
 which separates the wise from the foolish. All 
 work is like a task set a child; its chief worth 
 lies in the exercise it compels, in the educa- 
 tion it gives. The truth we seek, more than 
 that which we possess, rouses and educates our 
 powers. The temper in which we face the in- 
 telligible universe, rather than the power with 
 which we deal with its problems, is the test 
 of mental character. Look at the world in the 
 pure light of thy own reason, and not through 
 the medium of books and systems. He whose 
 superiority rests upon inner excellence may 
 say to his fellowmen: Provide for me while I 
 feed your minds and souls. To do work one 
 loves is to be happy. Blessed is he who, hav- 
 ing found the highest thing he is able to do, 
 gives his life to the task. 
 
72 THINGS OF THE MIND. 
 
 All opinions may be entertained except 
 those which weaken and dishearten. The test 
 of the worth of a living faith in God is the 
 strength it gives, the courage it inspires. The 
 objection to culture is that it opens up a world 
 of delightful views, in which we rest, feeling 
 that action is vain. If our whole nature con- 
 sciously bathed in the being of God we should 
 not only be purer and holier, but we should 
 have more talent, more genius, more ability of 
 every kind. To believe this is something; to 
 know and feel it is joy, strength, and freedom. 
 To make the mind the mirror of all that is, is 
 not enough; we must blend with all that is, 
 love it, recreate it, and make it our own. 
 They who bring the noblest gifts bring them 
 to men too dull to know their worth; and 
 years, centuries sometimes, pass before the 
 divinely great are understood. An original 
 sinner more readily finds pardon than an 
 original thinker. What we are decides our 
 tastes, it is well with the mole in its 
 burrow, it is well with the swine in its trough. 
 The crowd are willing to proscribe the culture 
 and virtue which are a reproach to them; their 
 hatred is a form of envy. Men are not equal ; 
 and were they so, there would be no hope of 
 better things. The multitude move, and have 
 always moved, in a world of low thoughts and 
 
VIEWS OF EDUCATION. 73 
 
 desires; and the few who, daring to be unlike 
 the many, rise to higher modes of life, are the 
 benefactors and civilizers by whom progress 
 is made possible. The doctrine of equality is 
 a prejudice of the weak and ignorant, whose 
 conceit persuades them that none are strong 
 and wise. The best are corrupted and dis- 
 heartened by the crowd who have neither 
 knowledge nor courage. Whatever the com- 
 pound the chemical elements are the same; 
 and among savages and barbarians the indi- 
 vidual is but an atom, an undistinguished part 
 of a homogeneous mass. Hence the measure 
 of the progress of the individual is the firm- 
 ness and distinctness with which he stands for 
 himself alone. 
 
 The only right opposition to inequality is 
 universal opportunity for the best education. 
 The fundamental law is the promotion of God- 
 given endowments; and in a wisely ordered 
 State there should be those whose office would 
 require them to seek for the best talent, and 
 to give it the best nurture, that no original 
 power might be hindered from unfolding itself. 
 Love of company is a chief obstacle to im- 
 provement. We cannot remain alone; and 
 when we are together we bore, stupefy, and 
 corrupt one another. We meet to sink into 
 the lower life of eating and drinking, of gossip 
 
74 THINGS OF THE MIND. 
 
 and play. To be fit to be alone is the first 
 condition of progress. Another obstacle is 
 the labor to which the multitude are con- 
 demned. Their work is like the alcohol and 
 tobacco it enables them to buy; it is a deaden- 
 ing of sensation, a refuge from consciousness, 
 a partial escape from life. Thus the many 
 are bestialized that the few may keep company, 
 eat, drink, and dawdle. Were there now some 
 inspired hero to go through the world re- 
 uttering the Psalmist's cry, "In my indigna- 
 tion I said, every man is a liar," the echo from 
 all hearts would be: We know it. But only 
 fools tell the whole truth. Even the pious 
 will never understand that it is better men 
 should lose faith than that a lie be told. He 
 who should stand with perfectly frank open 
 heartedness before the public would now be 
 looked upon as lacking mental balance. He 
 would be like one who, single and defenceless, 
 presents himself to an armed and angry mob. 
 
 Is it not the tendency of democracy to make 
 men insincere and hypocritical, since, when 
 the law makes all equal, the able resort to 
 cunning and deceit to assert their superiority? 
 What the barons accomplished by brute force, 
 our successful men reach by smartness. Genius 
 is best sense, and its essential quality is sin- 
 cerity. It is fidelity to fact, to the thing seen 
 
VIEWS OF EDUCATION. 75 
 
 and felt. It is the great educator; and 
 teachers who lack genius do their best work 
 when they bring their pupils into sympathetic 
 communion with the masterpieces of creative 
 minds. When a youth first gives his heart to 
 some hero, who to him seems Godlike, he 
 enters the vestibule of the temple of culture. 
 How many of the best and bravest has not 
 Plutarch made conscious of the divinity within 
 them! The lives of warriors "of those who 
 waged contention with their time's decay " 
 are alone worthy to be written. Let popular 
 men sink into oblivion with the populace that 
 made them. 
 
 The worth of striving depends not upon the 
 success, but upon the fidelity and perseverance 
 with which we continue to hope and labor. 
 The stayer wins, whether the weapons be brawn 
 or brains. Intellectual insight is the purest 
 ray that falls from heaven, and they who seek 
 to break or obscure its light with the grime 
 and smoke of prejudice and passion are the 
 devil's minions. Knowledge problems are but 
 a small part of education. Man is not pure 
 intellect, he is life; and life is power, good- 
 ness, wisdom, joy, beauty, health, yearning, 
 faith, hope, love, action. Make your man a 
 mere science machine, and what more is he 
 than an animal that measures, weighs, and cal- 
 
76 THINGS OF THE MIND. 
 
 culates? When you have told me all that is 
 known about the atoms and stars, you have 
 brought to my notice but lifeless facts, whereas 
 I crave for truth, truth athrill with life. 
 The perfect man is not merely a knower and 
 thinker, but he is also one who lays hold on 
 life and does as well as he thinks. 
 
 The test of the value of learning is its effect 
 upon the conduct of life. There is a right 
 and a wrong faith, but what we 'believe deter- 
 mines character less than the force and in- 
 tensity with which we believe. Hope may 
 quicken or may deaden the soul. He whose 
 main hope is that he shall die rich has begun 
 to dig the grave of his nobler faculties. What 
 we yearn for is the test of our civilization. If 
 material ends are our ideals, we are no better 
 than barbarians. When we are unable to 
 believe in the divinity of love, the source of 
 life runs dry within us, and our life withers 
 like a tree whose root has been cut. Love 
 beautifies, hate distorts the object we contem- 
 plate. That man is God's son is a noble faith, 
 but one which daily contact with human beings 
 tends to destroy; and they who, in spite of 
 disenchanting experience, continue really to 
 hold this faith, live the life of Christ. The 
 liberty which is favorable to high and heroic 
 personalities is the best. Priceless things alone 
 
VIEWS OF EDUCATION 77 
 
 are good, genius, holiness, heroism, faith, 
 hope, and love. What has a price has small 
 value. The past was not what it appears to us 
 to have been; the future will not be like any- 
 thing we can imagine; the present is ours, 
 and we should use it to do the highest which 
 through us is possible. 
 
 An encyclopaedia is not the book a wise 
 student chooses for purposes of self-culture; 
 a man whose brain-cells are stored with innu- 
 merable facts is not the kind of teacher an 
 enlightened educator selects for the training 
 of young minds. The teacher's value lies 
 more in what he is than in what he knows ; and 
 book-worms are, as a rule, incompetent educa- 
 tors. The sublimest emotions take us nearer 
 to God, to the inner heart of being, than intel- 
 lectual views. Hence literature, poetry above 
 all, the child of the exalted moods which the 
 sympathetic contemplation of the Infinite and 
 of nature creates, has greater educational value 
 than science. God and his universe are more 
 than all our facts. Wouldst thou go to the 
 relief of the unhappy? Give them courage, 
 faith, hope, and love, not money, but a new 
 heart. 
 
 In literature and in works of science there 
 is a revelation of the best thoughts and the 
 most accurate knowledge the greatest minds 
 
78 THINGS OF THE MIND. 
 
 have possessed; but the revelation is for those 
 alone who make themselves capable of receiv- 
 ing it, from the rest it is hidden. In litera- 
 ture, as in all things spiritual, quality is 
 everything, quantity goes for nothing. A 
 phrase outweighs whole volumes. He who 
 seeks to become wise should have leisure, and 
 often be alone with the noble dead, who for 
 enlightened minds live again as friends and 
 helpers. From the day Alexander crossed the 
 Hellespont to conquer the world until now, 
 superior intelligence and courage have tri- 
 umphed over numbers. Majorities do not 
 rule; they are but weapons in the hands of a 
 wise and high-spirited or a cunning and corrupt 
 minority. They who feel the need of belong- 
 ing to the majority know not the infinite worth 
 of truth and love. 
 
 The imperfectly educated mind is fond of 
 controversy, as rude natures take delight in 
 quarrels. When a thought comes, fasten it 
 with the pen, as you hang a picture on the 
 wall. Thou art taller than I? I will plant a 
 grain of maize, whose tassel in three months 
 shall overtop my head; but I am more than 
 the stalk. Art stronger? A yearling bull is 
 too, yet I am more than it. Hast higher 
 place? So has yonder eagle on his jutting 
 crag, but mind outsoars the reach of wings. 
 
VIEWS OF EDUCATION-. 79 
 
 Art wiser and nobler? I bow to thee and am 
 thy servant; be thou my master. If thy influ- 
 ence be evil, desire that it perish; if it be 
 good, the wise and virtuous will wish it to 
 survive. He whom notoriety intoxicates is a 
 vulgar fellow; the love of fame itself is an 
 infirmity; Godlike is he alone who lives for 
 truth and love. The multiplicity and empti- 
 ness of books bring concise and pregnant writ- 
 ing into favor, as the increase of knowledge, 
 rendering the compassing of it by one man, 
 even in a single science, impossible, drives 
 the learned into specialties. The thoughts 
 which as we write them seem warm and glow- 
 ing as the heart's blood, look cold and dead 
 on the printed page. They are like guests 
 who still remain when the song and dance are 
 done, when the flowers have faded and the 
 lights are out. 
 
 An important end of education is to render 
 us conscious of our ignorance; for this con- 
 sciousness will impel us to seek knowledge. 
 A new truth which offends our habitual think- 
 ing hurts like a blow. It is as when we heed- 
 lessly strike the foot against a stone, and grow 
 indignant, not because we were careless, but 
 because it was lying there. Culture alone can 
 overcome this unwillingness to accept un- 
 pleasant truths. All things that are done are 
 
8O THINGS OF THE MIND. 
 
 done in time, and our ill success is often due 
 to the belief that we can accomplish at once 
 what only time can bring about. The best 
 work is done by hard work. All men have the 
 right to know whatever is true, to love what- 
 ever is fair, and to do whatever is good ; and 
 the aim and end of education is to help them 
 to all this. We all live in the midst of a 
 paradise which might be ours, but which for 
 most of us is hopelessly lost. They who 
 make pastimes life occupations, whatever their 
 titles and possessions, are but vulgar triflers. 
 When an idea or a sentiment takes hold of a 
 people and gains such sway as to impel them 
 to heroic enterprise, it exalts, ennobles, and 
 civilizes; it issues in deeds which mark his- 
 toric epochs, and remain as imperishable evi- 
 dence of the creative force of enthusiastic 
 faith in the worth of truth and love. In indi- 
 viduals also the purifying and strengthening 
 influence of persistent devotion to intellectual 
 and moral ideals manifests itself in new power 
 of thought and fresh delight in life. 
 
 Suggestion is an educational force of the 
 first importance; for the mind is quick to 
 respond to intimations rightly given, but grows 
 listless and inattentive when truth is made 
 plain. The suggester excites curiosity and sets 
 reason and imagination to work, while the 
 
VIEWS OF EDUCATION. 8 1 
 
 demonstrator puts us to sleep. Prove as little 
 as possible, but set the young dogs on the 
 scent of what you would have them run down. 
 Whatever starts the play of the intellectual 
 imagination is profitable and delightful. The 
 pleasure and instruction we find in a poem or 
 a painting, a building or an oration, are due 
 largely to the power with which they compel 
 the mind to exercise itself. He who pro- 
 vokes multitudes, who forces them to recognize 
 that their conceit is but a form of ignorance, 
 hypocrisy, or vulgarity, is a benefactor, but the 
 adulators of the people are confidence men. 
 Where there is right education the future need 
 not be considered; for each hour brings its 
 reward of fairer and richer life. The maxim 
 " Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof " 
 applies also to the good. Do now the best thou 
 canst do. This is thy whole business, and the 
 rest may be left to God. 
 
 ii. 
 
 IT is easy to speak lightly of words, as 
 though they were mere idle sound; but an 
 opinion or a belief which has once gotten 
 itself rightly barricaded behind verbal breast- 
 works, will withstand the onslaughts of armies 
 and of centuries. Writing about books is, for 
 
 6 
 
82 THINGS OF THE MIND. 
 
 the most part, idle writing; for each one must 
 discover for himself the book or books he 
 needs, and it is sufficient that he know there 
 are but a few that are good. Books are saved 
 from oblivion by quality of thought and style. 
 Without this even the most learned and pro- 
 found are soon superseded or forgotten; for 
 the learning of one age becomes the ignorance 
 of another; and true thoughts badly expressed 
 pass into the possession of those who know 
 how to give them proper embodiment, just as 
 the story becomes his who tells it best. The 
 best books are praised by many, read by some, 
 and studied by few. The inventor of the 
 telephone sets tens of thousands talking to 
 one another from a distance, but their talk is 
 the same old story they have been telling face 
 to face these many centuries. Never shall 
 mortal make a machine which will teach them 
 to think nobler thoughts or to say diviner 
 things. If the bodily eye needs much training 
 that it may see rightly, distinguish accurately 
 among the myriad forms and colors, how shall 
 we hope, without discipline and habitual 
 effort, to acquire justness of intellectual view, 
 ability to see things as they are? 
 
 A man's accidents, such as wealth or posi- 
 tion, may give him importance while he is 
 alive; but once he is dead, only what was part 
 
VIEWS OF EDUCATION. 83 
 
 of himself, as his genius or his virtue, can 
 make him interesting. The craving for re- 
 cognition should be resisted as we resist an 
 appetite for strong drink. To look for praise 
 or place is to work in the spirit of a hireling. 
 That alone is good for me which gives me 
 freedom and opportunity to lead my own life, 
 to upbuild the being which is myself. Since 
 human power is limited, that which is spent 
 in one direction lessens the amount which 
 might be used in another. The nerve force 
 the sensualist consumes in indulgence, the 
 higher man evolves into thought and love. 
 Favor rather than opposition hinders develop- 
 ment of mind and character. If self culture 
 is our aim, let us be thankful for foes, and 
 deem ourselves fortunate when the world per- 
 mits us to pass unnoticed. Should God lead 
 me to a higher world and offer whatever I 
 might crave, I should ask for the clearest 
 intellectual insight and the purest love. 
 
 Half of all that is printed is harmful, and of 
 the remainder more than half is superfluous. 
 It is a problem whether the daily newspaper 
 will not eventually submerge both intellect 
 and conscience. They who live for truth and 
 love should renounce all hope of financial, 
 political, and social success; for those whose 
 home is in higher spheres are not recognized, 
 
84 THINGS OF THE MIND. 
 
 and should not care to be recognized, by the 
 dwellers in lower worlds. There is a kind of 
 talent which needs encouragement, but it is of 
 the sort which is hopelessly inferior. A God- 
 like power thrives most when men are heedless 
 of its presence; and the best work has been 
 done by those who received little praise while 
 they were living, and who cared little what 
 should be said of them when dead. Where the 
 individual dwindles, man becomes, not more 
 and more, but less and less; for man exists 
 only in the individual. Let not thy study be 
 to provide for thy present wants or whims, but 
 to do the absolute best God has made thee 
 capable of doing. Talent is inborn. It un- 
 folds itself, however, only under certain con- 
 ditions. To provide these conditions is the 
 business of the educator, and whatever else he 
 may do is harmful. He who has gained a 
 higher point of view, looks with a kind of 
 hopeless sadness upon those whose eyes are 
 blinded by ignorance or passion. 
 
 In whoever is destined to achieve distinction 
 the spirit of discontent lives like a god. "To 
 accustom mankind," says Joubert, "to pleasures 
 which depend neither upon the bodily appe- 
 tites nor upon money, by giving them a taste 
 for the things of the mind, seems to me the 
 one proper fruit which nature has meant our 
 
VIEWS OF EDUCATION. 85 
 
 literary productions to have." Early ripeness, 
 long life, and youthful -minded old age are the 
 conditions required for the best development 
 of man's powers. They who see things in a 
 new light influence opinion, but mere makers 
 of syllogisms and propounders of arguments 
 speak and write to no purpose. To have 
 value, knowledge must be intelligence, and not 
 merely erudition. It is for the mind, not the 
 mind for it. 
 
 The philosopher, poet, or man of science who 
 says he has no time to waste in getting rich, 
 speaks, in the opinion of the crowd, sheer 
 nonsense, though he simply expresses the 
 generally received truth, that what we are is 
 of more importance than what we possess. 
 
 As distance seems to bring the stars close 
 together, so in remote epochs great men and 
 great deeds appear to stand thicker. This is 
 but a form of the illusion which perspective 
 always creates, and to which we must also 
 attribute the prevalent notion that in ancient 
 times heroic virtue was less rare than in our 
 own. "In cheerfulness," says Pliny, "lies the 
 success of our studies." We live only as we 
 energize. Energy is the mean by which our 
 faculties are developed, and a higher self- 
 activity is the end at which all education 
 should aim. Whatever else may succeed with 
 
86 THINGS OF THE MIND. 
 
 us, we all fail in love; and in this lies the 
 essential sadness of life. He who cannot 
 perform noble deeds will not be able to write 
 in a noble style. He who takes interest in a 
 pugilist rather than in a philosopher or a poet 
 is as though he were a dog or a cock. The 
 lack of money may cause discomfort, but the 
 lack of intelligence makes us poor, the lack of 
 virtue makes us vulgar. Lack of money may 
 be supplied, lack of soul never. The money 
 we owe enslaves us, the money we own cor- 
 rupts us. Whoever can influence men should 
 strive to make them more courageous, more 
 enduring, more hopeful, simpler, more joyful. 
 
 "Books," says Emerson, "are the best of 
 things, well used; abused, among the worst. 
 What is the right use? What is the one end 
 which all means go to effect? They are for 
 nothing but to inspire." 
 
 There is no phrase more suggestive than this 
 of the Gospel, to "throw pearls to swine." 
 This is what the makers of literature have 
 been doing from the beginning; and that 
 which still survives as literature is what a few 
 heavenly minds have picked up from beneath 
 the hoofs of the herd, whose uplifted snouts 
 pleaded for swill, not for thought. Descartes 
 and Spinoza, like Plato and Aristotle, hold 
 that blessedness consists in knowing in so 
 
VIEWS OF EDUCATION. 87 
 
 living a way that to know is to admire, to 
 love, to be filled with peace and joy. A man 
 of genius is like a barbarous conqueror; he 
 slays the victims he despoils, and so what 
 he steals seems never to have belonged to 
 others. 
 
 "The philosopher," says St. Evremonde, 
 "devotes himself, not to the most learned writ- 
 ings to acquire knowledge, but to the most 
 sensible to strengthen his understanding. At 
 one time he seeks the most elegant to refine 
 his taste, at another the most amusing to 
 refresh his spirits." Whoever reads to good 
 purpose seeks to place himself at the writer's 
 point of view. He reads for inspiration and 
 knowledge, not to find fault. There are many 
 whose view of education is that it is a process 
 of taming, like the domestication of animals. 
 They strive to subdue the child and make him 
 pliable to another's will; and when he has 
 become thoroughly tame, they think he is well 
 educated. A tame horse, however, if we 
 consider its own good, is inferior to one that 
 is wild; and whoever or whatever is overcome 
 and made subject is weakened and dispirited. 
 Whatever we teach boys, girls should be 
 taught the science and art of education itself; 
 for three-fourths of them will become mothers, 
 and education is a mother's chief business, in 
 
88 THINGS OF THE MIND. 
 
 which if she fails, schools and other agencies 
 are powerless to form true men and women. 
 
 What gives pleasure is of little moment, 
 what gives power and wisdom is all-important. 
 The degenerate seek ease and comfort; the 
 strong love adventure and danger, hardship 
 and labor. To lead a moral and intellectual 
 life is to make one's self, physically even, 
 attractive. 
 
 When the discerning perceive that an author 
 addresses himself to a circle, a party, or a 
 class, they care not what he says; knowing 
 that if it were worth writing, he would utter 
 it simply from his inner being, and without 
 thought of impressing others. A book thrown 
 in our way by chance, an acquaintance made 
 by accident, changes the whole course of life. 
 We are strong when we follow our own talent, 
 weak when another's leads us. Whoever is 
 made free frees himself. This is the mean- 
 ing of the Gospel phrase : " Ye shall know the 
 truth, and the truth shall make you free." 
 Another may break down prison walls and 
 strike off fetters, but this liberating truth each 
 one must teach himself, or never know it at 
 all. Duration rather than intensity of high 
 and passionate feeling makes the man of 
 genius. The human race is so poor in men of 
 real intellectual force that when it finds one 
 
VIEWS OF EDUCATION. 89 
 
 it receives him gladly, whatever his defects 
 or perverseness may be. Whoever impels to 
 high thinking gives pleasure, and of a nobler 
 kind than that which a fair scene or rich wine 
 or delightful company can give. Why should 
 the American who is most alive be able simply 
 to make the most money ? Why should he not 
 think the highest thought, feel the deepest 
 love? Sensation lies at the root of thought. 
 We really know only what experience, suffer- 
 ing, and labor have wrought into our very 
 being. Hence the young have no true or deep 
 knowledge. 
 
 In educating, as in walking, we have an end 
 in view. In educating this end is an idea, 
 the idea of human perfection; and to develop 
 and make plain this ideal is more important than 
 any of the thousand questions with which our 
 pedagogical theorists are occupied ; for to say 
 we live by faith, hope, love, and imagination is 
 but a way of saying that we live only in the 
 light of ideals. A student wrote this over his 
 door: "Who enters here does me honor, who 
 stays away gives me pleasure." "To read to 
 good purpose," says Matthew Arnold, "we 
 must read a great deal, and be content not to 
 use a great deal of what we read. " 
 
 A cultivated mind entertains all ideas and 
 all facts with attention, just as a polite and 
 
90 THINGS OF THE MIND. 
 
 brave man is gracious to all comers. The 
 painter studies the body in nude models. Let 
 the thinker, if he would know the value of his 
 thought, strip it of verbal ornament. The 
 showy dress of words but hides the lack of 
 truth, as a fine phrase makes its content credi- 
 ble. " Not more than one in one hundred 
 thousand of the books written in any lan- 
 guage," says Schopenhauer, "forms a real and 
 permanent part of literature." 
 
 In literature is preserved the essence of the 
 intellectual, moral, and imaginative life of the 
 best minds. A good book may easily be more 
 interesting than its author; for there we find 
 pure and refined what in him was commingled 
 with baser matter. I cannot read all books, 
 but I can read many; and the writers of the 
 many I read have read all that is worth read- 
 ing. The journalist is an alarmist. His 
 newspaper sells in proportion to the excite- 
 ment he succeeds in creating. Wars, disasters, 
 panics, famines, plagues, outrages, scandals, 
 form the element in which he thrives. His 
 readers lose the power to remember, to think. 
 They lose the sense for simple truth and 
 beauty, for proportion and harmony. Like 
 the readers of cheap novels, they become 
 callous, and can be roused to momentary 
 attention only by what is startling or mon- 
 
VIEWS OF EDUCATION. 91 
 
 strous. The journalist seeks what will make 
 immediate impression; a real mind looks to 
 truth and to permanent results. 
 
 No one actually holds within his memory one 
 ten-thousandth part of the information con- 
 tained in a book such as the British Ency- 
 clopaedia; and he who knows most of the 
 Encyclopaedia is probably a man in whom 
 there is little spontaneity, little of that mental 
 quality which gives one's thought personal, 
 that is real, charm and worth. "Truth that 
 has been merely learned," says Schopenhauer, 
 " is like an artificial limb, a false tooth, a 
 waxen nose; it adheres to us only because it 
 has been put on." 
 
 The right to punish implies the duty to teach 
 and educate. Once we have gained insight 
 into life's meaning, we see how nearly all 
 men, like hounds astray, are following scents 
 which lead nowhere. He who writes with 
 care day by day will learn at least how to say 
 things. For the education of men, which is 
 the highest human work, one heroic, loving 
 and illumined soul is worth more than all the 
 money-endowments. How poor are they who 
 have only money to give! May it not be a 
 consciousness of the small value of what they 
 can bestow that hardens the hearts of the 
 rich? They who give money give like those 
 
92 THINGS OF THE MIND. 
 
 who give food ; they who give truth and love 
 give like God. 
 
 As the miser lives ever, in thought, with 
 his gold, the lover with his beloved, so the 
 student lives always with the things of the 
 mind, with what is true and fair and good. 
 High purpose and the will to labor mark those 
 who are predestined to distinction. To have 
 knowledge but no skill, no ability to do any 
 useful thing, avails nothing. Herein lies the 
 defect of our education : we are taught every- 
 thing except how to work wisely, bravely, and 
 perseveringly; how to strive not for money 
 and place, but for wisdom and virtue. Learn- 
 ing without faculty leaves us impotent, and 
 may easily render us ridiculous. In each soul 
 there is a world in embryo, and the teacher's 
 business is to help it to be born. To interest 
 the young in themselves, in the world that is 
 in and around them, that they may realize that 
 its implications are divine, is a chief part 
 of education. The best help is that which 
 makes us reverent, self-active and indepen- 
 dent. Work reveals character. We know 
 what a man is when we know, not what his 
 opinions and beliefs are, but what he does or 
 has done. Our highest aspirations reveal our 
 deepest needs. Better be one whom men hate 
 than one whose ideal is good digestion, good 
 clothes, and general comfortableness. 
 
VIEWS OF EDUCATION, 93 
 
 The true educator strives to draw forth and 
 strengthen the sense for truth and justice, and 
 to develop a taste for the purer and nobler 
 pleasures of life. His aim is to make men 
 good and reasonable, not to make them smart 
 and eager for possession or indulgence. The 
 discipline of sorrow, of sorrow of a great and 
 worthy kind, has a high educational value. 
 More than anything else it purifies the sources 
 of life and forms character. Every choice 
 spirit seeks some fortress, some soul-sanctuary, 
 where he may live for truth and God, far from 
 the crowd who neither know nor love. You 
 are not I, your good is not mine. Go forward, 
 then, and prosper; your gain can never be my 
 loss. We thoroughly understand only what 
 we have outgrown. Intellectual progress is an 
 approach to truer estimates of values. A man 
 is what he is and who he is, not by virtue 
 of wealth or office, but by the quality of his 
 thought and life. "Thinking and doing, 
 doing and thinking," says Goethe, "is the 
 sum of all wisdom, so recognized and prac- 
 tised from the beginning, but not understood 
 by every one." 
 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION. 
 
 Godlike is the physician who is a philosopher. HIPPOCRATES. 
 The philosopher should end with medicine, the physician 
 begin with philosophy. ARISTOTLE. 
 
 AS the whole science of arithmetic is con- 
 tained in the multiplication table, so the 
 whole significance of life is summed up for each 
 one in his table of values. What has worth and 
 what is the relative worth of desirable things? 
 This is the primal question for whoever has the 
 will to exert himself; for as he feels and thinks 
 on this subject, so will he act To mistake here 
 involves the drifting of his whole existence away 
 from what is best, from what is true, good, and 
 fair. At first thought it would seem that there 
 are certain fundamental notions as to what is 
 desirable, upon which all agree. Who can doubt, 
 we may ask, that it is better to be than not to be, 
 that what has life is being in a higher sense than 
 what is inanimate, and that the degree of worth 
 in living things is measured by the power and 
 quality of life? But there are men who take no 
 
PltOFESSIONAL EDUCATION. 95 
 
 mean rank as thinkers, who call life evil and 
 death good, who hold that it is better not to be 
 than to be, as there are others who prefer igno- 
 rance to knowledge, pleasure to duty, strength 
 of body to intellectual power, and material pos- 
 sessions to spiritual insight. To some, it seems 
 good to have many slaves, many wives, many 
 children, while others believe that slavery de- 
 grades the owner not less than the owned, that 
 one wife is more than enough, and that desire 
 for children, the result of instinct and not of 
 rational motives, is felt most by those who think 
 least. As men become more intelligent and 
 civilized, they argue, they grow less able and 
 less willing to have offspring, and he who knows 
 what life is, if reason controls him, should be as 
 unwilling to transmit it as to take it. 
 
 To most men, wealth and power, position and 
 fame appear to be supremely desirable, and yet 
 there are many who are persuaded that to the 
 nobler sort of life, riches and honor and place 
 and renown are hindrances. Of the worth of 
 friendship, as of that of the Jove of women, oppo- 
 site views are taken. Civilization is decried as 
 a state of degeneracy; art, as at once the result 
 and the cause of an effeminate temper ; and 
 religion, as the chief source of the worst evils 
 which have afflicted mankind. Thus widely do 
 we differ as to the value of things. The chief 
 
96 THINGS OF THE MIND. 
 
 barrier between men is not wealth, or rank, or 
 creed; it is opposition of life and thought; for 
 these determine the worth of all things. The 
 mind is the creator of interest and consequently 
 of value. 
 
 See yonder youth and maid how wrapped they are 
 
 each in the other ; 
 See yonder two white lambs that gently push 
 
 their heads together. 
 
 I look and feel a momentary pleasure, but if 
 there is interest, I create it by putting thought 
 in what, in the lovers and the lambs, is but sen- 
 sation. Life is interpreted by thought, but it is 
 enrooted in faith, which, with the aid of knowl- 
 edge, supplies the element of value in every 
 sphere of human action, since that alone seems 
 good to us in which we genuinely believe, whether 
 it be money or wisdom, pleasure or power, the 
 world or God. What is anything worth to him 
 who believes in nothing, who is indifferent to all 
 things? What is aught but as it is esteemed? 
 Faith is wedded to desire, and desire gives value. 
 What we yearn for seems to be more truly 
 part of ourselves than what we possess. Hence 
 youth with its longings is richer than age with 
 its millions. Hence religion which makes us 
 conscious of our infinite needs, and utters itself 
 in ceaseless prayer and sacrifice, is man's chief 
 consoler and joy-bringer. Hence genius which 
 
PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION. 97 
 
 feels itself akin to all things, and is impelled to 
 identify itself with all things, is beatified by its 
 own spirit. Hence faith, hope, and love, the 
 triune fountainhead of boundless desire and 
 aspiration, are the springs of life upwelling from 
 central depths of being. The divine joy and 
 goodness which the young find in life are there 
 in truth, and they in whom reflection or experi- 
 ence has destroyed this vital faith, have lost the 
 view of things as they are. Fortunate is the 
 orator who finds an audience whom the all-hoping 
 soul of youth persuades, with an eloquence whose 
 secret words cannot convey, to trust in whatever 
 is high, or holy, or excellent; and still more for- 
 tunate is he when those who listen are drawn 
 by an inner attraction to devote their lives to a 
 profession in which to be ignorant is to be 
 criminal. 
 
 Belief in the good of knowledge is not the 
 weakest of the bonds which unite the members 
 of the learned professions ; for whether our 
 special study be theology, or law, or medicine, 
 or pedagogy, that which determines our place 
 and power to render service is knowledge, and 
 the skill that comes of knowledge. It is expected 
 and required of us that we be the wise men 
 among the people, able to counsel, to guide, and 
 to defend them wherever their vital interests are 
 at stake. Our callings have their origin in human 
 
 7 
 
98 THINGS OF THE MIND. 
 
 miseries. Disease, folly, sin, and ignorance make 
 physicians, lawyers, priests, and educators pos- 
 sible and necessary; and the infirmities upon 
 which they thrive are so related that he who 
 ministers to one ministers to all. Another bond 
 is thus woven into the very constitution of the 
 liberal professions. Disease, in innumerable in- 
 stances, is the child of folly, sin, and ignorance; 
 folly, the child of sin, ignorance, and disease ; 
 sin, the child of ignorance, disease, and folly; 
 while ignorance may be said to be the common 
 mother of all our miseries. Were there no dis- 
 ease, there would be no physicians ; were there 
 no folly, there would be no lawyers ; were there 
 no sin, there would be no priests; were there no 
 ignorance, there would be no teachers. It is, then, 
 our unenviable lot to live, like moral cannibals, 
 on the misfortunes and weaknesses of our fellow- 
 men ; and it is but natural that we should be 
 made immortal themes of exhaustless satire and 
 abuse. What a general blessing have profes- 
 sional men not been to the whole literary tribe ! 
 The priest's love of ease and power, the law- 
 yer's cunning and dilatoriness, the physician's 
 wise look, and his blunders hidden by the grave, 
 are subjects which must find a ready response in 
 the general heart, since books are full of them. 
 Queen Mab tickles the parson's nose, as he lies 
 asleep, with a tithe-pig's tail, and he dreams of 
 
PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION. 99 
 
 another benefice ; she drives over the lawyer's 
 fingers, and he dreams of fees. His clients are 
 like flies in the spider's web. 
 
 " When once they are imbrangled 
 The more they stir, the more they 're tangled/' 
 
 Doctors themselves, I imagine, more than 
 half agree with Macbeth, when he bids them 
 throw physic to the dogs, for he '11 none of it. 
 
 " Physicians mend or end us 
 Secundum artem ; but although we sneer 
 In health, when sick we call them to attend us, 
 Without the least propensity to jeer." 
 
 If not witty ourselves, like Falstaff, why should 
 we object to being the cause of wit in others? 
 We are sure to have our revenge, for men will 
 still be fools, and sinners, and invalids, and how- 
 ever much they mock, they will call us in the 
 hour of need. It is vain to warn them against 
 priests, lawyers, and doctors, they will never 
 be wise and never be well. 
 
 In sober truth, we are the best friends of man, 
 for we are all ministers of health, without which 
 life is hardly a blessing. Whatever may con- 
 tribute to the bodily well-being and perfection 
 of man is the physician's concern ; whatever may 
 secure individual rights and promote social jus- 
 tice is the lawyer's; the priest's is the soul's 
 health, morality, and righteousness. They all 
 strive for stronger, purer, nobler life, in the 
 
100 THINGS OF THE MIND. 
 
 body, in the conscience, in the soul, in the indi- 
 vidual, in the State, in the Church. Their mis- 
 sion is high and holy, it is Godlike, and to fulfil 
 it rightly, the best gifts thoroughly cultivated 
 are not too great, That which they, day by day 
 with ceaseless efforts, labor to accomplish is the 
 prophet's vision, the philosopher's truth, and the 
 poet's dream ; and what else do patriots, states- 
 men and men of science long for than the kind 
 of life which it is the business of the learned 
 professions to foster? To these high callings 
 no servile spirit should belong. By the common 
 consent of the civilized world they are denomi- 
 nated liberal, for only the free and enlightened 
 mind can grasp their significance or enter with 
 right disposition upon the work they involve. 
 Not pleasure or wealth or the love of ease or 
 any lower motive may open the door of the 
 temple of knowledge and religion ; but they who 
 seek admission should feel that they devote their 
 lives to sacred tasks, in which the more they 
 succeed the more shall they have to labor and 
 endure. They should have youth's deep faith in 
 the good of life, and be willing to deny them- 
 selves, and to persevere through years in the 
 work of self-culture that they may make them- 
 selves worthy to become the bearers of the best 
 gifts to their fellow-men. The prolonged infancy 
 and childhood of the human offspring is nature's 
 
PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION. IOI 
 
 compulsion to education, and the noblest minds 
 are conscious of an inward impulse driving them 
 to become day after day, self-surpassed. The 
 doctrine that the individual dwindles, while the 
 race is more and more, they do not accept, for 
 they know the race exists only in individuals, 
 the highest of whom give it wisdom and distinc- 
 tion, glory and strength. From their early years 
 they hear the appeal of the unseen powers whis- 
 pering to them: Be men, not merchants, or 
 lawyers, or doctors, or priests, but Godlike 
 beings ; not means, but ends, for the universe 
 exists that perfect men and women may be 
 formed. An inner voice teaches them that man 
 lives to grow, to upbuild his being, and that effort 
 is the source of all improvement, being nothing 
 less than the hold the finite has upon the infinite. 
 Before they begin the special studies which are 
 to fit them more immediately for the calling they 
 have chosen, they will have gotten a liberal 
 education ; for the mind is the instrument with 
 which they shall work, and since the interests to 
 be committed to them are of paramount, nay, su- 
 preme moment, this instrument can never be too 
 perfect. Is it conceivable that awkward, undisci- 
 plined intellects should rightly apprehend the 
 deep and complex sciences which are the sub- 
 ject matter of the learned professions? 
 
 A liberal education is not so much knowledge 
 
102 THINGS OF THE MIND. 
 
 as it is a preparation for knowledge. It is open- 
 ness and flexibility of mind, delight in the things 
 of the intellect, justness of view, candor, patience, 
 and reasonableness. It has a moral as well as 
 an intellectual value. It is discipline of mind 
 and of character. It opens higher worlds than 
 those the senses reveal. It offers nobler aims 
 than the pursuit of material things ; it liberates 
 from sordid views and the mercenary mind, and 
 thus establishes the primary condition of genu- 
 ine success ; for each one's worth as well as the 
 worth of what he does should be estimated by 
 the spirit in which he lives and strives. If he 
 take no delight in his work, but labor solely 
 with a view to profit, it is a mere chance if he 
 do not become a criminal. A liberal education 
 does for the mind what wholesome food and 
 healthful exercise do for the body, it gives 
 vigor, energy, endurance, ease, and grace. As 
 the athlete performs feats which the untrained 
 can only admire, so cultivated intellects accom- 
 plish what ruder minds cannot understand or 
 appreciate. There is a quickness of perception, 
 a clearness of view, a soundness of judgment, a 
 power of discrimination and analysis, a sureness 
 of tact, and a refinement of taste, which educa- 
 tion alone can give. It bestows also a sense of 
 freedom, that inspires courage and confidence, 
 which are elements of strength, whatever the 
 
PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION. 103 
 
 undertaking be; while the faculty to think, to 
 reason and compare, the ability to see things as 
 they are, which it confers, gives those who have 
 received a liberal education manifest advantages 
 over others in the prosecution of scientific and 
 professional studies. Their knowledge is more 
 accurate, it is more intimately related to life, 
 their mental grasp is firmer, their view wider 
 and more profound. They escape the narrow- 
 ing influence of purely professional studies, 
 which, if unhindered, would make us mere theo- 
 logians or lawyers or physicians, whereas it is 
 our business to unfold our being on every side 
 and to make ourselves alive in many directions. 
 Division of labor makes everything cheap, 
 man first of all ; and the increasing tendency 
 to specialization may have the effect, not only 
 to lower the standard of professional life, but to 
 interfere with the development in the professions 
 of strong, many-sided personalities, interesting 
 in themselves, and lending dignity to their call- 
 ings ; who, while they are masters in their sev- 
 eral departments, are none the less at home in 
 the whole world of human interests and specu- 
 lations. The man of liberal education is a life- 
 long student, and the habitual student is rarely 
 content to think and read but in a single direc- 
 tion; for he soon perceives that all kinds of 
 knowledge are related, and that he who would 
 
104 THINGS OF THE MIND. 
 
 acquire the full and free use of his intellectual 
 faculties must exercise himself in all the fields 
 of thought. While he acquaints himself with 
 the best that has been thought and written, he 
 will keep pace with the progress of research and 
 speculation in his own profession, for, in the 
 midst of a thousand cares and duties, he will 
 still find time to read and meditate. He will be 
 a thoroughly informed theologian, lawyer, or 
 physician, but he will also be an accomplished 
 man, whose speech and behavior will help to 
 refine and exalt the society in which he moves. 
 He will hold his opinions with firmness and he 
 will express them with ease and grace. His 
 principles will be pure, his sympathies large and 
 his religion unfeigned. A good friend and a 
 pleasant companion, he will be most happy 
 when he is permitted to hold communion with 
 the great minds of all ages, or to retire into the 
 world of his own contemplations. To him no 
 company is so pleasant as that of true and 
 beautiful thoughts ; for they are forever fresh 
 and invigorating, and like well-bred people, if 
 we begin to tire, they take their leave, till the 
 right moment return. His professional experi- 
 ence will reveal to him much of the weakness 
 and miseries of men, but his sympathy and love 
 will thereby be purified and strengthened. 
 
 While I thus treat of professional life and 
 
PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION. 105 
 
 education from a general point of view, and 
 somewhat in the spirit of an idealist, I do not 
 lose sight of the occasion which calls forth this 
 discourse. As a minister of religion I should 
 and do take a genuine interest in whatever con- 
 cerns the science and art of healing. The first 
 priest was the first physician, as well as the first 
 lawgiver and ruler, for government, literature, 
 science, and art all had their cradle in the tem- 
 ple of religion, and were nourished by faith in 
 the unseen powers. Asclepios, the gentle arti- 
 ficer of freedom from pain, was a son of the 
 gods, and from him Hippocrates, the father of 
 medicine, claimed descent. To the religious 
 spirit in which he followed his profession, the 
 oath he prescribed to all physicians that they 
 would pass their lives and practice their art in 
 purity and holiness, bears witness. To come to 
 what concerns us more nearly, the Founder of 
 the Christian faith came not merely as a teacher 
 of divine truth and a savior of the soul, but he 
 came also as a healer of bodily infirmity, and in 
 much of what is recorded of him the restoration 
 of health is a striking feature. At the sight of 
 suffering his sympathies awaken, and care for 
 the sick is one of the virtues he especially 
 emphasizes. The first definite duty he imposed 
 upon his disciples was that of travelling about 
 to announce the Kingdom of God and to heal 
 
IO6 THINGS OF THE MIND. 
 
 those afflicted with disease. Of the four who 
 have left record of his life one was a physician. 
 There may be higher things than the alleviation 
 of pain, but there is no more genuine test of 
 love for men, which is a fundamental principle 
 in the life and teachings of Christ. The spirit 
 of humanity which he more than all others has 
 awakened and strengthened, is nowhere better 
 exemplified than in the medical profession as it 
 exists in the world to-day. The true physician 
 waits as a servant upon the miseries of man; 
 like a soldier at his post, he stands ready to 
 bring relief. Neither darkness of night, nor 
 storm, nor contagion, nor pestilence, nor the field 
 of carnage can deter him when duty calls. His 
 service is at the command of rich and poor, and 
 his mind is ever busy with thoughts that bear 
 on the prevention or cure of disease, for with 
 him preventive medicine takes precedence of 
 the curative. In this he obeys the law of Chris- 
 tian charity, for, if to minister to the sick is 
 Christlike, to forestall disease by searching into 
 its causes and discovering how they may be 
 removed is not less a godlike thing. They who 
 throw themselves as consolers and servants into 
 the midst of pest-stricken populations are God's 
 men and women ; so also are they who teach 
 us how pestilence and contagion may be ex- 
 cluded. Worthy of praise and imitation are the 
 
PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION. IO/ 
 
 builders and endowers of hospitals for the poor, 
 but more worthy yet are the educators who show 
 the people how disease may be avoided, and the 
 philanthropists and statesmen who place them 
 in health-giving surroundings. From what un- 
 imaginable sufferings has not the knowledge of 
 the prophylactic and therapeutic properties of 
 quinine saved mankind? To what countless 
 millions has not Jenner come with his vaccine, 
 bringing, like a God, immunity from one of the 
 most terrible diseases? Who can estimate the 
 mitigation of pain and the saving of life brought 
 about by the use of anaesthetics? 
 
 Aseptic and antiseptic treatment has opened 
 a new era in surgery, enabling the operator to 
 use the knife with full confidence of success in 
 cases which for centuries had been thought 
 desperate. Pasteur, as competent judges be- 
 lieve, has found a preventive of hydrophobia, 
 and why shall we not look forward to the day 
 when the bacilli which cause tuberculosis, chol- 
 era and other parasitic diseases shall be under 
 the control of the physician? 
 
 It has been shown plainly enough to convince 
 the most sceptical that organisms wholly invisi- 
 ble without the aid of the highest magnifying 
 powers, cause each its particular infectious dis- 
 ease. Men of science have succeeded in culti- 
 vating these bacilli like plants in a garden. 
 
T08 THINGS OF THE MIND. 
 
 They keep them in glass tubes on the shelves 
 of their laboratories and handle them with 
 impunity, and we can not believe that our con- 
 trol over the infinitely small will stop here. 
 When once the cause of disease is clearly known, 
 the human mind which weighs the stars and 
 counts the pulsations of light, will find a remedy. 
 The men who are striving to do this work, often 
 in silence and obscurity, remote from the praise 
 and approval of the world, are carrying on a 
 warfare in comparison with which the noisy 
 battles of history are as insignificant as the 
 shouts and stone-throwings of a rabble. They 
 stand face to face with disease and death in 
 their most secret lurking-places, from which, 
 from the beginning of the world, they have 
 made assault on life. Of old it was affirmed 
 that man's life is a warfare, and the saying has 
 come down to us who find a deeper and more 
 important truth in it than the ancients ever 
 suspected. Apart from the world-wide struggle 
 for existence, in the large and historic sense, 
 each living organism is a battlefield. Consider 
 for a moment the wonderful part which the 
 white corpuscles of the blood play in defence of 
 life. Their work may be studied with the aid 
 of a microscope in the web of a frog's foot, in 
 which irritation has been caused, as the bacillus 
 of disease causes irritation. When the inflamma- 
 
PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION. IOQ 
 
 tion begins, the white corpuscles lag behind and 
 hug the sides of the veins and arteries ; a little 
 later we may observe them passing through the 
 walls of the blood-vessels into the surrounding 
 tissues, and again returning into their natural 
 channels, from which they had issued to attack 
 the organism that had set up the irritation, and 
 to destroy it or themselves to be destroyed. 
 These white corpuscles, then, which are found 
 in the blood in the ratio of one to five hundred 
 of the red particles, move with the life-bearing 
 fluid, like soldiers who guard a convoy and are 
 always ready to repel the enemy. Hence they 
 are called phagocytes, devourers of disease- 
 producing germs. These protoplasmic soldiers 
 are the wisest medical teachers, and the whole 
 profession is beginning to learn the lesson they 
 inculcate, that the best treatment is warfare on 
 the cause of disease. The phagocyte plainly 
 tells us also that the cause of disease is not an 
 imaginary entity or influence, but a real being 
 which, in many cases at least, is a living 
 organism. 
 
 There is of course no real break in the history 
 of medicine, but from the time of Hippocrates 
 to the beginning of the nineteenth century, 
 though several important discoveries were made, 
 and new remedies and modes of treatment of 
 more or less value were introduced, the progress 
 
1 10 THINGS OF THE MIND. 
 
 of medical science was altogether unsatisfac- 
 tory. Old theories gave place to new, and new 
 methods were substituted for the old, but the 
 gain was not great. The revival of the study of 
 the writings of Hippocrates and Galen, in the 
 fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, did not pro- 
 duce any important reform. Physicians con- 
 tinued to rely upon authorities rather than on 
 facts. The discovery of the circulation of the 
 blood, made by Harvey in the early part of the 
 seventeenth century, was a significant event, but 
 it produced no immediate effect on the practice 
 of medicine. Faith in the old dogmas was 
 weakened, but belief in the good or necessity of 
 schools and systems survived. The names of 
 Sydenham, Boerhaave, Hoffman, Stahl, Haller, 
 Cullen, Brown and Rush will retain a place in 
 the history of medicine, but their contributions 
 to the science and art of healing have little 
 historic significance. The Vienna school of the 
 eighteenth century deserves recognition for its 
 insistence upon the necessity of carefully study- 
 ing the facts of disease during life and after 
 death ; and also because Avenbrugger, a Vienna 
 physician, was the first to employ percussion as 
 a means of diagnosing pulmonary affections. 
 Thus we approach the modern school of medi- 
 cine, in which the methods of physical science 
 are adopted, while little importance is given to 
 
PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION. Ill 
 
 theories or to hypotheses, unless when they are 
 used as guides in the search after facts. Start- 
 ing with the assumption that vital phenomena, 
 both in health and disease, conform to laws and 
 are therefore intelligible, the new school, with 
 the aid of new instruments, has created new 
 sciences, which have a more or less direct bear- 
 ing upon the practice of medicine. The study 
 of organic types, microscopic anatomy, ex- 
 perimental pathology and therapeutics, have 
 brought knowledge where ignorance had pre- 
 vailed; while auscultation, percussion, micro- 
 scopy, physiological chemistry, the thermometer, 
 the ophthalmoscope, the auricular speculum and 
 the laryngoscope enable the physician to make 
 diagnosis certain in cases in which hitherto he 
 had been left to surmise. The increasing number 
 of known parasitical organisms, which are the 
 causes of disease, permit him to substitute real 
 for imaginary etiological entities. His view is 
 clearer, his judgment sounder, his treatment 
 more effective for he moves in an intelligible 
 world. His feet are in the way which has led 
 to all the marvellous achievements of physical 
 science. In the presence of forces which are 
 pregnant with life or death, he no longer fights 
 blindly, or with the fatal confidence of the 
 empiric. If he have theories they rest on the 
 basis of facts carefully observed and accurately 
 
112 THINGS OF THE MIND. 
 
 determined. Medicine henceforth is so guided, 
 surrounded and protected by science, that it can 
 no longer drift with the currents and counter- 
 currents of opinion and speculation. The great- 
 ness and worth of the present age lie in its 
 intellectual activity rather than in its material 
 progress. There is in it a mental stimulus as 
 strong as that which impelled the Greeks of the 
 age of Pericles, to produce, in every sphere of 
 thought and action, the works that still remain 
 as an exhaustless source of inspiration. The 
 discovery of America is unimportant and com- 
 monplace when compared with the discoveries 
 made by scientific investigators. We live now 
 not merely in a new world, but in new worlds, 
 whose boundaries are enlarging, whose secrets 
 are ever revealing themselves to patient seekers. 
 In the heavens and on the earth we see things 
 never before beheld by the eye of man. The 
 impulse of this movement is necessarily felt by 
 the learned professions. The light which has 
 been thrown upon the past, upon the earliest 
 struggles of mankind to attain a human kind of 
 existence, upon the evolution of languages and 
 customs, upon the primitive conceptions of right, 
 of duty and of law, has made possible a science 
 of sociology which gives us a larger and pro- 
 founder view of the sphere of man's life. Biology 
 interprets the problems of psychology and psy- 
 
PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION. 113 
 
 chology provides methods for pedagogy. The 
 comparative study of religions, the more com- 
 prehensive grasp of the history of philosophic 
 systems, the criticisims of the Sacred Writings 
 with the aid of philology, anthropolgy and 
 ethnology, the more accurate analysis of the 
 elements of thought and the juster appreciation 
 of the value and import of knowledge itself, 
 have opened new realms to all who love the 
 things of the mind, and, first of all, to those 
 whose office compels them to deal with the 
 problems of the unseen world, with the super- 
 natural, which is God and the soul. In none of 
 the professions has the intellectual movement of 
 the age produced such wholesome and satis- 
 factory results as in medicine. In law and the- 
 ology the influence of the scientific spirit tends 
 to disturb and unsettle, but in medicine it is 
 altogether salutary. The modern physician, 
 putting aside the old methods as unsuited to the 
 study of vital phenomena, no longer seeks to 
 know what life is, but regards it merely as a 
 natural process, manifesting itself in health and 
 disease ; for, if life is health it is also disease, 
 since it inevitably tends towards and ends in 
 death, though no specific malady should inter- 
 vene to hasten the march to the grave. Death 
 is the correlative of life, as disease is the cor- 
 relative of health. To think the one is to imply 
 
 8 
 
114 THINGS OF THE MIND. 
 
 the other. It is the physician's business, then, 
 to acquaint himself with the structure and func- 
 tions of the body in health and disease. With- 
 out a knowledge of anatomy and physiology he 
 cannot understand disease, which is a deviation 
 from the line of normal physiological conditions, 
 whether structural or functional. The theory of 
 disease, however, is but an idle speculation if it 
 lead not to the means of cure ; and hence path- 
 ology calls for therapeutics, the theory of reme- 
 dies, which is also a science, for nearly every 
 article of the materia medica produces an effect 
 on the organism which may be ascertained with 
 scientific precision. But when there is question 
 of adapting remedies to diseases the wisest phy- 
 sicians recognize now more than ever before 
 that they enter an obscure region where they 
 feel rather than see their way. The best doctors 
 give least medicine, and they would give less if 
 their patients were not persuaded that the most 
 certain way to frighten death is to keep swallow- 
 ing poison. The practice of medicine then is 
 still, to a great extent, traditional and empirical, 
 and however wide and profound the physician's 
 knowledge may be, he soon learns that cease- 
 less vigilance and attention to innumerable de- 
 tails can alone keep him from becoming a 
 murderer. Hahnemann and his disciples have 
 doubtless rendered service by showing how well 
 
PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION. 115 
 
 the sick may prosper by taking, at brief inter- 
 vals, a sugar pellet or a teaspoonful of water. 
 
 Physicians more and more insist upon the 
 importance of regimen and diet, of pure air and 
 healthful occupations, upon sufficient sleep and 
 rest, upon cleanliness of person and surround- 
 ings. They know that, in innumerable instances, 
 disease is the result of careless, ignorant, or 
 vicious habits, that function and appetite are 
 correlative, and that excessive indulgence per- 
 verts the action of the organs which insure the 
 harmonious play of the vital forces. They know 
 that diseases have definite causes, and that it is 
 their business to keep these harmful agencies 
 away from those who are well, and to help nature 
 to expel them from those who are ill. With the 
 increase of knowledge the scope of all the pro- 
 fessions is enlarged, and we may now no longer 
 look on the physician as simply a healer or an 
 assuager of pain. It is his business to under- 
 stand the laws of hygiene and sanitation, to 
 acquaint himself with climatic conditions, to know 
 the kinds of dwelling, clothing and diet, which 
 are most favorable to health. He should, in a 
 word, as his title of doctor implies, be a teacher. 
 The homely proverb that " an ounce of preven- 
 tion is better than a pound of cure/' which has 
 given rise to many maxims and observances 
 more or less salutary, he should be able to inter- 
 
Il6 THINGS OF THE MIND, 
 
 pret and apply in the light of scientific knowl- 
 edge. There is no country in which such teach- 
 ing is more needed than in our own, or in which 
 it might be given with stronger hope of good 
 results. America, it is commonly said, is the 
 paradise of quacks. Whoever sufficiently adver- 
 tises the most worthless nostrum becomes rich; 
 whoever preaches a faith-cure, or a science cure, 
 or a magnetic cure, or a blue-glass cure, finds a 
 crowd of fools for followers. In the presence of 
 the evils caused by this universal quackery, should 
 the physician confine himself simply to the treat- 
 ment of disease? Is it not his duty as a lover of 
 God and of man, as a patriot and a scholar, 
 whether he lives in some isolated hamlet or in a 
 great city, to become a public teacher? Who else 
 is able to diffuse the knowledge of the laws of 
 health and the causes of disease with so much 
 authority and ability? To those who should 
 object that the popularizing of medical science 
 might prove hurtful, I would reply that belief in 
 the good of ignorance or the harmfulness of 
 knowledge is superstition. It is always good to 
 know a thing, and the evils which the spread of 
 intelligence may cause are not only more than 
 counterbalanced by the benefits knowledge con- 
 fers, but they tend to correct themselves. If 
 ignorance is bliss, it is the bliss of fools or cow- 
 ards. When an epidemic threatens there is a 
 
PROFESSIONAL ED UCA TION. \ \ 7 
 
 general alarm and every precaution is taken to 
 exclude it; but the foes of life are always around 
 us, lying in ambush. They may lurk in the air 
 we breathe, in the food we eat, in the water we 
 drink, in the clothing we wear, in the houses we 
 live in, in the domestic animals that supply us 
 with nourishment or lie about our hearths, on 
 the lips of those we love. It is believed that we 
 all are intelligent enough when our interests are 
 at stake, but professional men know how false is 
 this tenet. It is a delusion to imagine that the 
 multitude think. Their notions of health, of 
 right, of religion, are traditional or empirical, 
 and to rouse them to self-activity, to observation, 
 and reflection, is the best work an enlightened 
 mind can perform. " As a man thinketh in his 
 heart, so is he." " With desolation is the earth 
 made desolate, because there is no one who 
 thinketh within his heart." To take but a par- 
 tial view of the subject, does not daily experi- 
 ence teach the physician, the lawyer and the 
 priest, that the ignorance, the thoughtlessness 
 and indifference of those who seek their help 
 are chief impediments to the success of their 
 efforts to render service? Those who know 
 least, not only misunderstand us, but they are 
 also quickest to condemn. In diffusing knowl- 
 edge we, of the learned professions, work for 
 our own good not less than for the general wel- 
 
I 1 8 THINGS OF THE MIND. 
 
 fare. The more intelligent the people are, the 
 more responsive they become to the teachings 
 of religion and science. Sanitary regulations 
 enable civilized nations to exclude or control 
 pestilence and contagion. A proper system of 
 sewerage seems to have freed Memphis from 
 the epidemics which threatened its existence. 
 There is not a farm-house, not a cottage in the 
 smallest village, in which a knowledge of the 
 laws pf health and of the causes of disease might 
 not be made the means of saving human lives. 
 How seldom are the heads of families practically 
 attentive to the fact that water may be limpid 
 and pleasant to the taste and yet carry the germs 
 of fatal maladies, which may lurk even, with 
 merely suspended vitality, in the clearest ice ! 
 How little do they heed the seeds of disease 
 which are concealed in damp cellars, in unven- 
 tilated rooms, in unaired closets, in carpets, in 
 the cushions of chairs, and in the dried sputa of 
 the tuberculous ! The land is filled with the 
 clamorous denouncers of drunkenness and poi- 
 sonous liquors ; but gluttony and badly prepared 
 food are the causes of more sickness and misery 
 than alcoholic drink, and the army of reformers 
 might well reserve part of the abuse they heap 
 upon distillers and saloon-keepers for cooks and 
 confectioners. My argument against women is 
 that they have made us a nation of dyspeptics, 
 
PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION. 1 19 
 
 having from time immemorial held undisputed 
 sway in the kitchen. Why should we entrust 
 the framing of our laws to those who have ruined 
 our stomachs? If the food they eat were less 
 indigestible men would be more sober. How 
 few practically recognize the fact that the func- 
 tion the skin performs is as essential to health 
 as that of the lungs, or the liver, or the kidneys ! 
 Is it not strange that the daily bath should not 
 have been made a prescription of religion, since 
 cleanliness is next to godliness? At all events 
 it is a secret of health and long life, and he is a 
 wise physician who makes himself an advocate 
 of frequent ablutions. How is it possible to 
 like or even respect those who fail to begin each 
 day by plunging in the purifying wave, or, at 
 least, by showering over themselves the clear 
 and silvery spray. I should, without much hes- 
 itation, give my confidence to a stranger about 
 whom I might know little else than that he never 
 omits this clean ablution whether the thermome- 
 ter register thirty degrees below or ninety de- 
 grees above zero ; but with one who does not 
 bathe I should not care to have any dealings. 
 When I reflect how unwashed many of the heroes 
 must have been, from Hector to Bonaparte, with 
 the itch, I feel a sense of disillusion ; and when 
 I hear Americans praised, what pleases me most 
 is the assertion that they bathe more than other 
 
I2O THINGS OF THE MIND. 
 
 people. The bath is not merely hygienic ; it is 
 a test of civilization. 
 
 Who, so well as the physician, is able to 
 impart a knowledge of the laws of heredity in 
 their bearing upon disease and immorality? 
 Why should foolish young people be permitted 
 to marry, when every wise man knows that their 
 union will result in a diseased or depraved off- 
 spring? The end of marriage is not to console 
 weak- and sentimental beings, but to provide a 
 nobler race. As the life of the soul is enrooted 
 in that of the body, the physician is called to 
 minister to moral as well as to physical infirmi- 
 ties. An American doctor, as you know, claims 
 to have discovered a cure for drunkenness ; and 
 whether or not his remedies have any efficacy, it 
 is a gain to create a wide recognition of the fact 
 that dipsomania, in many cases, at least, is a 
 disease of the nervous system. Indeed, it seems 
 to be altogether probable, that sensual excess 
 of whatever kind is as often the result as the 
 cause of abnormal physical conditions. If this 
 be so, what a world is not opened to the medical 
 profession wherein they may labor with the hope 
 of being able to confer on their fellow-men not 
 bodily health alone, but moral and religious 
 blessings as well? 
 
 Whoever belongs to a learned profession 
 should have more than professional knowledge 
 
PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION. 121 
 
 and skill. He should be a representative of the 
 science and the culture of his age. Where the 
 standard of education for the liberal professions 
 is low, the life of the nation cannot be high. 
 
 Human perfection is health of body and soul, 
 manifesting itself in the wholesome activity of 
 every function and faculty ; and in a free coun- 
 try the natural stimulators of this activity are 
 the lawyer, the physician, and the minister of 
 religion. In a democracy, if the people are to 
 escape the rule of demagogues and thieves, they 
 must have the guidance of superior minds and 
 great characters, and where shall they be found 
 if not in the liberal professions? As I look 
 upon the professions, they are all religious, for 
 the end and aim of all of them is to make health, 
 justice, and righteousness prevail ; and what is 
 this but to make the will of God prevail? 
 
 Nor has the physician a baser office than the 
 lawyer or the priest. If you cripple the animal 
 in man, you clip the angel's wings, for the nobler 
 passions draw their life and energy from the 
 lower. Many things, we might imagine, are 
 dearer than life, honor, for instance, and truth 
 and love ; but in all this, as in whatever else has 
 worth, life is present and gives it value. What 
 we first demand of professional men whatever 
 their special calling, is that they be upright, 
 honorable and humane. Character is essential, 
 
 (UNIVERSITY) 
 
122 THINGS OF THE MIND. 
 
 for character gives to ability its human quality, 
 makes it something we can trust, makes it benefi- 
 cent. Thus I complete my earlier thought that 
 professional men are united by indissoluble 
 bonds. They all alike find their reason for 
 being, in the needs and miseries of man ; they all 
 minister to his ills, and to all, science, culture, 
 and religion supply the means which render 
 them able to help. 
 
 A classic writer has said that no better fortune 
 can befall a city than to have within its walls 
 two or three superior men who agree to work 
 together for the common welfare. Who shall 
 these two or three superior men be, if not the 
 lawyer, the physician, and the minister of reli- 
 gion? They are found in every village, and if 
 they hold themselves abreast of the science and 
 culture of the age, and are also men of character, 
 who shall estimate the value of their combined 
 influence? It is the nature of science, culture, 
 and religion to be communicable, and they who 
 diffuse these blessings are the most useful and 
 the noblest men. They alone have the right to 
 say to their fellows : Provide for us, while we 
 make your lives more healthful and pleasant, 
 purer and higher. 
 
 But how shall I, a Kentuckian, addressing, for 
 the first time in many years, an audience of 
 Kentuckians, close without growing conscious of 
 
PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION. 123 
 
 the inspiration of my native air? So long as 
 we can recall with pleasure the divine moments 
 of our youth, they have not wholly fled, but 
 when they come back to us like mocking ques- 
 tioners, asking what good or truth or beauty 
 there was in the things which once rilled us with 
 delight, then alas ! youth is gone, forever gone, 
 and we have ceased to be ourselves. But oh ! 
 I can remember, how in the days of my young 
 love, walking in the fields and in the woods that 
 lay about my home, I scarcely knew my feet 
 touched the ground, but felt that my deep glow- 
 ing soul might mount heavenward until it blended 
 with the infinite ether, and became immortal 
 harmonious pulsings of light and warmth, of joy 
 and ecstasy. And later, how often from the 
 Cincinnati hills have I looked southward across 
 the river and seemed to behold there a fairer 
 world, looked with a longing such as Adam 
 may have felt when he turned his eyes towards 
 lost paradise. 
 
 Not Syracuse, nor the fair Grecian plain 
 
 Saw coursers swift as thine, sweet home of mine, 
 Nor did their sacrificial herds outshine 
 
 Thine own, whose silken flanks are without stain. 
 
 Not there on rarer flowers fell warm, spring rain, 
 Nor wore the heavens a beauty more divine, 
 Nor purer maidens knelt at holy shrine, 
 
 Nor braver men held warlike death for gain. 
 
124 THINGS OF THE MIND. 
 
 Thou wantest but the poet to waft thy name 
 
 In rhythmic numbers through the earth and sky, 
 
 Some bard divine, with strong, heroic aim, 
 To soar aloft, and utter deathless cry ; 
 
 No muse has touched thy lips with sacred flame, 
 To bid the music flow which cannot die. 
 
 Our country is greater than our State ; it fills us 
 with larger and nobler thoughts, rouses the con- 
 sciousness of a mightier and more far-reaching 
 destiny. It is worthy of all homage and love 
 for what it has done, and more worthy still 
 for what it promises to do. In the presence of 
 its boundless energies, aspirations, and sym- 
 pathies, the greatest even feel they are dwarfed. 
 But our country, in a more intimate sense, is our 
 home. He who has no home has no country. 
 Patriotism is the spirit of the father's house, 
 which is the home of our first love and the one 
 to which we turn our last lingering thoughts as 
 death's curtain drops. Hence our State comes 
 closer to us than our country; it awakens ten- 
 derer recollections, weaves about us the tendrils 
 of more gentle and fragrant affections. It calls 
 forth feelings which glow like the dawn, which 
 soften and mellow like the evening sky. It 
 blends with memories of the twining arms of 
 mothers and fathers, of the warm, unselfish 
 devotion of youthful friends. The thought of 
 it is interfused with clouds and showers and 
 the songs of birds, and all the glories of the 
 
PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION. 12$ 
 
 unfolding world that accompanied us when we 
 were young. 
 
 State rights in the old sense are dead, but 
 while the heart of a Kentuckian throbs State 
 pride cannot die. How shall we better serve 
 our country than by loving our State and doing 
 what in us lies to strengthen, purify, and illumine 
 the life of its citizens? I ask these learned phy- 
 sicians whether a climate which produces the 
 noblest breeds of animals, should not be favor- 
 able to the noblest breed of men? 
 
 What does our country or our State, what does 
 God himself demand of us, but that we grow to 
 the full measure of the gifts we have received? 
 
 We render the best service when we make 
 ourselves worthy and wise. The faithful servant 
 of any cause is not a vulgar boaster, but a true 
 striver after the best things. 
 
 When Jenner consulted Dr. Hunter as to 
 whether he might not substitute vaccination for 
 inoculation, he received the reply : " Don't think, 
 but try." He tried and was successful. The 
 right motto, however, is this : " Think and try, 
 try and think." Only God can set limits to what 
 thought and effort may accomplish. 
 
 I will not exhort, for that would be to reproach, 
 I will not proffer advice, for that would be to 
 insult, but I will ask whether you know anything 
 better than the pursuit of excellence? Equality 
 
126 THINGS OF THE MIND. 
 
 is a figment of theorists, inequality is nature's 
 law. As well not be at all as be common. If 
 the equality at which democracy aims means the 
 ostracism of superior men, it is a curse; a bless- 
 ing, if it means the placing of superior men in the 
 lead that they may guide the whole people to 
 nobler ideals and higher truth. The best free- 
 dom is that which is favorable to the develop- 
 ment of high and heroic personalities ; the best 
 education that which fills us with desire for all 
 that is excellent. It is good to be wise and vir- 
 tuous, but it is also good to be healthy, strong, 
 brave, honorable, fair, and graceful. It is bad to 
 be ignorant and sinful, but it is also bad to be 
 sick, weak, cow r ardly, base, ugly, and awkward. 
 The striving after perfection, in this large sense, 
 blesses and dignifies life. It is a cure for many 
 ills; it makes us independent, sufficient for our- 
 selves, able to forego praise and patronage; for 
 if men seek not our aid, when we have made 
 ourselves worthy and capable, the loss is theirs, 
 not ours. In pursuing these high aims, we feel 
 that we are living for God and our country, and 
 we may even deem ourselves fortunate that in 
 the early years of our professional career we 
 have little else to do than to improve ourselves. 
 Happy is he who having found the highest thing 
 he is able to do, gives his life to the work. 
 
 Go forth, then, young gentlemen, to perform 
 
PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION. I2/ 
 
 the noble and humane tasks that will be set you. 
 The dawn of a more glorious day has risen upon 
 your profession. With Hutten you may exclaim : 
 " O blessed age ! Minds awaken, sciences bloom, 
 it is a joy to be alive." To every home you 
 visit you shall bring promise of life and health, 
 and it will not be your fault, if when you depart, 
 you leave not a sense of security and peace. 
 So live, that when in the future there shall be 
 speech of the worthiest Kentuckians, of you also 
 mention shall be made. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 THEORIES OF LIFE AND EDUCATION. 
 
 THAT one should be ignorant who has capacity for knowl- 
 edge, this I call tragedy. CARLYLE. 
 
 TO write a perfect logic, it would be neces- 
 sary to write a perfect treatise on man ; 
 and a complete theory of education would be 
 a complete philosophy of human nature. The 
 aim and end of education is to bring out and 
 strengthen man's faculties, physical, intel- 
 lectual, and moral ; to call into healthful play 
 his manifold capacities ; and to promote also 
 with due subordination their harmonious exer- 
 cise; and thus to fit him to fulfil his high 
 and heaven-given mission, and to attain his 
 true destiny. This would seem to be sim- 
 ple enough, and the most opposite schools of 
 thought would probably find this statement 
 sufficiently large to embrace all their differ- 
 ences. Nevertheless the subject of education 
 is among the most involved and difficult, as it 
 is among those which bear most directly upon 
 the highest and holiest interests of mankind. 
 The difficulty comes in part from the nature of 
 man, which is complex. By thought he belongs 
 
THEORIES OF LIFE AND EDUCATION. 1 29 
 
 to the world of intellect; by will to the moral 
 world: his body makes him brother to the 
 sluggish clod; his soul gives him companion- 
 ship with angels, and the whole circumstance 
 of his existence involves him in the most 
 complicated relations with his fellow-beings. 
 There is not merely diversity in his endow- 
 ments, but contrariety. 
 
 The difficulty increases when we come to 
 consider the modifications produced by his sur- 
 roundings, the ever-varying and counteract- 
 ing influences which affect his character; and 
 yet, in such manner that to assign to each cause 
 its proper effect in the total result is impossible. 
 Again, the phases of human nature in the same 
 individual are so various; the types of collec- 
 tive bodies of men, so dissimilar; the features 
 of the different national characters, so unlike; 
 the effects produced by the same cause upon the 
 same person, at different times, so opposite; 
 the force of climate, of physical constitution, 
 and even of the most trivial accidental circum- 
 stances, so marked, and yet so little subject 
 to human foresight, that, taken collectively, 
 these facts of themselves seem to show, that 
 the question of man's perfect and complete 
 education is most intricate and involved. No 
 one has a clear knowledge of the history even 
 of his own life; of the causes of his progress 
 9 
 
130 THINGS OF THE MIND. 
 
 and retrogression ; of the influences that sur- 
 rounded the birth of his affections and the 
 cradle of his thoughts; of the motives that 
 impelled him in this direction or in that. 
 Were it possible to see ourselves as we are, 
 it would yet be impossible to see clearly the 
 causes which have made us what we are. Reli- 
 gious faith; the circumstances of birth and 
 country; the national institutions and litera- 
 ture; the scenes and occupations of childhood; 
 habits, whether good or evil, formed in youth; 
 these and a thousand other influences, often 
 obscure and difficult to trace, go to mould a 
 human character. 
 
 There are persons who have been confirmed 
 in virtue by having the bitterness of sin and 
 the folly of wrong-doing brought home to 
 them by sad experience. Others, on the con- 
 trary, having once gone astray, never return to 
 the right path, but wander and ever wander, 
 as though, like our first parents, by a first fall, 
 their very nature had been tainted. Who can 
 determine the influence of temperament and of 
 inherited disposition in any given character? 
 And yet this influence ought to be kept in 
 view by the educator. There are natures 
 which are strengthened and ennobled by a 
 discipline which would weaken and degrade 
 those whose endowments are of a different 
 
THEORIES OF LIFE AND EDUCATION. 131 
 
 kind. What fine discernment and deep in- 
 sight are needed to bring out the antagonistic 
 faculties without permitting them to clash and 
 mutilate one another. The mechanical trade 
 which requires the use of the arms alone, 
 gives to them an abnormal strength at the ex- 
 pense of other members of the body, and thus 
 destroys the symmetry and beauty of the human 
 frame. Excess of physical exercise diminishes 
 the power to think; and great devotion to in- 
 tellectual culture has a tendency, not only to 
 weaken the body, but to enfeeble the strength 
 of moral conviction also, and consequently to 
 undermine the basis of all true character. The 
 pure intellect is not the sufficient measure of 
 the reality of things, and overweening confi- 
 dence in its power leads to scepticism. In 
 the same way the development of the will and 
 of moral consciousness, without corresponding 
 mental enlightenment, may beget superstition 
 and fanaticism, "the zeal which is not of 
 knowledge." Even in the same faculty there 
 is such a diversity of operation, that the edu- 
 cation of the intellect or of the conscience 
 alone, if we could consider them as isolated, 
 would still be most difficult. Imagination is 
 developed at the expense of judgment; the 
 power of analysis interferes with the more 
 wholesome synthetic operations of the mind; 
 
132 THINGS OF THE MIND. 
 
 and metaphysical intuition is often found in in- 
 verse ratio to common sense. Equilibrium of 
 moral character is not more easily produced. 
 Considered in themselves, the virtues all con- 
 spire to form the perfect man; but the limita- 
 tions of human nature prevent this ideal 
 harmony; and hence, we find that courage 
 interferes with meekness, independence with 
 humility, generosity with economy, and confi- 
 dence with prudence. The difficulty then is 
 manifest, and it is also evident that no system 
 can be devised by which a perfect education 
 will be secured. And, in fact, to trust greatly 
 to any educational mechanism is a dangerous 
 illusion. Growth of soul is a spiritual process, 
 and can be promoted only by spiritual agen- 
 cies. Man, and not the school system, is the 
 true educator; and to believe that machinery, 
 so powerful within its own sphere, is also able 
 to form worthy men and women, is a gross 
 superstition. It is none the less true, how- 
 ever, that education cannot be carried on 
 without the aid of mechanical appliances; and 
 hence the necessity of systems, and of attempts 
 to realize them. Every system of education 
 is based upon a theory, which is derived from 
 views concerning man's nature and destiny. 
 What is man? What ought he to be? What 
 is his chief business in life? Has he a destiny 
 
THEORIES OF LIFE AND EDUCATION. 133 
 
 beyond this life? If so, has his conduct in 
 this life a bearing upon his future state? 
 These are questions which necessarily come 
 up for consideration when we attempt to form 
 a theory of education; and this theory will 
 be shaped by the answers which we accept. 
 A system of education is, in fact, the expres- 
 sion of a universal philosophy, embracing God, 
 man, and nature; and hence, nothing throws 
 more light upon the real thought of an age 
 than its views upon this subject. An atten- 
 tive examination of this matter will not only 
 reveal what men really hold to be true, but it 
 will also bring out, as in relief, the relative 
 importance which they attach to their professed 
 beliefs, and the strength of conviction with 
 which they hold them. 
 
 In illustration, we will first revert to the 
 classic nations, whose religion was a kind of 
 nature-worship, and who, though they believed 
 in a future existence, looked upon this life as 
 alone joyous and happy. Hellenic religion, 
 which had its origin in the deification of na- 
 ture, found its highest expression in the state, 
 whose tutelary divinities were the heroes by 
 whom it had been founded or successfully de- 
 fended. The state was absolute and supreme; 
 and man's first duty and privilege was to be of 
 service to his country. The future life was to 
 
134 THINGS OF THE MIND. 
 
 be cheerless in the land of shadows and gloom; 
 here we drink in the blessed light and air of 
 heaven ; here is the green earth, here the flow- 
 ing waters, here all things invite to joy. 
 
 In accordance with these views of man and 
 life, education among the Greeks is patriotic 
 and aesthetic. In Sparta, the sole aim is to 
 discipline the man into the perfect soldier, 
 and at Athens an element of culture and refine- 
 ment is added, which is opposed to the war- 
 like temper, and the influence of which led to 
 the decay of Grecian civilization. The moral 
 education which teaches the individual that 
 he has duties and responsibilities which tran- 
 scend his earthly sphere, and which make him 
 accountable to an infinite Being, and an order 
 of things which is eternal, was neglected. In 
 his noblest work Plato has left us an elaborate 
 theory of education, in which he sacrifices 
 both the freedom of the individual and the 
 rights of the family to the state. 
 
 With the Romans, too, the state was 
 supreme; but their character was more serious 
 and practical than that of the cheerful and 
 pleasure-loving Greeks. And hence, to the 
 military training which prepared them to win 
 victories for their country, was added a juristic 
 education which taught them to watch jealously 
 over their rights. When by the conquest of 
 
THEORIES OF LIFE AND EDUCATION. 135 
 
 Greece, they were brought into contact with 
 aesthetic culture, it was again found incom- 
 patible with the patriotic and military temper, 
 and gradually undermined Roman as it had 
 destroyed Grecian civilization. Religion was 
 held to be a function of the state, and hence 
 religious education was made subordinate and 
 auxiliary to the patriotic spirit. Man's first 
 and highest duty was to his country; and both 
 the individual and the family were sacrificed 
 to the state. Hellenism is negatively charac- 
 terized by want of moral earnestness. The 
 Greek is intellectually active; is eager to see 
 things as they are, and finds the most childlike 
 and real delight in whatever is beautiful; but 
 he has no sense of sin, no awful consciousness 
 of God's presence and holiness. He argues 
 and disputes; creates philosophy and poetry 
 and all the arts, but perishes for having failed 
 to perceive the paramount importance of con- 
 duct. His desire to see things as they are, 
 degenerates into sophistry; his love of the 
 beautiful becomes sensuality; and he himself 
 remains an eternal example of the impotence 
 of the noblest endowments, where there is no 
 basis of moral earnestness and religious faith. 
 
 Judaism took a different view of man, and 
 consequently formed a different theory of edu- 
 cation. The idea of God, the Creator of all 
 
136 THINGS OF THE MIND. 
 
 things, and wholly free from the control of 
 nature, is the dominant thought of Hebraism. 
 Hence man's primal duty is not to deified per- 
 sonifications of natural forces, but to God, 
 who loves righteousness and hates iniquity; 
 whose will is law, and its fulfilment blessed- 
 ness; and its violation, which is sin, the only 
 evil and supreme misery. Nature is no longer 
 independent and self-existent, as in the Greek's 
 conception, but a creature, and hence the 
 Hebrew is freed from her control, and loves 
 and fears God alone. Far from adoring as 
 divine the beauty revealed in nature, he flees 
 from it as a temptation to idolatry. For a 
 similar reason, the state cannot be absolute 
 and supreme, and prominence is given to the 
 family. Education is patriarchal and reli- 
 gious, and is directed chiefly to morality. 
 
 To illustrate still further the manner ; n 
 which the theory of education conforms to the 
 generally accepted ideal of man, let us turn 
 from the consideration of national types to the 
 class type. 
 
 In the Middle Ages, the most characteristic 
 figures are the knight and the monk. The 
 ideal of chivalry is free military service in 
 behalf of Christendom, and consequently in 
 behalf of all who are wronged and oppressed ; 
 and among these, woman takes precedence by 
 
THEORIES OF LIFE AND EDUCATION. 137 
 
 virtue of the supreme charm with which she 
 appeals to the heart of man. With a view to 
 fit him for this noble career, the boy, when he 
 was seven years old, began to learn the manner 
 of offensive and defensive warfare, on foot and 
 on horseback ; and between his sixteenth and 
 eighteenth year he was raised to knighthood 
 by a formal ceremony. His intellectual edu- 
 cation was neglected, as having nothing to do 
 with the main purpose of his life. His hand 
 was to hold the sword and not the pen; and 
 even in modern times we find, in proportion 
 as the aristocratic spirit is powerful, a want 
 of mental flexibility and openness to ideas in 
 the nobility. Great development was given 
 to the moral qualities which go to form the 
 knightly character, especially courage and the 
 sense of honor. To be a true knight, was to 
 be sans peur et sans reproche. The exaggerated 
 notion of the worth of courage and the extreme 
 sensibility to honor, which were fostered by 
 this education, led to the fantastic extrava- 
 gancy of knight-errantry, and finally degener- 
 ated into vagabondism and quixotism, which 
 were the harbingers of the decline and dissolu- 
 tion of chivalry. 
 
 Education is the effort to create the ideal 
 man, whether absolutely or relatively to special 
 vocations, and hence the theory will conform 
 
138 THINGS OF THE MIND. 
 
 to the received notions concerning this ideal. 
 When the first requisite of a perfect man is 
 thought to be a strong and athletic body, gym- 
 nastic exercise will take precedence of intel- 
 lectual training; when the chief good is held 
 to be an enlightened mind, mental activity 
 will be stimulated, even though the body 
 should suffer. Again, each vocation will have 
 its special education. The training of the 
 soldier will be different from that of the 
 lawyer; the physician will not be educated 
 like the priest. A fashionable mother, who 
 thinks woman's vocation is to please and to be 
 pleased, will send her daughter to a school of 
 manners, where she will be taught the graces 
 and accomplishments of artificial and frivolous 
 society. The unlikeness of the different special 
 educations arises from the dissimilar ideals of 
 the various vocations. Knowledge, whether 
 got in a military academy or a commercial 
 college, is equally good, but knowledge is not 
 education. Habits of thought and of life are 
 more than knowledge, and the habits which 
 are necessarily acquired during the process of 
 education may render knowledge useless or 
 hurtful. Every educated man knows much 
 that may be to his advantage in any position, 
 but in getting this knowledge he has probably 
 formed habits which, in avocations different 
 
THEORIES OF LIFE AND EDUCATION. 139 
 
 from the one for which he has been trained, 
 will be of greater injury than his learning will 
 be of help. And hence Roger Bacon's axiom, 
 that "knowledge is power," is fallacious. The 
 soldier has doubtless learned many things 
 which the tradesman ought to know, but he 
 has also conceived a notion of life, of honor, 
 of the value of courage, as compared with 
 other qualities, which, were he forced to 
 become a merchant, would prove to be obsta- 
 cles to his success. 
 
 "An Oxford education," says Mr. Froude, 
 " fits a man extremely well for the trade of 
 gentleman. I do not know for what other 
 trade it does fit him as at present constituted. 
 More than one man who has taken high honors 
 there, who has learnt faithfully all that the 
 university undertakes to teach him, has been 
 seen in these late years breaking stones upon 
 a road in Australia. " A better stone-breaker 
 he would doubtless have been had he never 
 studied at Oxford. 
 
 An illustration of the truth upon which I 
 am here insisting is furnished by American 
 society. A scientific education gives to the 
 farmer knowledge which he can put to practical 
 use in a thousand ways. Chemistry, zoology, 
 botany, physiology, mineralogy, and physics 
 generally, may in his hands be converted into 
 
140 THINGS OF THE MIND. 
 
 money. Shall we not, then, give to every 
 farmer a scientific education? No; for the 
 habits of thought and sentiment which such 
 education creates would render farm life dis- 
 tasteful to him; and in fact, we find in our 
 own country that even a little education tends 
 to drive the young men from tillage of the 
 land to the shop life of towns and cities, or, 
 worse still, into the learned professions, and 
 our agricultural colleges train young men for 
 everything except the work for which they 
 were organized. 
 
 It can hardly be necessary to insist further 
 upon the essential relation which exists between 
 the theory of human destiny and the theory of 
 human education. The question, what educa- 
 tion shall I give my child ? can be answered 
 only by asking another question, What do you 
 desire your child to be and to do? The 
 accepted end of man determines the aim of 
 the educator and prescribes his system. Now 
 there are two radically different ways of 
 viewing human life, and but two. We may 
 consider it as complete in this world, or as 
 preparatory to a higher state of existence, and 
 corresponding to these opposite views we have 
 the secular and the religious theories of edu- 
 cation. If there is no future life, a system of 
 education based upon the recognition of such 
 
THEORIES OF LIFE AND EDUCATION. 141 
 
 life must be false and hurtful. The human 
 mind in matters of this kind refuses to accept 
 arguments drawn from expediency. To hold 
 that there is no God and no immortal human 
 soul, and yet to educate men to believe in God 
 and in the soul from a notion that such teach- 
 ing has a social value, is an outrage. Rather 
 let the race perish than be kept alive by an 
 infinite lie and worldwide imposture. On the 
 other hand, to hold that God is, and that the 
 soul is immortal, and yet to refuse to make 
 the system of education conformable to this 
 belief, is an outrage; and here again the 
 human mind refuses to accept arguments drawn 
 from expedience. Whether or not this kind 
 of education will best serve the cause of what 
 is called civilization and progress, is of small 
 moment. If God is, He is first, He is all in 
 all; if the soul is, it is more than civilization 
 and progress. 
 
 These two opposite views of human life are 
 in fatal antagonism, and there can be no 
 thought of compromise; they give form and 
 character to the two hostile armies in the 
 eternal warfare between spirit and matter, 
 the temporal and the eternal, the Christ and 
 the world. That the view whose horizon is 
 bounded by man's present life is widely 
 accepted, there can be no doubt. It has its 
 
 ^UNIVERSITY; 
 
142 THINGS OF THE MIND. 
 
 philosophy, its ethics, its political economy, 
 its sociology, its pedagogy, and hopes to have 
 its religion. It is not a happy or joyful belief, 
 yet it is full of confidence and eager courage, 
 a confidence and a courage born not of an acci- 
 dental or a casual insight into the nature of 
 things, but of a range of thought which em- 
 braces the universe, which weighs the atom 
 and the sun, which meditates devoutly upon 
 the life of the animalcule and seeks to trace it 
 in uninterrupted ascent to man, which studies 
 with a courage that never despairs the most 
 hidden nerve-force, hoping against hope that 
 it will yet detect it breaking into thought and 
 soul life. It has not the mocking and frivol 
 ous temper of Voltaire, nor the satanic mood 
 of Byron. So wide has its thought grown, 
 that fanaticism is almost impossible. As 
 Schiller grieved over the dead gods of Greece, 
 this new philosophy is filled with the quiet 
 sorrow of fatalism in contemplating the old 
 faith. There is a kind of exultation as the 
 light breaks in upon the hidden mysteries of 
 nature, but in every cry of triumph there is 
 an undertone of sadness, almost of despair, as 
 from a half-conscious feeling that the end of 
 all is death and darkness and nothingness, so 
 that what began as the most self-satisfied 
 optimism, now fatally turns to pessimism, 
 
THEORIES OF LIFE AND EDUCATION. 143 
 
 which is the protest of the unbelieving soul 
 against sensualism and atheism. 
 
 Let us trace the theoretical development of 
 this earth-creed, and then study its historical 
 manifestation, in so far as it bears upon the 
 question of education and man's destiny. I 
 shall not go further back than Kant, who is 
 the father of the critical philosophy, and who 
 gave the impulse to the intellectual move- 
 ment, which, outside the Church, is bearing 
 the modern mind farther and farther away 
 from metaphysics. It was he who first in- 
 spired a profound distrust of whatever is beyond 
 the sphere of experience; and who relegated 
 to the region of the unknown the reality which 
 underlies the phenomenon. The result of his 
 thinkings is this: The phenomenon alone can 
 be known; the noumenon is not cognoscible. 
 
 The human reason is involved in radical 
 contradictions whenever it attempts to dogma- 
 tize concerning God, the soul, and the uni- 
 verse; and hence arise, by a necessary process, 
 the paralogisms of theology, the gratuitous 
 hypotheses of psychology and the antinomies 
 of cosmology. Here we have the essential 
 principles of the Positivism of Comte, and of 
 the Cosmism of Herbert Spencer, absolute 
 condemnation of metaphysics, scepticism con- 
 cerning the operations of our highest faculties, 
 
144 THINGS OF THE MIND. 
 
 and the elimination of all reality which is not 
 perceived by the senses. 
 
 The influence of Hegel, which has been so 
 profoundly felt by the modern world, is in the 
 same direction. The identity of being and not 
 being; the personality of God, an absurdity 
 unworthy of the attention of serious thinkers; 
 the efficient and final cause of the world imma- 
 nent in the world ; nothing is, but everything is 
 becoming; truth and reality consequently noth- 
 ing absolute, but fugitive forms of what neither 
 is, nor is not, a kind of intellectual star-dust, 
 which is not nothing nor anything. These are 
 some of the characteristic doctrines of Hegelian 
 pantheism, and whatever else may be thought 
 of them, they unmistakably confine the life of 
 man to this world, which is its own efficient 
 and final cause. The universe is an eternal 
 flow, in which truth and beauty and goodness 
 are but the changeful waves that float upon 
 the great world-current of matter. Each fact, 
 each individual, is a point of momentary rest 
 in the midst of universal mobility. 
 
 In this system religion has but an accidental 
 value, and the interest which it inspires is 
 chiefly historical and psychological. The forms 
 in which man has clothed his dreams of the 
 divine are curious as an archaeological study or 
 as a branch of ethnology. The vulgar and pas- 
 
THEORIES OF LIFE AND EDUCATION. 145 
 
 sionate polemics of Protestantism and ration- 
 alism are obsolete. Nothing is false or in bad 
 taste, but dogmatism. Christianity is man's 
 highest effort to give form and body to the 
 infinite, and when criticism shall have finally 
 done away with all its dogmas, it will be left 
 to the inspirations of the heart, to be trans- 
 formed indefinitely to suit the requirements of 
 progress and civilization. There is no God, 
 but there are divine things, culture, liberty 
 and love. This is the soil in which the reli- 
 gion of humanity flourishes; the worship of 
 man taking the place of the worship of God. 
 In the beginning there is no God, there is 
 nothing, only a becoming; in the end, there is 
 man. He is the highest, let us serve him. 
 And since the individual is but a bubble that 
 bursts and remerges in the general air, a snow- 
 flake, remelting into the element from which 
 it was assumed and congealed into separate- 
 ness, let him dwindle and let the race be more 
 and more. Let the weak perish, let the fittest 
 survive, let all things belong to the strong. 
 This is the eternal law of our sacred mother, 
 Nature, who alone is supreme. An ideal 
 humanity, truly, is only an abstraction; it 
 does not exist, it will never exist; it is but a 
 phantom. The individual is contemptible. 
 The race is found only in the individual. All 
 
146 THINGS OF THE MIND. 
 
 this is undeniable. But what will you have? 
 Our hypothesis excludes God, and this phan- 
 tom of humanity is all that remains to per- 
 suade us that to eat and to drink is not the 
 only wisdom. In this system too, the religion 
 of pantheistic mysticism, the faith of Carlyle 
 and of Emerson, finds its justification. Pan- 
 theism is obscure and nebular, and mysticism 
 loves the uncertain light of a symbolical and 
 oracular phraseology, and when the two are 
 combined, it is not easy to seize the real 
 thought. The thought, however, is panthe- 
 istic, the mood is mystic. The central idea, 
 upon which the thousand changes of poetic 
 and prophetic rhapsody are rung, and from 
 which also proceed objurgation, scorn, anger, 
 indignation, withering contempt, whether in 
 the jolting, interrupted, epigrammatic style 
 of Emerson, or in the tumultuous, turgid, 
 apodictic manner of Carlyle, is Pantheism. 
 For both the efficient and final cause of the 
 world is immanent in the world, and the tran- 
 scendentalism is modal and accidental. To 
 both, systems and creeds are hateful, and to be 
 "a swallower of formulas" is the highest 
 glory. As there is no absolute truth, there is 
 no permanent symbol. To be spontaneous, 
 original, and strong, is the only merit. The 
 world's great men know no other law than the 
 
THEORIES OF LIFE AND EDUCATION. 147 
 
 fatality of their genius. To be weak is, as 
 Milton says, the true misery. 
 
 "Thus," says Carlyle, "like some wild-flam- 
 ing, wild-thundering train of Heaven's artil- 
 lery, does this mysterious MANKIND thunder 
 and flame in long-drawn, quick-succeeding 
 grandeur through the unknown deep. Thus 
 like a God-created, fire-breathing spirit-host, 
 we emerge from the inane, haste stormfully 
 across the astonished earth, then plunge again 
 into the inane." A rushing forth from noth- 
 ing back into nothing, this is all. The edu- 
 cator's business is to prepare man to make this 
 stormful haste across the astonished earth in a 
 becoming manner. 
 
 Pedagogy cannot aspire to fit him for an 
 existence in the inane. For this life must 
 man be educated ; of another, if other there is, 
 neither knowledge nor faith can give us true 
 account. The hero of Carlyle's profoundest 
 and most eloquent work, walks wearisomely 
 through this world, having lost all tidings of 
 another and higher. Fixed, starless, tartarean 
 darkness envelops his soul. "The everlast- 
 ing NO had said: 'Behold, thou art fatherless, 
 outcast, and the universe is mine.' 5 The 
 hero made answer: "I am not thine, but free, 
 and forever hate thee." This wild protest 
 against despair leads him to the Centre of 
 
148 THINGS OF THE MIND. 
 
 Indifference, from which in grim mockery he 
 hurls his objurgations: "God," he says, "must 
 needs laugh outright, could such a thing be, 
 to see his wondrous manikins here below." 
 He is in the wilderness; it is the wide world 
 in an atheistic century. 
 
 Lying here in this Centre of Indifference 
 he awakes to a new heaven and a new earth. 
 From a high table-land he gazes upon the 
 world and contemplates its myriadfold and 
 ever-changing forms of beauty and life. " How 
 thou fermentest," he exclaims, "and elabo- 
 ratest in thy great fermenting vat and labor- 
 atory of an atmosphere, of a world! Oh, 
 nature! or, what is nature? Ha! Why do I 
 not name thee God? Art not thou the 'living 
 garment of God ? ' Oh, Heavens, is it, in 
 very deed, He, then, that ever speaks through 
 thee; that lives and loves in thee, that lives 
 and loves in me ? " 
 
 And to this pantheism the spirit of mysti- 
 cism comes to seek a new worship. The 
 Mythus of Christianity is obsolete. "The 
 temple thereof, founded some eighteen cen- 
 turies ago, now lies in ruins, overgrown with 
 jungle, the habitation of doleful creatures." 
 A worship and an ideal nevertheless must be 
 found. Speculation is by nature endless, form- 
 less, a vortex amid vortices. Thought fatally 
 
THEORIES OF LIFE AND EDUCATION. 149 
 
 leads to the abyss in which all things whirl in 
 inextricable confusion, and in which nothing 
 can be seen or known with certainty; for in 
 the lowest deep a lower depth still opening 
 swallows the thinker and his thought, beyond 
 plummet's sounding, yea, beyond the reach of 
 fantasy. The end of life, therefore, is not to 
 think, but to act. Not that we might in morbid 
 self-introspection eat our own hearts; project- 
 ing upon the world we rail at our diseased 
 imaginations, have we emerged from the inane. 
 Goethe is right. His immortal precept opens 
 a new era and founds a new religion. Study, 
 he says, how to live; that is, study how to 
 make the most of life. " Fool ! the ideal is in 
 thyself, the impediment too is in thyself; thy 
 condition is but the stuff thou art to shape 
 that same ideal out of; what matters whether 
 such stuff be of this sort or that, so the form 
 thou give it be heroic, be poetic? O thou 
 that pinest in the imprisonment of the actual, 
 and criest bitterly to the gods for a kingdom 
 wherein to rule and create, know this of a 
 truth. The thing thou seekest is already with 
 thee, 'here or nowhere,' couldst thou only 
 see." Here or nowhere, study how to make 
 the most of life. This is the path that leads 
 upward from tartarean darkness and endless 
 chaos to the light and serenity of cosmic har- 
 
150 THINGS OF THE MIND. 
 
 mony. Carlyle, most assuredly, is no mate- 
 rialist, he is no utilitarian; and just as little is 
 he a sensualist or a scientific atheist. Against 
 all these things his soul cries out in fiery and 
 convulsive indignation. What an imperish- 
 able odor is there not in those "pig proposi- 
 tions " in which he gives us the materialist 
 and utilitarian theory of the world? The 
 universe is an immeasurable swine's trough. 
 Moral evil is unattainability of pig's wash. 
 Paradise, called also state of innocence, age 
 of gold, was unlimited attainability of pig's 
 wash. It is the mission of universal pighood, 
 and the duty of all pigs, at all times, to dimin- 
 ish the quantity of unattainable, and increase 
 that of attainable. All knowledge and device 
 and effort ought to be directed thither, and 
 thither only. Pig poetry ought to consist of 
 universal recognition of the excellence of pig's 
 wash and ground barley, and the felicity of 
 pigs whose trough is in order, and who have 
 had enough. Humph! Who made the pig? 
 Unknown; perhaps the pork butcher. 
 
 The cold and pitiless irony of Swift is here 
 seething hot, like molten lava. 
 
 Scientific atheism, too, with its superficial 
 and self-conceited rationalism, fills him with 
 contempt, in which there is also an element of 
 fiery anger. " Thou wilt have no mystery and 
 
THEORIES OF LIFE AND EDUCATION. 151 
 
 mysticism, he exclaims; wilt walk through 
 thy world by the sunshine of what thou callest 
 truth, or even by the hand-lamp of what I call 
 attorney-logic, and 'explain ' all, 'account ' for 
 all, or believe nothing of it. Nay, thou wilt 
 attempt laughter; whoso recognizes the un- 
 fathomable, all-pervading domain of mystery, 
 which is everywhere, under our feet and 
 among our hands ; to whom the universe is an 
 oracle and temple, as well as a kitchen and 
 cattle-stall, he shall be a delirious mystic; 
 to him, thou, with sniffing charity, wilt pro- 
 trusively proffer thy hand-lamp, and shriek as 
 one injured when he kicks his foot through 
 it.' 1 The universe is awful, mysterious. "Thy 
 daily life is girt with wonder, and based on 
 wonder; thy very blankets and breeches are 
 miracles." The unspeakable divine signifi- 
 cance lies in all things. "Atheistic science 
 babbles poorly of it, with scientific nomencla- 
 tures, experiments, and what not, as if it were 
 a poor dead thing to be bottled up in Leyden 
 jars and sold over counters. But the natural 
 sense of man, in all times, if he will honestly 
 apply his sense, knows it to be a living thing, 
 ah, an unspeakable, Godlike thing, towards 
 which the best attitude for us after never so 
 much science, is awe, devout prostration and 
 humility of soul; worship, if not in words, 
 
152 THINGS OF THE MIND. 
 
 then in silence." This indignant rebuke to 
 atheism proceeds from a fervent soul. Impiety 
 is offensive to Carlyle, to whom whatever is, 
 is divine, is God. All religions he holds are 
 good, if only men are sincere. The only 
 idolatry is that from which the sentiment has 
 departed. To worship sticks and stones with 
 all one's heart and in downright honesty, is 
 better than all the conventional pieties of our 
 modern world. The value of religion is purely 
 subjective; it is in the sentiment. The object 
 is of small moment, for all possible symbols 
 are but representations of the mysterious un- 
 known which lies beneath appearance. But 
 for Carlyle, as for all who deny the existence 
 of a personal God, man is the highest; and 
 his religion is hero-worship. His view is 
 fixed upon this life alone; he knows no other. 
 Here or nowhere. Man rushes forth from 
 nothing back into nothing. To educate him 
 for a future life, would be as absurd as to edu- 
 cate him for a past life. In fact, as he had 
 no past life, so will he have no future life. 
 Study, therefore, to make the most of this; 
 and to teach this highest and only wisdom, 
 should be the educator's aim and purpose. 
 Carlyle, however, has no faith in any mechan- 
 ism or system of education. A gerund-grind- 
 ing pedagogue is to him no better than the 
 
THEORIES OF LIFE AND EDUCATION. 153 
 
 wood and leather man whom the Nurembergers 
 were to build, and " who should reason as well 
 as most country parsons." The curse of the 
 age is its belief in mechanism. The soul of 
 man, the soul of society, the soul of religion, 
 is come to be considered the product of mechan- 
 ical action. If the wheels, cogs, valves, pistons, 
 and checks are in order, all is well. Man's 
 happiness and worth are no longer believed to 
 be within himself; his ideal is not a spiritual 
 and divine something, but an outward condi- 
 tion, in which there will be well-oiled and 
 smoothly working machines for manufacturing 
 everything; from patent creeds and codes to 
 patent breeches. This is atheism, this is in- 
 finite evil, infinite despair, and no-religion. 
 "We have forgotten God," he says, "in the 
 most modern dialect and very pith of the matter, 
 we have taken up the fact of this universe as it 
 is not. We have quietly closed our eyes to the 
 eternal substance of things, and opened them 
 only to the shows and shams of things. We 
 quietly believe the universe to be intrinsically 
 a great unintelligible PERHAPS; extrinsically 
 clear enough it is a great, most extensive 
 cattlefold and workhouse, with most extensive 
 kitchen ranges, dining tables, whereat he is 
 wise who can find a place! All the truth of 
 this universe is uncertain ; only the profit and 
 
154 THINGS OF THE MIND. 
 
 loss of it, the pudding and praise of it, are 
 and remain very visible to the practical man. 
 There is no God any longer for us! God's 
 laws are become a greatest happiness prin- 
 ciple, a parliamentary expediency; the heavens 
 overarch us only as an astronomical time- 
 keeper. . . . This is verily the plague-spot cen- 
 tre of the universal social gangrene, threatening 
 all modern things with frightful death. To him 
 that will consider it, here is the stem, with its 
 roots and tap-root, with its world-wide upas- 
 boughs and accursed poison exudations, under 
 which the world lies writhing in atrophy and 
 agony. You touch the fatal centre of all our 
 disease, of our frightful nosology of diseases, 
 when you lay your hand on this." "There is 
 no religion; there is no God; man has lost his 
 soul, and vainly seeks antiseptic salt." The 
 blight of this faith in what is dead, godless, 
 and mechanic, corrupts our modern education, 
 which regards only what is practical and econ- 
 omic, and wholly abandons to moral dry-rot 
 man's spiritual and religious nature. The 
 science of the age is physical, chemical, physi- 
 ological. Even mathematics is valued only 
 for its mechanic use, in building bridges, 
 constructing forts, and indicating the proper 
 angle for killing men at given distances. The 
 inventor of the spinning-jenny and sewing- 
 
THEORIES OF LIFE AND EDUCATION. 155 
 
 machine has his reward. The philosopher is 
 without honor. Thought is secreted by the 
 brain; and poetry and religion are "a product 
 of the smaller intestines." What other than 
 a mechanical education is possible to men who 
 breathe this mephitic, soul-stifling air? The 
 mind is littered, as though it grew like a 
 vegetable, with etymological and other com- 
 post ; it is crammed with dead vocables ; it is 
 taught that its chief use is to calculate profit 
 and loss; and when it is burnt out to a gram- 
 matical and arithmetical cinder, its education 
 is complete. 
 
 " Alas, so is it everywhere, so will it ever 
 be; till the hodman is discharged or reduced 
 to hod-bearing and an architect is hired, and 
 on all hands fitly encouraged; till communities 
 and individuals discover, not without surprise, 
 that fashioning the souls of a generation by 
 knowledge, can rank on a level with blowing 
 their bodies to pieces by gunpowder; that with 
 generals and field-marshals, for killing, there 
 should be world-honored dignitaries, and were 
 it possible, true God-ordained priests for 
 teaching." 
 
 No hidebound pedant can educate. Of man, 
 such a one knows only that he has a faculty 
 called memory, and that it can be acted on 
 through the muscular integument by birchen 
 
156 THINGS OF THE MIND. 
 
 rods. To educate we must touch the mysteri- 
 ous springs of love, fear, and wonder, of enthu- 
 siasm, poetry, religion. These are the inward 
 and vital powers of man; who cannot be roused 
 into deep, all-pervading effort by any comput- 
 able prospect of profit and loss, for any definite 
 finite object, but only for what is invisible and 
 infinite. "When we can drain the ocean into 
 our mill-ponds, and bottle up the force of 
 gravity, to be sold by retail in our gas-jars, 
 then we may hope to comprehend the infini- 
 tudes of man's soul under formulas of profit 
 and loss; and rule over this too, as over a 
 patent engine, by checks and valves and 
 balances."; 
 
 One of Carlyle's great merits is the vivid- 
 ness and force with which he brings out man's 
 spiritual nature; his craving for the infinite; 
 his inborn and necessary dissatisfaction with 
 whatever is not eternal and all-perfect. Out 
 of the meanness and littleness and emptiness 
 of the world which surrounds him, he takes 
 refuge in the eternities, the immensities, the 
 veracities. It is at least singular that the 
 most gifted and earnest writers of the England 
 of the nineteenth century, in spite of their in- 
 numerable differences in thought and temper, 
 should agree in their estimate of English life. 
 That it is low and vulgar, selfish and insincere, 
 
THEORIES OF LIFE AND EDUCATION. 157 
 
 without high ideals or generous impulses or 
 noble aspirations, is the common testimony of 
 Carlyle and John Stuart Mill, of Dickens and 
 Thackeray, of Byron and Tennyson, of Ruskin 
 and Matthew Arnold. Macaulay, indeed, is 
 inclined to optimistic views in whatever con- 
 cerns England, but he is purely literary; lives 
 on the surface, which he rounds off with a 
 polished and ornate phrase, and leaves un- 
 touched the deep central heart of things. 
 
 What gloomy energy is there not in the fol- 
 lowing words of Carlyle ! 
 
 " Like the valley of Jehoshaphat it lies round 
 us, one nightmare wilderness, and wreck of 
 dead men's bones, this false modern world; 
 and no rapt Ezekiel imaged to himself things 
 sadder, more horrible and terrible, than the 
 eyes of men, if they are awake, may now 
 deliberately see." 
 
 And in these other words, what depth of 
 truth is there not discernible! 
 
 " Faith strengthens us, enlightens us, for all 
 endeavors and endurances ; with faith we can 
 do all, and dare all, and life itself has a thou- 
 sand times been joyfully given away. But 
 the sum of man's misery is even this, that he 
 feel himself crushed under the Juggernaut 
 wheels, and know that Juggernaut is no 
 divinity, but a dead mechanical idol." 
 
158 THINGS OF THE MIND. 
 
 And again, the angry voice breaks forth in 
 sullen, almost despairing protest : 
 
 "Not Godhead, but an iron, ignoble circle 
 of necessity embraces all things; binds the 
 youth of these times into a sluggish thrall, or 
 else exasperates him into a rebel. Heroic 
 action is paralyzed ; for what worth now 
 remains unquestionable with him? At the 
 fervid period, when his whole nature cries 
 aloud for action, there is nothing sacred under 
 whose banner he can act; the course and kind 
 and conditions of free action are all but indis- 
 coverable. Doubt storms in on him through 
 every avenue; inquiries of the deepest, pain- 
 fullest sort must be engaged with ; and the 
 invincible energy of young years wastes itself 
 in sceptical, suicidal cavillings, in passionate 
 questionings of destiny, whence no answer 
 will be returned." 
 
 The weakness, the shallowness, the misery, 
 and selfishness which are the results of atheism 
 and no-religion, are most clearly discerned 
 and forcibly expressed by Carlyle. He sees 
 that faith in something higher than himself is 
 the one thing needful for man ; that to live 
 for vulgar objects and selfish ends is suicidal, 
 is the denial and destruction of all that makes 
 life worth having; and when men come with 
 their schemes for making this earth a luxurious 
 
THEORIES OF LIFE AND EDUCATION. 159 
 
 lubberland, where the brooks shall run wine, 
 and the trees bend with ready-baked viands, 
 and who bring their hand-lamp wherewith to 
 dispel all darkness, he, without more ado, 
 kicks his foot through it, and so leaves them 
 and their paper contrivances. He has the gift 
 of noble indignation. His very soul loathes 
 all sham ; he is the sworn enemy of cant, and 
 holds sincerity to be the mother virtue. The 
 sincere man is the divine man, the hero, the 
 highest form which consciousness can assume. 
 He comes to us at first hand, with tidings 
 from the infinite unknown. The words he 
 speaks are no other man's words; he comes 
 from the inner fact of things, the heart of the 
 world, the primal reality. That the hero have 
 what men call faults is of small moment. 
 We make too much of faults, says Carlyle. 
 He is all fault who has no fault. Hence 
 Mahomet, Luther, Cromwell, Rousseau, Burns, 
 and Napoleon, are not simply men of genius 
 and power, but they are messengers from 
 heaven, true prophets, to be received and 
 heard with all reverence and obedience; nay, 
 to be worshipped in all sincerity. "And in 
 this so despicable age of ours, be the boun- 
 teous heavens ever thanked for it, two heroes 
 have nevertheless been found. Bonaparte 
 walked through the war-convulsed world like 
 
160 THINGS OF THE MIND. 
 
 an all-devouring earthquake, heaving, thunder- 
 ing, hurling kingdom over kingdom. Goethe 
 was as the mild-shining, inaudible light, which, 
 notwithstanding, can again make that chaos 
 into a creation." And now the bounteous 
 heavens have to this so despicable age vouch- 
 safed a third hero, who is no other than Prince 
 Bismarck; and, to crown the work of mercy, 
 they have inspired Mr. Froude to reveal to his 
 generation the heroic character and sublime 
 worth of that much-abused and misunderstood 
 demigod, Henry VIII. And so we have veri- 
 fied Carlyle's doctrine that the age of miracles 
 is not past, but even now is. 
 
 Upon those who, in this modern world, are 
 called religious, Carlyle pours, in boundless 
 contempt, the full vials of his scorn and wrath. 
 They are unveracities, chimeras, and sem- 
 blances. Even the best of them keep truck- 
 ing and trimming between worn-out symbols 
 and hypocrisy. . . . " Birds of darkness are 
 on the wing, spectres uproar, the dead walk, 
 the living dream.*' The church-clothes, which 
 once held and revealed to men's eyes the holy 
 of holies, nothing else than the divine idea of 
 the world, have now gone sorrowfully out at 
 elbows. " Nay, far worse, many of them have 
 become mere hollow shapes or masks, under 
 which no living figure or spirit any longer 
 
THEORIES OF LIFE AND EDUCATION. l6l 
 
 dwells ; but only spiders and unclean beetles, 
 in horrid accumulation, drive their trade; and 
 the mask still glares on you. with its glass 
 eyes, in ghastly affectation of life." The reli- 
 gion of the Middle Ages is something quite 
 different, nay, wholly opposite, a living and 
 divine reality. " In those dark ages intellect 
 could invent glass, which now she has enough 
 ado to grind into spectacles. Intellect built 
 not only churches, but a church, the church, 
 based on this firm earth, yet reaching and 
 leading up as high as heaven." This church 
 was planted on the basis of fact, and built 
 according to the laws of statics; and its heroes 
 and prophets are troubled by no doubt, or 
 any sort of doubt. Their "religion is not a 
 diseased self-introspection, an agonizing in- 
 quiry; their duties are clear to them; the way 
 of supreme good plain, indisputable, and they 
 are travelling on it. Religion lies over them 
 like an all-embracing heavenly canopy, like an 
 atmosphere and life element, which is not 
 spoken of, which, in all things, is presupposed 
 without speech. Is not serene or complete 
 religion the highest aspect of human nature, 
 as serene cant or complete no-religion is the 
 lowest and miserablest? " 
 
 "Our religion," he says, speaking of what 
 he calls "twelfth-century Catholicism," "is 
 
1 62 THINGS OF THE MIND. 
 
 not yet a horrible, restless doubt, still less 
 a far horribler composed cant; but a great 
 heaven-high unquestionability, encompassing, 
 interpenetrating the whole of life." 
 
 In this old Church, planted on the basis of 
 fact, built according to the laws of statics, 
 heroes were not wanting. Here, for instance, 
 is Abbot Samson: "The great antique heart, 
 how like a child's in its simplicity, like a 
 man's in its earnest solemnity and depth! 
 Heaven lies over him wheresoever he goes or 
 stands on the earth; making all the earth a 
 mystic temple to him, the earth's business all 
 a kind of worship. Heaven's splendor over 
 his head, hell's darkness under his feet. It 
 was not a dilettanteism this of Abbot Samson. 
 It was a reality, and it is one. . . . This is 
 Abbot Samson's Catholicism of the twelfth 
 century. Alas! compared with any of the 
 isms current in these poor days, what a 
 thing! " 
 
 No one could have written a nobler history 
 of Gregory VII. and his creative work than 
 Carlyle ; nor could he have found a grander 
 hero; but his temper, like Milton's, led him 
 rather to the great destroyers and mighty 
 rebels, who walk through the convulsed world, 
 upheaving, casting down, blowing to frag- 
 ments men and their works. 
 
THEORIES OF LIFE AND EDUCATION. 163 
 
 In his doctrine of hero-worship there are 
 doubtless elements of truth. The highest man 
 is most like to God of anything that is visible 
 in this earth. God himself has walked the 
 earth clothed on with human nature, and of 
 his divine gifts men are the ministers. The 
 soul of man is more than any or all machinery. 
 For man's sake was the Sabbath instituted, 
 and for him all good and right institutions 
 exist; not he for them. He is more than they. 
 True religion must not only inspire reverence 
 for man, but must produce heroic types of 
 men, saints of God, who in strong arid painful 
 wrestlings with themselves and the spirits of 
 darkness, struggle upwards to peace and light, 
 leaving behind them a pathway, red with 
 blood, but luminous; so that the multitudes 
 who grope in the gloom of lower thoughts and 
 loves, may not be left without some living tes- 
 timony and effulgence of the higher world, for 
 which all alike have been created. Even God's 
 sacraments fall into disuse unless they are 
 held in the hands of true, believing men. 
 Reverence for those who are above us is not 
 only a Christian virtue, but one which in this 
 day has special need of being preached. And 
 admiration, too, is wholesome and elevating. 
 I admire the gift even where I condemn its 
 use. The shallow spirit, which sees no great- 
 
1 64 THINGS OF THE MIND. 
 
 ness in man, and no great men, is irreligious. 
 But Carlyle exaggerates the value and influ- 
 ence of hero-worship, and his ideal is not only 
 false but immoral. "All religion/' he says, 
 " issues' in due practical hero-worship. . . . 
 Society is founded on hero-worship. ... I 
 seem to see in this indestructibility of hero- 
 worship the everlasting adamant, lower than 
 which the confused wreck of revolutionary 
 things cannot fall." Of all this, what Carlyle 
 would call attorney logic, and what here may 
 fitly enough be called common sense, cannot 
 approve. Nevertheless, even the logic-chopper 
 must admit that it is fairly deducible from the 
 premises. If man springs forth from the un- 
 conscious, as Carlyle holds, he can worship 
 only himself; for the highest consciousness 
 must necessarily think itself the absolute 
 highest. In fact this whole system of hero- 
 worship is but a development of Hegel's law 
 of history, which is pantheistic. The ideal 
 man, in this system, is in no true sense ideal. 
 The sincere man is not the highest, best, 
 wisest man ; for fanaticism may be sincere as 
 well as faith, and tyranny as well as justice. 
 Moreover, sincerity, in Carlyle's thought, is 
 synonymous with naturalness, and it may be 
 urged with strong reason that goodness and 
 virtue are not natural to man. Hence, Carlyle 
 
THEORIES OF LIFE AND EDUCATION. 165 
 
 loses more and more all ground of difference 
 between the natural and the right; his ideal 
 grows less and less spiritual, until finally he 
 fails to perceive any higher test of worth than 
 sheer strength. Whatever can get upon its 
 feet and stand there in spite of all enemies, is 
 thereby self-consecrated, in his eyes, as a part 
 of the eternal laws. The force which on its 
 way to great achievements refuses to be con- 
 trolled, the genius which acknowledges no law 
 but itself, are not only wonderful but sacred 
 and divine. Mahomet may be lustful, Crom- 
 well cruel, Luther coarse and sensual, Burns 
 a drunkard, Rousseau utterly abject ; but to 
 remark this is the most unmistakable proof 
 that one is a blockhead. Let us bear in mind 
 that Carlyle holds nature to be divine and all 
 natural forces to be sacred, and we shall easily 
 get at his point of view. These men are 
 natural, and it is therefore simply absurd to 
 suppose that they can be immoral. With what 
 devout reverence and admiration does he not 
 follow Mirabeau in his lust-defiled and madly 
 reckless career? But the Count is natural, a 
 swallower of formulas, a contemner of custom ; 
 and is not this divine, is it not the highest? 
 Carlyle has some most eloquent passages on 
 the quite infinite nature of duty, and Teufels- 
 drockh, even in the sorrowfulest wretchedness 
 
1 66 THINGS OF THE MIND. 
 
 of unbelief, has still this light to convince him 
 that the world is God's and not the devil's. 
 But when we try to get at the exact import 
 of duty, we cannot perceive that in his mind 
 it means more than sincerity, naturalness. To 
 this infinite nature of duty Mahomet, Crom- 
 well, Mirabeau, and Frederick the Great were 
 true; all men, in fact, it would seem, are true; 
 for " man cannot but obey whatever he ought 
 to obey." 
 
 In " Sartor Resartus " there is no more 
 striking passage than the following: " There 
 is in man a higher than love of happiness; he 
 can do without happiness, and instead thereof 
 find blessedness ! . . . Love not pleasure, love 
 God. This is the everlasting Yea, wherein 
 all contradiction is solved; wherein whoso 
 walks and works, it is well with him." 
 
 Love God, says Carlyle, but does he mean 
 God? In the multitudinous writings which 
 have poured from his pen since that precept was 
 recorded, the command is not found, I think, a 
 second time. Much and often has he spoken of 
 the eternities, the immensities, the veracities, 
 the silences, in whose presence we should stand 
 in awe and wonder, with devout prostration of 
 soul. Much and often too has he spoken of 
 the unconscious, the unknown, the unnam- 
 able, the infinite nescience, the darkness, and 
 
THEORIES OF LIFE AND EDUCATION. 167 
 
 mystery that shrouds man's whole life, lies 
 everywhere, under his feet and among his 
 hands. God's name, too, he has often since 
 written ; but a second time, as it is believed, 
 he has not called upon men to love God. 
 Whence this ominous silence? Love, in the 
 human and only sense in which it has a mean- 
 ing for us, is of persons and not of things. If 
 God is the eternities, the immensities, the 
 veracities, the unconscious, it would be most 
 preposterous and absurd to ask us to love him. 
 Wonder and prostration, self-annihilation, 
 all these, if you will, command, but not love, 
 which cannot live except in the light of one 
 who loves and knows. Do the eternities love 
 me? Do the immensities know me? Does 
 the unconscious care for me? I know the diffi- 
 culties, I see the obscurities when we attempt 
 to think of God as a person. The idea of God 
 can be expressed in human language analogi- 
 cally only; yet is it undeniably and forever 
 true that the highest being who knows and 
 loves is the absolute highest. Eternities and 
 immensities belong to Him, not He to them. 
 Whatever allowance we may be disposed to 
 make in consideration of the fact that Carlyle 
 is a rhapsodist and a seer, it is impossible not 
 to recognize that in his thinking God is not a 
 person, and is not therefore the God whom 
 
1 68 THINGS OF THE MIND. 
 
 St. John declared to be Love. Carlyle has a 
 disciple who is a most lucid and intelligible 
 writer, whose thought is as transparent as the 
 expression he gives it is precise; and he has 
 translated his master's idea of God into the 
 plainest and simplest language. " God/' says 
 Matthew Arnold, "is the eternal power, not 
 ourselves, which makes for righteousness. " 
 . . . "The stream of tendency by which all 
 things fulfil the law of their being." And 
 that this "eternal power/' this "stream of 
 tendency," is not a person who thinks and 
 loves, he plainly tells us. The God of Chris- 
 tianity and of Judaism is, he says, only a mag- 
 nified and non-natural man. 
 
 Here we have no mystic phrase, no uncertain 
 light, no poetic symbolism; but the clear 
 revelation of the eternities and the immen- 
 sities. The word " God " is still employed be- 
 cause no other has such poetic and mysterious 
 power over the human mind; and this is but 
 an example of a general process in which the 
 meaning of words is undergoing a complete 
 transformation. Carlyle' s God then does not 
 love. He is "a force and thousandfold com- 
 plexity of forces; a force which is not we. 
 That is all, it is not we; it is altogether 
 different from us. Force, force, everywhere 
 force." Strength is the divine attribute; the 
 
THEORIES OF LIFE AND EDUCATION. 169 
 
 strong are God's children; and to be weak is 
 not only miserable, but immoral. This idea 
 fills him with fierce thoughts and dark imagin- 
 ings. The crashing of thrones, and the falling 
 of altars, and the lurid light of burning cities, 
 and the horrid din of murderous battle inspire 
 him with wild delight. Force is building 
 temples for its worship upon the wreck and 
 ruin of all things. He loses, more and more, 
 sympathy and tenderness, until he is wholly 
 possessed by a sarcastic and gloomy indigna- 
 tion. The earth becomes a charnel-house, the 
 dead uproar; the light of heaven dies out. 
 They only are blessed who find rest in the 
 bosom of the unconscious. The most fanatical 
 hater of dogmas and creeds, he is become the 
 most intolerant of thinkers. What he esteems 
 a sham and chimera is so for the eternal laws. 
 A symbol worn out for him is henceforth use- 
 less forever for all men. In such a temper con- 
 tradictions must abound. He makes silence 
 a god, and is himself a man of infinite words. 
 The French Revolution fills him with a terri- 
 ble glee, and yet he curses democracy. The 
 end of life, he declares, with Goethe, to be, 
 action and not thought; and yet he keeps 
 thinking and does not otherwise act. To 
 reform a world, he well says, no wise man will 
 undertake; and yet he chafes and is angry 
 
I/O THINGS OF THE MIND. 
 
 because the world has not been reformed by 
 his preaching. If God is only the "stream of 
 tendency," Renan is doubtless a true philoso- 
 pher. "The thinker," he says, "believes that 
 he has little right to direct the affairs of his 
 planet; and, contented with the lot which has 
 fallen to him, he accepts his impotence with- 
 out regret. A spectator in the universe, he 
 knows that the world belongs to him only as a 
 subject of study; and though he were able to 
 reform it, he would perhaps find it so curious 
 as it is, that he would lack the courage to 
 undertake the task." 
 
 Carlyle is not an original thinker. His 
 theories are English interpretations of German 
 thought ; but interpretations which only a man 
 of genius could have made. His influence 
 and significance will be lightly estimated by 
 those alone who have not understood him. His 
 is the most important name in the English 
 literature of this century, and the power which 
 he has exercised upon the thought of England, 
 and even of America, is vast and profound. 
 In his earlier writings, in spite of the latent 
 pantheism which has grown upon him with 
 such fatal effect, he appealed to the higher 
 and spiritual nature of man with an eloquence 
 which reaches the inmost soul. He is a truer 
 poet than Byron or Tennyson; a profounder 
 
THEORIES OF LIFE AND EDUCATION. Ijl 
 
 thinker than Stuart Mill or Herbert Spencer; 
 and a worthier historian than Macaulay or 
 Froude. He has the most real and subtle 
 humor; the pathos of a "divine despair;" 
 infinite indignation; the holiest anger, and a 
 seraph's loathing of mere matter; and by 
 nature he is not without tenderness and the 
 deepest sympathy. 
 
 His misfortune and defect is profound and 
 radical scepticism concerning the highest truth. 
 Greater and more awful than the eternities, 
 the immensities, the unconscious, he can con- 
 ceive of nothing. The many-colored picture 
 of life is painted on a canvas of darkness, and 
 in the background there hovers a region of 
 doubt which thought cannot possibly trans- 
 form into certainty. He fails to perceive that 
 what forces us to recognize a reality beneath 
 appearances, proclaims also the presence of 
 mind in the laws and harmonies of nature. 
 The fearful and infinite force overwhelms him, 
 and the supreme and central power of love and 
 wisdom is not felt. Hence we find him still, 
 as his disciple has sung of himself 
 
 " Wandering between two worlds, one dead, 
 The other powerless to be born." 
 
 After all that can be said, has been said, in 
 praise of Force, this still remains to be said, 
 
1/2 THINGS OF THE MIND. 
 
 that it cannot be loved. And yet except in 
 trustful love man finds no peace and no 
 blessedness. 
 
 "Unhappy men," said St. Teresa, "who do 
 not love ! " 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 CULTURE AND RELIGION. 
 
 The aids to noble life lie all within. MATTHEW ARNOLD. 
 
 simple and comprehensive idea of edu- 
 -L cation includes within itself almost every- 
 thing. It is as many-sided as human nature, 
 and its limits are as wide as the capacities of 
 the soul, which in its hopes, desires, and aspi- 
 rations is infinite. All things have an educa- 
 tional value, and that man is educable is the 
 great and guiding fact in history. Forms of 
 government, laws, social customs, literature, 
 industrial arts, climate, and soil not only edu- 
 cate, but are esteemed according to the kind of 
 education which they give. Whatever tends to 
 make one more than he is or to hinder him 
 from being less than he is, is a part of educa- 
 tion. The various races of men are doubtless 
 unlike in their natural endowments, but they 
 differ far more widely by reason of the dis- 
 similar educational influences which have acted 
 upon them. 
 
THINGS OF THE MIND. 
 
 It may be affirmed with truth that our good 
 qualities are acquired. 
 
 We are taught to be modest, truthful, brave, 
 gentle, humane, as we are taught to speak a 
 language. Excellence is thus a triumph over 
 nature, and virtue is the result of victories over 
 instinctive passion. The tendency so common 
 in our day to exalt instinct, almost to conse- 
 crate it, springs from an optimistic theory which 
 is utterly at variance with the facts. The wise 
 man does not follow nature but subdues it into 
 conformity with reason ; though to do this he 
 must, of course, work in accordance with the 
 laws of nature. The first and deepest element 
 in the life of the individual as of the race is re- 
 ligious faith, which consequently is the chief 
 and highest instrument of education. Religion 
 is man's supreme effort to rise above nature and 
 above his natural self It gives him a definite 
 aim and an absolute ideal. " Be ye perfect," it 
 says, " as your Heavenly Father is perfect." 
 It constitutes him a dweller in a world where 
 mere utility has no place. It gives him high 
 thoughts of himself, and thereby exalts his aims 
 and heightens his standards of conduct. It 
 makes him feel that to be true, to be good, to 
 be beautiful, is most desirable, even though 
 no practical gain or use should thence follow. 
 It turns his thoughts to spiritual worth and 
 
CULTURE AND RELIGION. 1/5 
 
 diminishes his estimate of what is accidental and 
 phenomenal. It addresses itself to the soul, 
 and seeks to give it that pre-eminence which is 
 the condition of all progress ; for, " by the soul 
 only shall the nations be great and free." It 
 proclaims the paramount worth of right con- 
 duct, which alone brings a man at peace with 
 himself, and thus makes possible the harmoni- 
 ous development of his being. Little cause for 
 wonder is there that everywhere in all time 
 priests should be the first teachers of the race ; 
 that poetry, and music, and painting, and sculp- 
 ture, and architecture should first become pos- 
 sible when the creative voice of faith in the 
 unseen commands them to exist. But upon 
 this it is not my purpose now to dwell, and I 
 merely intimate that true religion, as it appeals 
 to all man's highest faculties with supreme 
 power, must necessarily promote true culture. 
 The direct aim of religion, however, is not to 
 produce culture, nor is it the immediate aim of 
 culture to produce religion ; and it may, there- 
 fore, happen that they come in conflict. I take 
 the matter seriously, and have not the faintest 
 desire to join in the easy sneer with which this 
 word culture is often received. That in the 
 mouths of the frivolous and the vulgar it should 
 be no better than cant, is only what may happen 
 to any word which such persons take up, and 
 
 f * OF THE "^ >^ 
 
 [UNIVERSITY, 
 
176 THINGS OF THE MIND. 
 
 it were wiser to reflect that the ideal of culture 
 has exercised an irresistible fascination over 
 many of the most finely endowed minds that 
 have ever lived. 
 
 The word itself may not indeed be the best ; 
 but it seems to serve the purpose better than 
 any other which we who speak English possess. 
 They who propose culture to us as something 
 desirable, would have us aim at a full and har- 
 monious development of our nature, greater 
 freedom from narrowness and prejudice, more 
 disinterested and expansive sympathies, flexi- 
 bility and openness of mind, courtesy and gen- 
 tleness, and whatever else goes to form the 
 idea of a liberal education. And if we ask 
 them what end we may expect to gain by fol- 
 lowing this advice, we betray our inability to 
 appreciate their words. Culture is an end in 
 itself, and brings its own reward. It is good to 
 have a trained and flexible mind, wide and re- 
 fined sympathies. Just as those who are truly 
 religious do not value their faith for any worldly 
 advantage which it may give them, so the dis- 
 ciples of culture cannot consider the pursuit of 
 excellence as a means of success. To aim at 
 such a result would be to deny the virtue of 
 culture. They are little concerned with the use- 
 fulness of knowledge. The knowledge is more 
 than its use, and they choose rather to be intelli- 
 gent than to be rich or powerful or in office. 
 
CULTURE AND RELIGION. 177 
 
 To urge the pursuit of learning with a view to 
 money-making is apostasy from light, is deser- 
 tion to the enemies of the soul. This opinion, 
 it is needless to say, is in open conflict with our 
 American notions of education. Utility is our 
 guiding principle in this matter, and to say of 
 any kind of knowledge that it is not useful is to 
 condemn it. The best defence which we can 
 set up in behalf of religion itself is to prove that 
 it promotes the general welfare ; that it is use- 
 ful, not that it is true. Hardly any man with 
 us is able to rise above this spirit, which con- 
 trols not only our elementary, but equally our 
 higher education. We universally regard knowl- 
 edge as a means to worldly success. A certain 
 mental training we hold to be essential, and 
 those who go beyond this study with a view to 
 entering some one of the professions. But to 
 study for even a learned profession is not the 
 way to get a liberal education ; for this highest 
 culture comes when the mind is disciplined for 
 its own sake, and not with the view to narrow 
 and fit it to any trade or business. Hence, it 
 not unfrequently happens that successful pro- 
 fessional men are almost wholly lacking in gen- 
 eral intelligence, mental flexibility, and wide 
 sympathies. And this is even used as an argu- 
 ment against culture. 
 
 That we take a utilitarian view of education 
 
178 THINGS OF THE MIND. 
 
 is neither accidental nor unintentional. It is 
 the view which our history suggests and seems 
 to justify, and it is the one which we as a people 
 have deliberately chosen to adopt. And in the 
 estimation of a very great many persons the 
 result is satisfactory. The aim is not exalted, 
 and it has been attained with remarkable rapid- 
 ity and ease. Hence we are self-complacent 
 and inclined to boastfulness. We point with 
 pride to our vast population, to the boundless 
 extent of territory which we have subdued and 
 forced to yield up its wealth, to the roads and 
 cities which we have built, to the schools which 
 are within the reach of all and are the same for 
 all, to the industrial and commercial enterprise 
 which enables us to compete successfully in the 
 markets of the world with the oldest and richest 
 nations, to the inventive genius which leads in 
 the application of mechanical contrivances to 
 the production of personal and social comfort, 
 and, to crown our happiness, we are the freest 
 of all peoples. That we are faultless no one 
 pretends to claim ; but our achievements are 
 so real and valuable, that we should not be slow 
 to believe that the methods which have enabled 
 us to accomplish so much will give us also the 
 power to overcome the dangers which may 
 threaten our peace and progress. Our aims 
 are mechanical, and in congratulating ourselves 
 
CULTURE AND RELIGION. 1/9 
 
 upon the success with which we attain them we 
 lose sight of the fact that these aims ought not 
 to be pursued as ends in themselves. Freedom 
 and wealth, like railroads and telegraphs, are 
 means and not ends. Their value is not in 
 themselves, but in what is made possible 
 through them ; and it is the office of culture to 
 force people to recognize this. The cultivated 
 mind is smitten with the love of an internal and 
 spiritual beauty, and holds machinery cheap. 
 It is bent upon seeing things as they are ; it 
 looks through marble walls and gaudy liveries 
 and the smoke of factories, and will not be con- 
 tent until it discovers what beauty and truth, if 
 any, are hidden under these shows. It is wholly 
 free from the superstition of wealth and success. 
 If the rich man is ignorant, coarse, and narrow, 
 he is a beggar in the eyes of culture. Fond 
 parents in this land find great comfort in the 
 thought that their boy may one day be Presi- 
 dent of the United States; but if the President 
 is a sot or a boor, culture will ignore him though 
 he should hold office for life. 
 
 We cannot laugh at culture to any good pur- 
 pose, for it has the spiritual mind which judges 
 all things. To the opinions of the vulgar it 
 gives no heed, and they who have insight are 
 reverent, seeing that it is good. It can be in- 
 different even to fame. Here again we may 
 
180 THINGS OF THE MIND. 
 
 remark that its unworldly temper and spiritual 
 standard of perfection bring it into friendly re- 
 lation with religion. Culture is concerned with 
 the formation of the mind and the character, 
 and values all things with reference to this end. 
 It does not despise temporal and mechanical 
 benefits, but seeks to turn them to the account 
 of the soul. The man is more than his money, 
 or his office, or his trade. Wealth is good in 
 that it gives freedom and independence, the 
 opportunity for self-improvement. The worth 
 of all this money-getting industrialism which 
 absorbs our life is in the preparation which it 
 makes for culture. The test of civilization is 
 the degree of human perfection which it pro- 
 duces. To dwell with complacency upon the 
 thought of our cities, railroads, and wealth, is to 
 be narrow and vulgar. We are not concerned 
 with wood, and stone, and iron, but with man. 
 What kind of man will this social mechanism 
 shape? This is what we are interested to know, 
 and this is what culture would have us keep in 
 view. There are many intelligent, and other- 
 wise not unfriendly persons, who placing them- 
 selves at this standpoint, find it impossible to 
 look with enthusiasm or even complacency 
 upon our American life. Renan, for instance, 
 with whom the idea of culture is supreme, takes 
 no pains to conceal his opinion of us. " The 
 
CULTURE AND RELIGION. l8l 
 
 countries," he says, " which, like the United 
 States, have created a considerable popular in- 
 struction, without any serious higher education, 
 will long have to expiate this fault by their 
 intellectual mediocrity, their vulgarity of man- 
 ners, their superficial spirit, their lack of general 
 intelligence." 
 
 Again : " The ideal of American society is 
 further removed than that of any other from the 
 ideal of a society governed by science. The 
 principle that society exists only for the welfare 
 and freedom of the individuals of which it is 
 composed, would seem to be contrary to the 
 plans of nature, which takes care of the species, 
 but sacrifices the individual. It is greatly to be 
 feared lest the final outcome of this kind of 
 democracy be a social state in which the degen- 
 erate masses will have no other desire than to 
 indulge in the ignoble pleasures of the lower 
 and vulgar man/' And Renan thinks it proba- 
 ble that the senseless vanity of a population 
 which has received elementary instruction, will 
 make it unwilling to contribute to the mainte- 
 nance of an education superior to its own ; and 
 he, therefore, has little hope that democracy 
 will prove favorable to culture and the produc- 
 tion of great men, which, in his opinion, is the 
 end for which the human race exists. With 
 this view of American life Matthew Arnold 
 
1 82 THINGS OF THE MIND. 
 
 coincides. The circumstances of the case force 
 him to think that America, the chosen home of 
 newspapers and politics, is without general intel- 
 ligence; " and that in the things of the mind, 
 and in culture and totality, America, instead of 
 surpassing us all, falls short." The cause f 
 this he finds not so much in our democratic 
 form of gove-rnment as in the inherited tenden-* 
 cies of the people of the United States, which 
 issues from the English Puritan middle class 
 and reproduces its narrow conception of man's 
 spiritual range. 
 
 Let us receive with equanimity and good- 
 nature the criticism which finds us so greatly 
 deficient in knowledge and refinement. Our 
 ability to do this is of itself encouraging. The 
 era in which it was possible to think that what- 
 ever is American is excellent has fortunately 
 passed, and a greater familiarity with the his- 
 tory, the literature, and the manners of other 
 nations has taken the freshness from our self- 
 conceit. The sweet uses of adversity too have 
 taught us most admirable lessons. Every man 
 may have a vote, and every child may go to 
 school, and the time may still be out of joint; 
 the increase of national wealth need not protect 
 the multitude from poverty and suffering, and the 
 growth of intelligence may coexist with the decay 
 of morals and the loss of faith. 
 
CULTURE AND RELIGION. 183 
 
 "It is not fatal to Americans," says Arnold, 
 " to have no religious establishments, and no 
 effective centres of high culture ; but it is fatal 
 to them to be told by their flatterers, and to 
 believe, that they are the most intelligent people 
 in the world, when of intelligence in the true 
 and fruitful sense of the word, they even singu- 
 larly, as we have seen, come short." 
 
 Admitting all, even the worst that can be 
 said of us on this point, our very enemies must 
 nevertheless concede that the preparations for 
 a higher culture have been made by us and 
 exist under altogether favorable conditions. 
 Great fault may be justly found with our whole 
 educational mechanism. The colleges and uni- 
 versities are doubtless imperfect enough and 
 often obstacles to the development of intelli- 
 gence. But the remedy is in our hands. 
 
 Our wealth and industrialism place within easy 
 reach whatever can be accomplished by money, 
 and there are no difficulties which may not be 
 overcome by earnest faith in the ideal which 
 culture presents. The important question for 
 us is whether this ideal ought to excite our 
 admiration and love. A very great number 
 of sincere and enlightened men, representing 
 conflicting tendencies and opposite schools of 
 thought, look upon the ideal of culture as false 
 and hurtful to the best interests of man ; and 
 
1 84 THINGS OF THE MIND. 
 
 the objections which they urge are numerous 
 and weighty. The masses of mankind, they 
 say, have neither the opportunity nor the desire 
 for culture; and this is fortunate, for devotion 
 to this ideal has an unmistakable tendency to 
 diminish zeal for the general welfare. The 
 men of culture hold themselves aloof from the 
 crowd and take no interest in the practical ques- 
 tions of the day. They live in a dreamland of 
 poesy, and in the consciousness of their inability 
 to help forward any good cause content them- 
 selves with criticism, which unsettles convictions 
 and weakens the zest for action. They preach 
 loud enough that the end of life is an act and 
 not a thought, and yet both their example and 
 their teaching tend to obscure all the ways of 
 life in which men are accustomed to labor. 
 Goethe writes poetry and preserves his philo- 
 sophic serenity in the midst of the appalling 
 calamities of his country, of which he seems 
 to be altogether oblivious. Carlyle, through 
 half a century, chides his fellow-men, accepts 
 neither faith nor science, neither acts himself 
 nor points out to others how they may labor to 
 good purpose. Arnold frankly admits that he 
 has no desire to see men of culture intrusted 
 with power, and were he consulted by his coun- 
 trymen on questions of actual moment he could 
 only repeat the precept of Socrates, " Know 
 
CULTURE AND RELIGION, 185 
 
 thyself." When France lay crushed and bleed- 
 ing at the feet of Germany, Renan withdrew to 
 a quiet retreat to compose Platonic dialogues, 
 in which he gives expression to his contempt 
 for the crowd and his distrust of all the popular 
 movements of the age. Culture thus seems to 
 produce a sceptical and effeminate habit of mind 
 which is incompatible with strong and abiding 
 convictions, and consequently destructive of 
 resolution and enthusiasm, without which man 
 cannot accomplish any great purpose in life; 
 and Mr. Frederic Harrison may not be wholly 
 mistaken in thinking that the men of culture 
 are the only class of responsible beings in the 
 community who cannot with safety be intrusted 
 with power. This he says of England, and with- 
 out reference to America, where this class can 
 hardly be said to exist at all ; and the appre- 
 hension of their getting into power need not, 
 therefore, be a cause of anxiety to our states- 
 men, whose mental resources, even as things 
 are, seem to be not more than sufficient to meet 
 the demands which are made upon them. The 
 believers in culture, it is further urged, are prop- 
 agandists of a cosmopolitan and non-national 
 spirit, which undermines patriotism, directs at- 
 tention to an impossible ideal, and disenchants 
 men of their inherited character, which, what- 
 ever may be its faults, is the essential basis of 
 
1 86 THINGS OF THE MIND. 
 
 virtue and excellence. The education derived 
 from the national genius, like that of the family, 
 cannot be supplied by any other agency, and 
 the cosmopolitanism which ignores this must 
 necessarily tend to create a temper like that of 
 the ideal Epicurean, who is described as indif- 
 ferent to public affairs and the fate of empires, 
 and not subject to any such weakness as pity 
 for the poor or jealousy of the rich. In this 
 view, then, culture is destructive of patriotism. 
 
 Other objections are urged against its ethical 
 character. Culture, it is said, is only a refined 
 epicureanism. Its aim is to educate man so as 
 to fit him for the enjoyment of the greatest 
 possible pleasure. It shrinks from vice, not 
 because it is evil, but because it is gross and 
 disgusting. The men of culture, like the ancient 
 Greeks, are without the sense of sin, and con- 
 sequently at best have but a conventional 
 morality. 
 
 Aristophanes was not more pagan than Goethe, 
 who is the typical representative of the new 
 religion. He it is who taught that to be beauti- 
 tiful is higher than to be good ; and his denial 
 of sin is implied in the doctrine that repentance 
 is wrong. He assumes that there is no objec- 
 tive standard of right and wrong. Man is a law 
 unto himself, and the pursuit of perfection is the 
 effort to bring all his faculties into free and 
 
CULTURE AND RELIGION. 187 
 
 unhindered play. That which I feel to be true 
 is true for me ; that which I feel to be good is 
 good for me ; and therefore creeds and dogmas, 
 whether religious or philosophic, cease to have 
 either life or meaning as soon as the time-spirit 
 has flown from them. The web of life is woven 
 of necessity and chance ; we must yield to des- 
 tiny, and seek to make the most of chance. 
 Happiness is to be sought, not in the fulfilment 
 of duty, but in the sweetness and light which 
 are the results of the complete and harmonious 
 development of our nature. " Woe be to every 
 kind of education/' says Goethe, " which destroys 
 the means of obtaining true culture, and points 
 our attention to the end instead of securing our 
 happiness on the way." The philosophy of 
 culture is, then, it would appear, only another 
 form of utilitarianism, and tacitly assumes that 
 greatest-happiness principle against which it so 
 loudly protests. 
 
 It, in fact, looks upon this life as alone real 
 and enjoyable, and considers him a madman 
 who troubles himself here in the hope of ob- 
 taining blessedness hereafter. Morality, con- 
 sequently, is nothing absolute, and whatever 
 secures our " happiness on the way " is good. 
 The point sought to be made is this: that, as 
 culture results intellectually in universal criti- 
 cism and doubt, so it morally ends in unlimited 
 
1 88 THINGS OF 7 HE MIND. 
 
 indulgence. The vulgar herd, finding no delight 
 in the refined and studied pleasures of the cul- 
 tivated, will have no other way of showing its 
 appreciation of their theories than by wallowing 
 in Epicurus's sty. And this, indeed, is the 
 history of culture amongst all peoples. We 
 know from Aristophanes what was the moral 
 condition of the age of Pericles ; and he ascribes 
 the frightful degeneracy from the standard of 
 conduct which made the men who fought and 
 won at Marathon to what he most aptly calls 
 the " new education," or in the language of our 
 time, modern culture. The same story is re- 
 peated in Rome. Virtue and public spirit flour- 
 ished in the midst of poverty and rustic man- 
 ners; but when conquered Greece with the 
 silken cords of culture led her captors captive, 
 together with letters and refinement every kind 
 of corruption was introduced into the State ; 
 and the Latin classics almost universally attrib- 
 ute the ruin of their country to this cause. 
 Sallust considers a taste for painting as a vice 
 no less than drunkenness; and Horace abounds 
 in praise of the rigid virtue and simple ways of 
 the fathers. And in modern times the age of 
 Leo X. was an era of moral degeneracy, and 
 that of Louis XIV. was immediately followed by 
 the most humiliating and disgraceful epoch in 
 French history; while in England, culture, as 
 
CULTURE AND RELIGION. 189 
 
 represented by the court of Charles II., fostered 
 the most loathsome and hideous sensuality. 
 Germany's culture period, too, is one of moral 
 paralysis, and it is not surprising that it should 
 have created the philosophy of hate and despair 
 as taught by Schopenhauer and Von Hartmann. 
 Goethe himself may inspire admiration and 
 enthusiasm, but not perfect respect. 
 
 It is further urged that this historical relation- 
 ship between culture and licentiousness is 
 founded in the nature of things ; that polite 
 literature and the elegant arts necessarily tend 
 to create frivolous and effeminate habits of 
 thought and feeling, because they separate the 
 sentiment from the deed, whereas the end of 
 feeling is to impel us to act. To luxuriate 
 therefore in fine sentiments, noble thoughts, 
 and the elegancies of style, and to rest in this 
 indulgence is of itself immoral. The springs of 
 action are thereby perverted from their proper 
 use, and a character is developed like that 01 
 novel-readers who weep over the misfortunes ot 
 imaginary heroes, and spurn the wretched from 
 their door. The lovers of culture themselves 
 recognize the evil and the danger, and hence 
 they vociferously preach the necessity of ac- 
 tion ; but in vain, as their own example shows. 
 They give us fine theories, but have no hope 
 of realizing them ; which is not surprising, for 
 
1 90 THINGS OF THE MIND. 
 
 the habit of considering things from every point 
 of view, and of weighing all that can be said for 
 and against every opinion, begets a sophistical 
 and hesitating disposition, which as a matter 
 of course renders action distasteful, and more- 
 over warps the practical judgment and unfits it 
 for deciding upon any right course of conduct. 
 A dreamer is not a man of action, and the work 
 of the world is not done by critics. 
 
 St. Paul's examples of men who wrought 
 great things by faith may be generalized and 
 applied universally. All heroic conduct springs 
 from the confidence which comes of faith. 
 Knowledge does not suffice; for what will be 
 the outcome of a given series of human acts 
 cannot be known, and must therefore be taken 
 on trust. Men who perform grandly see what 
 ought to be done and move forward ; that is, 
 they trust their intuitions, and not the analysis 
 of a critical survey of the situation. At the 
 battle of Lodi, Napoleon said the bridge must 
 be taken ; his officers declared it impregnable ; 
 he unsheathed his sword and passed over it 
 behind the fleeing enemy. Culture is dilettante- 
 ism. It may fill up an idle hour, but is as im- 
 potent to lead the world as millinery. In fact, 
 Arnold himself seems to perceive that it is just 
 here that the special weakness of the new phi- 
 losophy is revealed. The men of culture have 
 
CULTURE AND RELIGION, 191 
 
 failed conspicuously in conduct. They are un- 
 able even to subdue " the great faults of our 
 animality." " They have failed in morality, 
 and morality is indispensable." He insists 
 again and again upon the paramount impor- 
 tance of conduct, and for the development of 
 this ethical character he trusts to religion and 
 not to culture. Hence though for him God is 
 only " the stream of tendency," he will not give 
 up the Bible. He throws aside indeed the 
 whole dogmatic basis upon which the Bible 
 rests, and yet would still seem to think that it 
 is possible to preserve its moral teaching ; and 
 this leads us to another objection which is 
 urged by the opponents of culture, namely, that 
 it is irreligious. That this objection is not un- 
 founded appears plainly to follow from what 
 has already been said ; for if culture fatally ends 
 in universal criticism and immorality it is obvi- 
 ously in open conflict with religion. There is, 
 it is true, an apparent similarity in their aims 
 and ideals. Both propose perfection as the 
 end to be sought for, and both place this per- 
 fection in an inward spiritual state, and not in 
 any outward condition ; and neither therefore 
 looks upon material progress with the compla- 
 cency which is so natural to the mere worldling. 
 A deeper view, however, wiil discover the latent 
 antagonism. The perfection at which culture 
 
IQ2 THINGS OF THE MIND. 
 
 aims is purely natural and has reference to this 
 life alone. It loves excellence rather than vir- 
 tue, and is enamoured of beauty rather than of 
 goodness. Religion emphasizes the evil of sin; 
 culture its grossness. The thoughts of the re- 
 ligious are with God, while the lovers of culture 
 are occupied with themselves; and hence hu- 
 mility is the attitude of the one, and pride of 
 the other. Self denial is accepted by culture 
 only as a means to higher and purer pleasure ; 
 by religion it is inculcated as the proof of love. 
 Culture believes in this life only; religion in 
 the life to come. And finally, culture looks 
 upon itself as an end ; but in the eyes of reli- 
 gion it can be at best merely a means. 
 
 As it is not my purpose to enter a plea on 
 behalf of culture, I shall be at no pains to at- 
 tempt an answer in detail to all these objections. 
 That many of them at least are not captious, 
 but are based upon real views of the subject, I 
 am ready to admit ; and nevertheless the case 
 of those who dispute the validity of the infer- 
 ence which is drawn is, as I take it, not des- 
 perate. To those who urge that culture is 
 cosmopolitan and weakens the spirit of patriot- 
 ism, the reply may be made that an exagger- 
 ated nationalism has been the cause of number- 
 less woes to the human race. This is the 
 stronghold of war and of all the train of evils 
 
CULTURE AND RELIGION. 193 
 
 which follow in its wake ; this is the source of 
 that restrictive legislation which has interfered 
 with free trade and built barriers in the way of 
 progress ; this is the foment of that fatal preju- 
 dice which has nurtured a narrow conceit, that 
 shuts the national mind of each country against 
 the world's experience. 
 
 The Christian doctrine of the brotherhood of 
 all men, and of one world-wide spiritual king- 
 dom in which all may receive the rights of citi- 
 zenship, would seem to point toward a social 
 state in which differences of race and country, 
 if not obliterated, will at least remain compara- 
 tively inoperative. That the men of culture 
 would make but sorry statesmen or leaders of 
 party we may grant. But a poet is not found 
 fault with because he is not a metaphysician, 
 nor is a general criticised for lack of taste in the 
 fine arts. It is quite as important surely that 
 there should be calm and enlightened thinkers 
 as that there should be sturdy and indefati- 
 gable workers; and precisely where men are 
 busiest with their temporal projects and me- 
 chanical contrivances, it is well that there should 
 be found those who assume a loftier tone and 
 point to higher aims. Every supreme mind, 
 like the loftiest mountain peaks, rises into a 
 region where it dwells, far above the storm- 
 
194 THINGS OF THE MIND. 
 
 cloud, in serene solitude ; and, therefore, is it 
 said that genius is melancholy. The most per- 
 fect culture also partakes of this loneliness, 
 and is ill at ease in the crowd; but this only 
 serves to enhance the value of the criticism 
 which it pronounces upon the common ways 
 and aims of men. He who, free from the pas- 
 sion and blinding dust of the conflict, surveys 
 the field from an eminence, sees many things 
 which are hidden from the eyes of the combat- 
 ants. It is the fault of the eager rivalry of busy 
 life that it leaves no time for calm reflection, 
 and hence active workers grow narrow, and 
 would bend the universe to their little schemes. 
 The salvation of society is made to depend 
 upon the crotchet of a politician or upon the 
 opening up of a new market for some article of 
 commerce, or it is held to be within the com- 
 petency of a school system to bring on the 
 millennium. It is certainly of the first impor- 
 tance that men be fed, and clothed, and gov- 
 erned ; but, as Goethe says, " the useful en- 
 courages itself, for the crowd produce it and 
 none can dispense with it; the beautiful needs 
 encouragement, for few can create it, and it is 
 required by many." If the men of culture do 
 not act, they at least furnish the means of ac- 
 tivity to others. The old alchemists were no 
 
CULTURE AND RELIGION. 195 
 
 better than dreamers and idlers, but to them we 
 are indebted for our physical science. It is 
 easier to act than to think ; and hence the 
 world abounds in busy men, whereas a real 
 thinker is hardly to be met with. Should we 
 then employ all our efforts to stimulate an ac- 
 tivity which is already feverish, and do nothing 
 to encourage wider and profounder habits of 
 thought? To take the lowest view, it will 
 hardly be denied that the power to think cor- 
 rectly is useful. Idealists are often laughed at 
 in their own day; but the dreams of the present 
 not unfrequently become the recognized prin- 
 ciples of action of the future. The common 
 man, of course, living in the present, is impa- 
 tient to see his labors bear immediate fruit ; 
 and a vulgar generation attaches little value to 
 the good which can be enjoyed only by those 
 who come after it; but without self-denial 
 neither wisdom nor virtue can exist, and to aim 
 at the reward which comes of right conduct is 
 the certain way to disappointment. 
 
 The charge that culture has an immoral ten- 
 dency is more serious, and possibly not so easily 
 set aside, for history seems to bear out the asser- 
 tion that ages of luxury and refinement have 
 been invariably remarkable for licentiousness of 
 manners. It is plain, however, that the vices as 
 well as the virtues of a civilized people differ from 
 
196 THINGS OF THE MIND. 
 
 those of barbarians. The highway robber is gen- 
 erally no sybarite. Civilization brings large bodies 
 of men together in cities, encourages industry, 
 protects wealth, creates classes that abound in 
 opulence and leisure, and it consequently offers 
 opportunities for the indulgence of effeminate 
 and luxurious habits. The spirit of an age of 
 refinement is humane and merciful. Its tastes 
 are nice and its pleasures attractive. The tem- 
 pers of men are softened, and war itself smooths 
 its rugged front, and is waged without vindictive 
 cruelty. The weak are protected, the orphan 
 is cared for, and the poor find sympathy. The 
 man of culture sins by over-refinement, the vul- 
 gar man by excess in indulgence. Savages and 
 barbarians are not epicures, but they are the 
 slaves of gluttony and drunkenness to a greater 
 extent than the civilized races. Again, venality 
 and bribery will not be common in an age in 
 which the ambitious and covetous find it easier to 
 attain their ends by violence. It must be borne 
 in mind too that the literature of an age of culture 
 generally becomes classic, and hence the vices 
 of those ages are made immortal, while the 
 memory of the crimes of barbarians perishes. 
 And there is ever a spirit of restlessness and 
 discontent in an epoch of refinement, which 
 causes men to yield more readily to the natural 
 propensity to depreciate the present and unduly 
 
CULTURE AND RELIGION. 1 97 
 
 exalt the past ; and it so happens that its vices 
 are precisely those which lend themselves most 
 effectively to the purpose of the satirist. A few 
 examples of cruelty and licentiousness are fas- 
 tened upon, and are so perverted as to be made 
 to appear to be the rule to which they are only 
 exceptions. 
 
 To consider the subject, then, apart from the 
 question as to the relation which exists between 
 religious faith and morality, and this is the view 
 we now take of it, it does not appear that a 
 state of culture is more favorable to vice than 
 barbarism. It would seem on the contrary that 
 knowledge, refinement, and industry tend to 
 make men virtuous. If we hear less of the 
 crimes of savage and barbarous peoples it is not 
 because they do not abound, but because they 
 are not recorded, or when recorded repel us, 
 since a cultivated mind can find no pleasure in 
 reading of rapine, and murder, and brutish or- 
 gies ; whereas, unfortunately, such is the weak- 
 ness of man, when sin loses its grossness it 
 seems even to those who are not depraved to 
 lose something of its evil. 
 
 But after all has been said it must be con- 
 fessed that the history of culture does not justify 
 us in thinking that it is able to create a pure 
 and genuine morality. At best it but throws 
 the cloak of decency over the ulcer which it is 
 
198 THINGS OF THE MIND. 
 
 powerless to heal. Ascetic writers tell us that 
 in order to combat sin successfully we must 
 have a real abhorrence of it, and this culture 
 lacks. With it virtue is a point of good taste, 
 and vice want of breeding ; and it does not hate 
 the evil, but fears the shame and confusion of 
 detection. This, I say, is the ethical character 
 of historical culture, and I now proceed to 
 examine whether it is a defect inherent in 
 the nature of culture, or an accident attributable 
 to the conditions under which it has been 
 developed. 
 
 Culture, in the modern sense of the word, and 
 considered apart from the influence of Chris- 
 tianity, is derived from Athens, the city of mind 
 and the world's first university. No people has 
 ever equalled the Athenian in mental versatility, 
 grace, penetration, and originality. The .pro- 
 verb " To think is difficult; to act, easy " seems 
 to be untrue in their case. Thought was as 
 natural and as easy to them as to breathe, 
 and there is hardly an intellectual or poetical 
 conception in modern literature which may not 
 be found, in germ at least, even in the compara- 
 tively small portion of their writings that has 
 come down to us; and their language is still 
 the most perfect instrument of thought known 
 to men. They were, and to a great extent still 
 are, the teachers of the civilized world in philos- 
 
CULTURE AND RELIGION. 199 
 
 ophy, eloquence, poetry, and art ; and they have, 
 therefore, necessarily exerted, whether for good 
 or evil, a vast ethical influence. Now to the 
 Greek, virtue and beauty are identical. His re- 
 ligion is the worship of the beautiful ; and the 
 good is the fair, the harmonious, the musical. 
 The very name which he gave to the universe 
 indicated that it revealed itself to his mind prima- 
 rily under the aspect of harmony and proportion ; 
 and hence for conscience he substituted taste, a 
 kind of exquisite sense of the graceful and the 
 decorous, and his religion embodied itself in 
 art. His sacred books were poems, his temples, 
 which were models of grace and symmetry, were 
 open to the heavens and bathed in the cheerful 
 light of day, and when he offered sacrifice and 
 prayer he was crowned with flowers and quaffed 
 the golden wine with song and dance. In his 
 maturity he is only a handsome youth in whose 
 veins the current of life is full and strong. He 
 walks in a perennial spring, and the flowers bloom 
 wherever he goes, and the air trills with the 
 matin songs of birds. He lives in a world of 
 delights and dreads nothing but death. He 
 has no thought of sin, the very gods love what 
 he loves and think no wrong. And when he 
 praises virtue it is because it is noble, and beau- 
 tiful, and full of pleasant sweetness. It is a fine 
 figure, graceful and fair as a statue of Pentelic 
 
200 THINGS OF THE MIND. 
 
 marble chiselled by the hand of Phidias. Un- 
 fortunately, a theory based upon the assumption 
 that to do right is to do only what is pleasant 
 will not fit into a world which has been wrenched 
 from its original harmony. The sense 'of the 
 beautiful was soon sunk in sensuous voluptuous- 
 ness, and Athens has left us nothing to admire 
 except her genius. And yet the ideal of life 
 which her great minds have traced out for us is 
 so noble, so generous, that we are hardly sur- 
 prised that its winning grace and brightness 
 should create a kind of worship in the sensitive 
 souls of poets and artists, and thus impress 
 inefTaceably its own fair features upon the cul- 
 ture of all succeeding ages. But as this ideal is 
 without moral force and the seriousness of char- 
 acter which is thence derived, it is, like many 
 fairest things, frail and unsuited to the stern 
 work of a world where self-conquest is the price 
 of victory. There is want of correspondence 
 between the inward strength and the outward 
 form, and in thinking of this noble dream of 
 genius we can but repeat the poet's lament 
 for Italy : 
 
 " Italia ! oh, Italia, thou who hast 
 
 The fatal gift of beauty, which became 
 A funeral dower of present woes and past, 
 
 On thy sweet brow is sorrow ploughed by shame." 
 
 Culture is akin to poetry, but life is mostly 
 prose and must rest upon a more substantial 
 
CULTURE AND RELIGION. 2OI 
 
 basis. Is it not possible, then, we ask, to bring 
 to the help of this fine and artistic ideal of 
 human perfection some force, not its own, from 
 which it may derive the strength not to yield to 
 the fatality of its natural bent? In other words, 
 can religion, whose dominant idea is morality, 
 be brought into friendly relationship with cul- 
 ture, the ruling thought of which is beauty, or 
 to use the accepted phrase, sweetness and light? 
 In introducing the present examination I stated 
 that there need be no antagonism between true 
 religion and true culture, and I now find that I 
 am called upon to defend or else to withdraw 
 this affirmation. " Deny thyself" is the word 
 of Christ; " Think of living" is the precept of 
 culture; and certainly the self-indulgent and 
 pleasure-seeking life of the Greek is the very 
 opposite of the ideal which is presented to the 
 Christian. The one looks upon this earth as a 
 garden of delight; the other has no abiding 
 city here, but passes as a pilgrim, who in the 
 midst of gay scenes is restless, for his thoughts 
 are with those he loves in the far-off home. 
 The Greek rests in nature and worships it; the 
 Christian looks through nature to God, and 
 places it beneath his feet. To the one the cross 
 is foolishness ; to the other it is the power and 
 wisdom of God. That culture is not Christian- 
 ity, needs no proof. Its whole history is char- 
 
2O2 THINGS OF THE MIND. 
 
 acterized by the absence of that moral earnest- 
 ness which is the very soul of religious faith, 
 and it therefore lacks an element which is the 
 chief constituent of human perfection. If cul- 
 ture is not Christianity, is Christianity culture; 
 or is it also partial and without the power to 
 create a fully-developed humanity? This is the 
 charge that Arnold, while frankly confessing the 
 shortcomings of culture, brings against religion, 
 which, he thinks, takes a narrow view of man, 
 and is destined finally to be transformed and 
 governed by the Hellenic idea of beauty and of 
 a human nature perfect on all its sides. His 
 criticisms on this subject, which are aimed 
 chiefly at the Protestant theory of Christianity, 
 are sprightly and entertaining. The Pilgrim 
 Fathers, he says, and their standard of perfec- 
 tion are rightly judged " when we figure to our- 
 selves Shakespeare or Virgil souls in whom 
 sweetness and light and all that in human nature 
 is most humane were eminent accompanying 
 them on their voyage, and think what intolera- 
 ble company Shakespeare and Virgil would have 
 found them." 
 
 "And the work," he says, "which we collec- 
 tive children of God do, our grand centre of 
 life, our city which we have builded for us to 
 dwell in, is London ! London, with its unutter- 
 able external hideousness, and with its internal 
 
CULTURE AND RELIGION. 203 
 
 canker of publice egestas, privatim opulentia, 
 to use the words which Sallust puts into Cato's 
 mouth about Rome, unequalled in the world ! 
 The word, again, which we children of God 
 speak, the voice which most hits our collective 
 thought, the newspaper with the largest circula- 
 tion in England, nay, with the largest circulation 
 in the whole world, is the Daily Telegraph / " 
 Real Protestantism, Arnold thinks, is not merely 
 lacking in sweetness and light, but is positively 
 hideous and grotesque; and he remarks that 
 there are things in which defect of beauty is 
 defect of truth. " Behavior," he says, " is not 
 intelligible, does not account for itself to the 
 mind and show the reason for its existing, unless 
 it is beautiful, The same with discourse, the 
 same with song, the same with worship, all of 
 them modes in which man proves his activity 
 and expresses himself. To think that when one 
 produces in these what is mean or vulgar or 
 hideous, one can be permitted to plead that one 
 has that within which passes show, it is abhor- 
 rent to the nature of Hellenism to concede.'* 
 Again: " Instead of our 'one thing needful' 
 justifying in us vulgarity, hideousness, ignor- 
 ance, violence, our vulgarity, hideousness, 
 ignorance violence, are really so many touch- 
 stones which try our one thing needful, and 
 which prove that, in the state at any rate in 
 
 
 0NIVERSI 
 
204 THINGS OF THE MIND. 
 
 which we ourselves have it, it is not all we 
 want." 
 
 Arnold's culturism is not original, any more 
 than Carlyle's mysticism. The one and the other 
 are only English interpretations of German and 
 French thought, and Arnold himself would be 
 the first to acknowledge this ; nay, he has con- 
 fessed as much in the following words: "Now, 
 as far as real thought is concerned, thought 
 which affects the best reason and spirit of man, 
 the scientific or the imaginative thought of the 
 world, the only thought which deserves speaking 
 of in this solemn way, America has up to the 
 present time been hardly more than a province 
 of England, and even now would not herself 
 claim to be more than abreast of England ; and 
 of this only real human thought, English thought 
 itself is not just now, as we must all admit, the 
 most significant factor." To get a satisfactory 
 view of his position we must, therefore, pass over 
 to the continent of Europe, with the understand- 
 ing, however, that no attempt be made to reduce 
 his views to a system. Lacordaire declared that, 
 by the grace of God, he abhorred the common- 
 place; and Arnold, with or without such grace, 
 abhors all systems, whether mechanical, political, 
 metaphysical, or theological. His chapters on 
 "The God of Metaphysics," in which by a few 
 simple etymologies and with perfect gatte de 
 
CULTURE AND RELIGION. 20$ 
 
 c<zur he dissipates into thin air the profoundest 
 thought of the greatest minds who have ever 
 lived, will doubtless be immortal as a curiosity 
 of literature. He has no system, but he has a 
 method, which is that of the modern critical 
 school, which assumes as fundamental the cele- 
 brated maxim of Protagoras, that " man is the 
 measure of all things." The eternal, the all- 
 perfect does not exist except as a mode of 
 thought, which is simply the effort of the thinker 
 to posit himself as an absolute principle and to 
 refer all things to himself. True and fruitful 
 thought consequently is not that which is in 
 accord with any definite and fixed object, but 
 that which moves in harmony with the stream of 
 tendency and is carried upon the out-spread 
 wings of the time-spirit. There is, in fact, no 
 truth, but only opinions ; no color, but only 
 shades, and we must, therefore, abandon as 
 utterly hopeless the effort to know things in 
 themselves, and content ourselves with studying 
 their evolutions; throw aside metaphysics and 
 psychology as the childish toys of an infantine 
 race, and take up in their stead history and criti- 
 cism. The characteristic mark of the true critic 
 is a disinterested curiosity, and that this word has 
 in English only a bad and feminine sense, Arnold 
 thinks a grievance. The critic does not search 
 for the truth which does not exist, but he seeks 
 
206 THINGS OF THE MIND. 
 
 to supple his mind so that he may be able to 
 see things on all sides, and remain an enlight- 
 ened and impartial spectator of the dissolving 
 views of a world which is only an eternal flux; 
 and that his appreciation may be the keener, he 
 becomes a part of all that he beholds. He is a 
 citizen of the universe, and moves in calm indif- 
 ference in all times and places, amongst all re- 
 ligions and philosophies. He, however, has an 
 unmistakable penchant for religious discussions, 
 as though after having denied the reality of God 
 and the soul he were still haunted by their phan- 
 toms. He is capable, even as Renan, Ewald, 
 and Arnold have shown, of a sort of poetical and 
 sad devoutness, which, if it were not ridiculous, 
 would be pathetic. He has no toleration for the 
 unintelligent and vulgar rage against religion 
 which is manifested by popular liberalism and 
 atheism. When Clifford breaks out into violent 
 invectives and calls Christianity an awful plague, 
 Arnold in a sweet and winning tone gives him a 
 gentle rebuke, though his anger is not aroused 
 in this instance as it was by Bishop Wilberforce 
 when he spoke of laboring for the honor and 
 glory of God. " One reads it all," he says, " half 
 sighing, half smiling, as the declamation of a 
 clever and confident youth, with the hopeless 
 inexperience, irredeemable by any cleverness of 
 his age. Only when one is young and head- 
 
CULTURE AND RELIGION. 2O/ 
 
 strong can one thus prefer bravado to experi- 
 ence, can one stand by the Sea of Time, and 
 instead of listening to the solemn and rhythmical 
 beat of its waves, choose to fill the air with one's 
 own whoopings to start the echo." His writings, 
 in fact, he takes the trouble to inform us, have 
 no other object than to save the Christian relig- 
 ion from its friends, who by teaching that it is 
 inseparable from specific dogmas are placing it 
 and themselves in fatal antagonism to the time- 
 spirit and the critic, who is its prophet. In 
 reality the essential thought of culturism, as 
 conceived by the school from which Arnold has 
 drawn his opinions, does not differ from that of 
 mysticism or any of the other forms of modern 
 pantheism. Its distinguishing characteristic is 
 found not in its idea but in its temper. As an 
 intellectual theory it is purely pantheistic. It 
 regards the universe as its own final and efficient 
 cause, and maintains that it is absurd to affirm 
 the existence of any being distinct from the 
 cosmos ; and hence it teaches that God is not a 
 person who knows and loves, but a " stream of 
 tendency/' a law, a modality ; or, to take Kenan's 
 definition, the form under which we conceive the 
 ideal, as space and time are the forms under 
 which matter is made intelligible to us. God is 
 only the category of the ideal, and when the 
 German pantheists declare that man makes God, 
 
208 THINGS OF THE MIND. 
 
 that man creates God in thinking Him, they do 
 not mean to blaspheme or to be smart, but 
 merely pronounce a logical conclusion from their 
 own theories. But when men who make God a 
 modality, a form of thought, talk about saving 
 the Bible and Christianity, we have a perfect 
 right to turn away from them as solemn triflers 
 in a matter which, least of all, admits of such 
 proceeding. The idea then of culturism is pan- 
 theistic, which is the equivalent of atheistic; and 
 as atheism is the negation of religion, any attempt 
 to bring about an alliance between religion and 
 culture, upon the intellectual basis offered by 
 the critical school, is preposterous, for the sim- 
 ple reason that the hypothesis which this school 
 accepts as true makes religion impossible. 
 When Renan and Arnold assure us that they do 
 not seek to weaken the religious sentiment but 
 to purify it, we can but liken them to a physician 
 who in order to purge out the humors of the 
 blood should think it necessary first to destroy 
 life. 
 
 A religion of sweetness and light in a Godless 
 world, which crushes beneath the iron wheel of 
 fate the weak and the helpless, and has no favors 
 except for the strong, is a piece of Mephistophe- 
 lean irony, compared with which the pessimism 
 of Schopenhauer is as soothing as the quiet 
 landscape to one who flies from the feverish life 
 
CULTURE AND RELIGION. 2OQ 
 
 of the noisy crowd. Is it not enough that these 
 men are persuaded that there is no God and no 
 soul? Why should they come to us proclaiming 
 that the earth is only a charnel-house, and in 
 the same breath grow eloquent over the refresh- 
 ing and refining influence which this discovery 
 of theirs must have upon those who are able to 
 appreciate its importance? To be just, how- 
 ever, I must leave Arnold to bear alone the bur- 
 den of this officious piety. One must be an 
 Englishman to be able to deny God and still 
 continue to preach with all the unction of a 
 Methodist exhorter. Renan is consistent, and 
 therefore assumes a different tone. He is abso- 
 lutely without zeal or the spirit of proselytism. 
 He has nothing to say of the beneficent influ- 
 ence of sweetness and light; he seems rather 
 disposed to think that when the whole truth is 
 known existence may become unbearable ; that 
 the planets in which life is extinct are probably 
 those in which criticism has achieved its work. 
 He eschews controversy, and takes little inter- 
 est in the questions which occupy the thoughts 
 of men. His aims are purely speculative, and 
 have no relevancy to contemporaneous events. 
 He is an artist, seated on the brow of a hill, who 
 sketches the landscape, but has nothing in com- 
 mon with the herds that graze upon the plain 
 below. He is in fact a quietist, and from the 
 14 
 
210 THINGS OF THE MIND. 
 
 eminence of his exceptional position surveys the 
 world with a feeling akin to that which a spirit 
 from some higher sphere might be supposed to 
 have in contemplating the busy, fussy little ants 
 that jostle one another on this mole-hill of an 
 earth. God is only an idea ; nature exists, but 
 is unmoral ; good and evil are alike indifferent 
 to her; and history, from an ethical point of 
 view, is a permanent scandal. This is the final 
 word of culture as revealed by Renan, and he 
 naturally enough partakes of the Buddhist tem- 
 per, to which annihilation appears to be the 
 supreme good. And this is doubtless the mood 
 which culture, as understood by the critical 
 school, tends to produce. Its intellectual prin- 
 ciple is pantheism, its ethical principle is the 
 identity of the good and the beautiful, and his- 
 torically it evolves itself either into the animalism 
 of the senses or into the quietism of a fatalistic 
 philosophy; and whichever form it assumes, it 
 must inevitably fail to make reason and the will 
 of God prevail. 
 
 But one may surely be a lover of culture with- 
 out being forced to adopt the principles of 
 Renan and Arnold, as one may be reasonable 
 and yet hold to positive beliefs ; as one may 
 have taste without denying conscience. 
 
 Culture may indeed easily become the insid- 
 ious foe of revealed religion, but it may also be 
 
CULTURE AND RELIGION. 211 
 
 its serviceable ally ; and since in our day many 
 of the most thoroughly trained and versatile 
 minds are employed in the service of unbelief, 
 it is certainly most desirable, and from a human 
 point of view even necessary, that they be met 
 by intellects of equal discipline and power. We 
 are living in an epoch of transition. The decay 
 of faith in the Protestant sects is accelerated by 
 the consciousness that their existence is a con- 
 tradiction of the fundamental principle of Prot- 
 estantism ; and among Catholics a wide-spread 
 indifference, and new modes of thought created 
 by the scientific developments of the age, have 
 cooled the zeal and weakened the faith of many. 
 The wavering of religious belief has unsettled 
 all other things, so that nothing seems any 
 longer to rest upon a firm and immovable basis. 
 The new theories are in the air, and precaution- 
 ary measures are ineffectual, at least with regard 
 to society in general. There has never been a 
 time in the world's history, in which the influ- 
 ence of literature was so all-pervading as at 
 present, and this power is in great measure 
 anonymous and irresponsible. Reviews and 
 newspapers discuss everything and are read by 
 everybody, so that any youth is prepared to 
 pronounce you an authoritative judgment as 
 to whether there is a God. The gravest and 
 most sacred subjects are treated in a mock- 
 
212 THINGS OF THE MIND. 
 
 serious tone which is worse than open blas- 
 phemy. The old Protestant controversy is as 
 obsolete as the dress of the Pilgrim Fathers. 
 Questions of grace, election, and free-will, have 
 ceased to have any interest for men who, insist- 
 ing upon their right of private judgment and 
 the supremacy of the individual mind, are puz- 
 zled to know whether God and the soul exist ; 
 and the famous ministerial jousts, in which the 
 doughty champions were wont to brandish their 
 favorite texts like flaming swords, have lost their 
 dramatic effect and are grown altogether tame 
 in the eyes of a generation which hears every 
 day that the Bible itself is but the fairy tale of 
 an ignorant and superstitious age. The old 
 disputes will doubtless survive for a time, and 
 individuals and even classes may be helped by 
 them, but the real issue, so far as the active 
 mind of the age is concerned, has already been 
 transferred to quite other grounds, and it is 
 our immediate and urgent duty to fit our- 
 selves for the new conflict, which is not be- 
 tween the Church and the sects, but between 
 the Church and infidelity. The argument is to 
 be made fundamental and exhaustive. All phi- 
 losophies and sciences are to be interrogated; 
 all literatures to be studied ; all forms of belief 
 are to be analyzed ; all methods are to be used ; 
 and the infinitely great and the infinitesimally 
 
CULTURE AND RELIGION. 213 
 
 small are to be required to give up their secret. 
 The religious import of the sciences is precisely 
 what lends to this study its mysterious charm. 
 The physical comfort which may be derived 
 from a wider and truer acquaintance with nature 
 is of minor importance. That which the phi- 
 losopher and the man of the world are yearn- 
 ing to learn from all this eager and ceaseless 
 peering into the forms and workings of matter is 
 whether or not any authentic response will be 
 given to the eternal questionings of the human 
 heart about God, the soul, and the life that is 
 to be. This restlessness and scepticism is 
 doubtless pathological. If men had faith, they 
 would not be tormented by the feverish anxiety 
 to surprise God in the mysteries which he has 
 hidden from human eye ; but they have no 
 faith, and since it is impossible for the mind to 
 remain indifferent to the infinite mystery which 
 is everywhere in all that it sees and thinks, 
 therefore do men who have ceased to believe 
 seek to satisfy by knowledge the inborn craving 
 of the soul for some tidings from the inner truth 
 of things. They will take nothing for granted, 
 but make God himself questionable. And here 
 at once we may perceive the arduousness of 
 the task which is imposed upon those who are 
 called to the defence of the faith in our day. 
 The first step their adversaries take leads into 
 
214 THINGS OF THE MIND. 
 
 the bottomless abyss of endless speculation and 
 doubt. In the Protestant controversy there was 
 the common and certain ground of the Written 
 Word, to which in the confusion of debate it 
 was possible to return to take bearings, while 
 the deists of the last century agreed with their 
 opponents in admitting the existence of God as 
 indisputably evident to the natural reason. But 
 the new phase of infidelity would make knowl- 
 edge itself inconclusive in all matters where our 
 concern is with the absolute truth of things. It 
 denies that there is any such truth, or at least 
 that it is discoverable by man. I find in all 
 the current theories of unbelief the assumption 
 that all that can be known is the relative, and 
 that the highest conceivable philosophy is only 
 phenomenology. With men who hold such 
 opinions it is impossible to reason from fixed 
 principles. The old methods fail to reach them. 
 All the syllogisms that can be strung together 
 can never compass a higher truth than that 
 which is given in the original intuition, and if 
 this does not attain to the reality underlying 
 the phenomenon neither will our conclusions. 
 The assumption that knowledge is only the per- 
 ception of relations makes all discussions as to 
 what anything is in itself appear futile and 
 childish. Hence the contempt of the modern 
 schools for metaphysics and the scholastic 
 
CULTURE AND RELIGION. 21 5 
 
 methods. The great practical difficulty, as I 
 take it, in successfully controverting the new 
 theories lies in the fact that they represent 
 modes of viewing things rather than states of 
 mind. They are not held as conclusions from 
 unanswerable arguments, but as a way of ac- 
 counting for phenomena which is justified by 
 the convergence of innumerable plausibilities 
 toward a given line of thought. It is consid- 
 ered to be enough that they are in accord with 
 the tendencies of the age, and in harmony with 
 the great time-spirit, who, as these philosophers 
 teach, has usurped the throne of the Eternal 
 and Omnipotent God. A few words will suffice 
 to sketch in general outline this system, and at 
 the same time to show how widely it prevails. 
 It is assumed that God is not or cannot be 
 known to be, and as philosophy is phenome- 
 nology, it starts with matter in the state in which 
 it is possible for the mind first to detect it. 
 Space is filled with incandescent gas, star-dust, 
 from which the sidereal systems are evolved. 
 This view, for the correctness of which many 
 arguments are adduced, receives additional 
 weight from the study of our own planet, which, 
 beginning as an incandescent mass, has during 
 long ages been gradually cooling. When life 
 first appears it is in its lowest forms, and there 
 is progression up to man. To this point it is 
 
2l6 THINGS OF THE MIND. 
 
 maintained the astronomer and the geologist are 
 able to conduct us. The zoologist now comes 
 to trace the descent of man, as the geologist has 
 followed the evolution of the globe, and Darwin 
 and others find that he has been developed by 
 natural processes from the lowest forms of life. 
 The question of man's special endowments thus 
 presents itself, and the psychologist attempts to 
 show that thought is transformed sensation, and 
 will, transformed emotion, as man is a trans- 
 formed animal. 
 
 The principle of evolution is applied to the 
 history of language and of races in philology 
 and ethnology, and these sciences are made 
 auxiliary to the new theories. The sociologist 
 next appears, to unravel the infinitely compli- 
 cated and intricate network of human relations, 
 and to point out how this marvellous and entan- 
 gled scheme is but the product of a few rudi- 
 mentary instincts. And finally, the philosopher 
 of history proposes to account for the whole 
 life and all the achievements of the human race 
 by the aid of fatalistic laws. Given the race, 
 and its surroundings, and he will offer you a 
 mechanical rule by which you will be able 
 to explain everything, religion, literature, 
 and social institutions. It would, of course, 
 be beside my present purpose to stop to point 
 out the absurdities and the gaps in all this, but 
 
CULTURE AND RELIGION, 2 1/ 
 
 what I wish to call attention to is the fact that 
 this is a way of looking at the universe, and that 
 little or nothing is gained by insisting upon 
 errors in detail or by showing that certain data 
 of science are in accord with revealed truth. 
 The fault is radical and universal, and the only 
 effective method of dealing with it is to be 
 sought in a comprehensive philosophy, which, 
 starting from a true theory of knowledge will 
 embrace the whole range of science, and by 
 correcting the false interpretations of its data, 
 will educate men and lead them to see that a 
 theory of the universe which excludes God is 
 not only unintelligible, but destructive of the 
 essential principles of reason. The intellectual 
 difficulties with which the present generation of 
 believers have to contend are greater than in 
 any past age. It is not possible to laugh at 
 our adversaries unless we are content to make 
 ourselves ridiculous. In matters of this kind 
 sarcasm and vituperation are not only out of 
 place, but are no better than the language of 
 the devil. Smart hits intended for the crowd 
 fail of effect even with the masses. 
 
 That in the end, and after never so much 
 science and theory, the perfect wisdom of hum- 
 ble and trusting faith will be made only the 
 more evident is in no way doubtful ; but in the 
 meantime we may not stand as idle lookers-on, 
 
2l8 THINGS OF THE MIND. 
 
 and as though we had no part or concern in this 
 mighty and painful conflict. 
 
 It was a principle with St. Ignatius of Loyola 
 that a Christian should have the faith which 
 hopes everything from God, and then act as 
 though he expected nothing except from his 
 own exertions. 
 
 No maxim could be more applicable to the 
 emergency of which I am writing. I know that 
 our blessed Lord is with his Church, and that 
 he can turn our ignorance and supineness to 
 the good of those who love him. I know that 
 whatever we may do we are useless servants. 
 The prayer of the humble is better than the 
 thoughts of the learned, and a great saint is 
 able to do a holier work than the most perfectly 
 cultivated genius. 
 
 All this is indisputable, and one benefit to 
 be hoped for from a higher culture would be 
 the power to realize more truly what we are 
 so ready to admit in theory. My words, if 
 addressed to those devout and saintly souls 
 who with unutterable groanings raise to God the 
 voice of prayer which penetrates the heavens, 
 would be an impertinence. It may well be that 
 were it not for these just ones we should all 
 perish. My thought is lower and is intended 
 for those who, in the midst of a thousand imper- 
 fections, feel that they are better fitted to fight 
 
CULTURE AND RELIGION. 2IQ 
 
 in the plain below than to lift up hands of 
 supplication on the holy mount. 
 
 The issue indeed is in God's keeping, but we 
 must strive to quit ourselves like men, and as 
 though all depended upon our skill and courage. 
 Without thorough training and mental discipline 
 we shall only cumber the ground and block the 
 way. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 PATRIOTISM. 
 
 AND Thou, O God, of whom we hold 
 
 Our country and our Freedom fair, 
 Within Thy tender love enfold 
 
 This land ; for all Thy people care. 
 Uplift our hearts above our fortunes high, 
 
 Let not the good we have make us forget 
 The better things that in Thy heavens lie ! 
 
 Keep, still, amid the fever and the fret 
 Of all this eager life, our thoughts on Thee, 
 
 The Hope, the Strength, the God of all the Free. 
 
 LOVE of country springs from so many 
 sources which have their fountain-head 
 in our inmost being that it scarcely needs com- 
 mending; and it has found such abundant and 
 varied expression in the art and literature of 
 all nations that it is difficult to praise it without 
 falling into commonplace. Each one seems to 
 himself, if he go not beyond primitive, unreflect- 
 ing consciousness, a separate, independent being, 
 whose thought, love, and deeds are determined 
 simply by his own personality. A little atten- 
 tion, however, will show him that whatever he 
 sees, knows, and feels is part of himself. As 
 
PATRIOTISM. 221 
 
 his body is kept living by the constant assimila- 
 tion of food and air, so his mind and heart are 
 kept alive and active through communion with 
 what may be perceived and understood, or ad- 
 mired and loved. The ties which bind us to earth 
 and heaven, to air and water, the sympathies 
 which unite us with whatever is beautiful, true, or 
 good, the attractions which draw us to beings like 
 and yet unlike ourselves, are but forms of self- 
 love. We find and love in what is not ourselves 
 that which we need to round and complete our 
 lives. The desire to grow toward and into all 
 things is the divine spark in our nature, the 
 impulse which makes us yearn for more know- 
 ledge, more love, more happiness, more posses- 
 sions. We tend ultimately to identify ourselves 
 with God and His universe and the objects and 
 persons we learn to know and love are the step- 
 ping-stones in the ascent toward the divine life. 
 The instinct for local and personal attachments is 
 born in us ; it is found in the mere animal, the 
 horse knows his stall, the dog loves his master. 
 Our fondness for things and persons is not wholly 
 determined by their qualities. The cottage of 
 the poor is cherished more than the palace of the 
 rich ; the most helpless child is often a mother's 
 darling. Bleak and cheerless Lapland is loved 
 as truly as Italy, dowered with beauty's fatal gift. 
 The spot where our young years were passed, 
 
222 THINGS OF THE MIND. 
 
 as in a dream, the persons by whom we were 
 then surrounded, seem fair and good to us. 
 The memory of them is intertwined with all our 
 thoughts ; they are part of ourselves. The very 
 sorrows we knew with them are sweeter than 
 the joys we now can taste. Our souls never lose 
 the tinge of the colors with which they were 
 then imbued. We bear with us into distant 
 lands, through long years, the memories of that 
 dewy dawn, of that fresh springtime when all 
 things seemed created anew and a smile of God 
 rested upon His world. With the love of home 
 and of those who made it home, the love of 
 country first begins to stir within the heart; for 
 our country is and remains our fatherland, the 
 land where we knew a father's and a mother's 
 love. This is the meaning of the Greek word 
 " patriotism ; " it is the love of the fathers ; of 
 their thoughts and hopes ; of their deeds and 
 aspirations. It is therefore something far higher 
 and deeper than a mere attachment to places, 
 though fair and pleasant they be. Our sympathy 
 with nature, however, is very real. We feel a 
 kinship with stars and flowers ; we are uplifted 
 by mountains ; we are awed by the ocean ; we 
 are fresh and happy with spring; we are sober 
 and subdued with autumn ; and this general feel- 
 ing becomes tenderer and more human when it 
 is associated with what is dear to us for reasons 
 
PATRIOTISM. 223 
 
 personal to ourselves. In this way the scenery in 
 which our home is set, by which our country is 
 characterized, touches us more nearly, awakens 
 more grateful and delightful thoughts than aught 
 we can behold elsewhere. If we are moulded 
 by our surroundings we also help to create them, 
 and objects which for years we have been accus- 
 tomed to look upon day by day have for us a 
 meaning and a sacredness, a charm and a beauty 
 which they lose when viewed by the indifferent 
 eyes of strangers. Thus the physical features 
 of the fatherland, whether noble or common, 
 impress the imagination and color the souls of 
 the children ; they enter into our patriotic feel- 
 ings, as the face, the voice, the gestures of one we 
 love seem to become part of our love. When 
 the German remembers the Rhine, with its vine- 
 clad hills and feudal castles, his heart thrills 
 with emotion for the whole German land. The 
 Irishman who turns to Erin feels his pulse beat 
 quicker when he thinks of the glories of Wicklow 
 and Killarney. And so all men are pleased 
 with the natural excellences and beauties of their 
 country; the fertility of its soil, the salubrity 
 and temperateness of its climate, its high moun- 
 tains, its deep valleys, its mighty rivers, its bays 
 and inlets, its islands and solemn woods, its water- 
 falls, casting their white incense to heaven, all 
 help to make it precious and dear ; and it becomes 
 
224 THINGS OF THE MIND. 
 
 still dearer when genius or heroism has thrown 
 its light upon nature's charms. Monuments 
 like the Cathedral of Cologne, or Westminster 
 Abbey, or St. Peter's in Rome, are centres of 
 patriotic feeling. The emigrant to far lands 
 thinks of them with a sentiment akin to that of 
 the Israelite in captivity: "By the waters of 
 Babylon we sat down and wept, when we re- 
 membered thee, O Sion ! " " If I forget thee, 
 O Jerusalem ! let my right hand forget her 
 cunning." The ruins of what our forefathers 
 built, the battlefields whereon they shed their 
 blood for right and freedom, the graves where 
 their bones are buried make sacred the land. But 
 these local attachments and associations, sweet 
 and holy though they are, and inseparable from 
 right feeling are not of the essence of patriotism ; 
 for our true human world is spiritual, not mate- 
 rial ; the city of the soul, and not that in which 
 the body tabernacles, is our country. 
 
 When in some foreign land we hear the sacred 
 name spoken, in the old familiar mother-tongue, 
 and our pulse quickens, and our eye brightens, 
 and our bosom heaves, and the speaker whom 
 perchance we have never seen before seems 
 to be our brother, our emotion is caused by 
 something higher and purer than local attach- 
 ments and memories. We live in the spirit or 
 not at all ; and the material things we possess 
 
PATRIOTISM. 225 
 
 or strive for seem good to us because we believe 
 they are serviceable to the higher life of thought 
 and love. A sentiment in common, a deep, far 
 pervading feeling that animates a collective body 
 as with one soul, is what makes a national con- 
 sciousness. Fertile fields may be made waste, 
 cities desolate, rivers dry ; the ruins of the homes 
 of our youth may be trodden by the hoofs of 
 beasts, friends may turn from us, and civil strife 
 rend the land, but the love of country still burns 
 with its steady, inextinguishable glow within 
 our hearts. We love the fatherland, not alone 
 or chiefly for the food it gives, the property it 
 protects, the security it provides ; we love it 
 above all for the richer, freer, nobler human 
 life which it makes possible: not so much for 
 its high mountains, its wide-spreading plains, 
 its broad rivers, its thundering cataracts, its 
 pleasant and bracing air, as for the noble 
 freedom, the generous love, the great thoughts 
 which enter into and determine the national 
 spirit and character. Our country is the symbol 
 of all that is most priceless on earth, liberty, 
 truth, devotion, loyalty. Its name is intertwined 
 with the memories, hopes, loves, and aspirations 
 of all our life ; it is as dear to us as that of our 
 mother, as full of sweet suggestiveness as that of 
 home, as near to our hearts as the names of the 
 friends we most love. At its invocation our whole 
 15 
 
226 THINGS OF THE MIND. 
 
 nature changes : if timid, we become brave ; if 
 hard, sympathetic ; if selfish, generous. We 
 turn from wealth and pleasant company and the 
 most cherished pursuits if that sacred name 
 ring out in the bugle call, and, throwing all things 
 away, we rush forward to defy danger and death 
 that we may save our country's honor and inde- 
 pendence. "It is a pleasant and a glorious thing," 
 says Horace, " to die for one's country; " and no 
 line of ancient poetry has evoked a more uni- 
 versal response. Whatever else may change or 
 wholly pass away, patriotism is as imperishable 
 as religion, as immortal as love ; for to all well- 
 born hearts the native land is forever dear, 
 whether strong and free or helpless and in chains. 
 The memory of its glories and triumphs descends 
 through a hundred generations, and when the 
 people itself perishes, the deeds of its heroes 
 become the property of the whole race of man. 
 Through a thousand years of suffering and sor- 
 row, of tyranny and oppression, the heavenly 
 passion still lives, and from out the gloom, the 
 lovers of their country look to God, waiting in 
 hope, till the dawn of a better day shall break, 
 bringing promise of freedom and new life. 
 
 What land, what people, has the sun ever illu- 
 mined more worthy of the heart's deep affection 
 than our own? Here, where Nature, who never 
 hastens and never tires, has stored, through 
 
PATRIOTISM. 227 
 
 countless ages, whatever may be serviceable to 
 man, divine Providence has given us a country 
 as large as all Europe, with a soil more fertile, 
 and a climate more invigorating. We have come 
 into possession of it, not as ignorant and lawless 
 barbarians, but as civilized men, with conscious 
 purposes, with high ideals, the inheritors of all 
 the knowledge and wisdom of the past, and hav- 
 ing in our hands whatever implements and weap- 
 ons human skill has invented to strengthen and 
 enlarge the power of man. Across the great 
 ocean our ancestors bore the blessings of Chris- 
 tian civilization, leaving behind them the narrow- 
 ness and hatreds, the political and social wrongs 
 with which it had become associated. Never 
 did a continent pass under the control of a new 
 race with so little injustice, so little violence and 
 cruelty ; never were states founded by men more 
 true-hearted, honest, and brave ; never were great 
 and memorable triumphs gained by fairer means; 
 never was a commonwealth made to rest on broad- 
 er or more humane principles. 
 
 It is the planting of the American colonies 
 which makes the discovery of Columbus the 
 opening of a new era in the history of man- 
 kind. Here the Christian people saw the light 
 dawn toward which through a thousand years 
 of darkness and struggle they had been grop- 
 ing. Here God's infinite goodness revealed 
 
228 THINGS OF THE MIND. 
 
 itself, offering opportunities for freer and nobler 
 life to all alike, without distinction of race or creed 
 or sex, even as upon all His sun shines and His 
 rain falls. The patriots who made the Declara- 
 tion of Independence, the statesmen and warriors 
 who led the people through the long and doubt- 
 ful struggle of the Revolution, felt that they were 
 building better than they knew. Never were 
 heroes more conscious that the cause they bat- 
 tled for was God's and all men's. In their words, 
 and in their deeds there breathes a lofty and 
 unselfish spirit, which, to the end of time, shall 
 thrill every true and generous heart. Their 
 work has prospered beyond the utmost vision of 
 seers, beyond the fondest dreams of poets. The 
 little republic they founded has grown, in a cen- 
 tury, to be the strongest, the most progressive, 
 the most enlightened, and the most firmly estab- 
 lished civil power in the world. In virtue of its 
 constitutional vitality and assimilative force, it 
 has spread from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from 
 the Canadian border to the everglades of Florida. 
 Decade after decade it has sent farther and far- 
 ther west colonists who, as by a kind of instinct, 
 became the founders of prosperous states. The 
 great Civil War, which threatened to disrupt it, but 
 purified its constitution and opened to it a larger 
 and less impeded career. In the old world who- 
 ever is straitened or oppressed, whoever yearns 
 
PATRIOTISM. 229 
 
 for richer life and wider opportunities, turns with 
 longing to America. However much we may 
 lack, as individuals, the culture and breeding, the 
 repose and dignity of manner which distinguish 
 the true gentleman or the perfect lady, as a 
 people we are the most attractive ; and the charm 
 of our national life lies not so much in our free- 
 dom, or in anything we have already accom- 
 plished, as in the promise it gives of nobler things. 
 Here the largest thought and the widest love 
 which have ever been brought to bear upon the 
 polities of men are at work to mould the coming 
 race. Here is liberty ; here is good will ; here 
 is willingness ; here is invitation to all ; here 
 is opportunity, beckoning to every faculty of the 
 human soul. " Never," says Emerson, " never 
 country had such a fortune, as men call fortune, 
 as this, in its geography, its history, and in its 
 majestic possibilities." But let not our patriotism 
 run to foolish vanity; let us not imagine because 
 our country is great we also are great; let us 
 rather dread lest in a noble land we ourselves be 
 found ignorant and vulgar. The wise are never 
 boastful, and they who best understand the price- 
 less worth of America feel how far above them 
 is the ideal of public and private virtue of which 
 America is the symbol. He is the truest patriot 
 who strives day by day to make himself worthy 
 of such a country, turning away from no labor, 
 
230 THINGS OF THE MIND. 
 
 no hardship, no self-denial, which may help him 
 to become an honest, honorable, enlightened, and 
 religious man. Who is there among us who 
 would not be willing to die for his country? 
 Let us learn that to live for it is a yet higher 
 and more useful thing ; that the task it sets each 
 one of us is not in any way beneath a hero's 
 courage, a philosopher's insight, or a poet's love. 
 Weath and numbers we have, and all the strength 
 which material civilization can give. What we 
 lack is a new man to represent fitly this new 
 world. Great things must be balanced by great 
 characters, or matter will prevail over spirit, and 
 the soul become inferior to its setting. " It is 
 certain," says Emerson again, " that our civiliza- 
 tion is yet incomplete ; it has not ended nor 
 given sign of ending in a hero. It is a wild 
 democracy, the riot of mediocrities, dishones- 
 ties, and fudges.'* 
 
 The special vice of the American is the breath- 
 less haste with which he works for success, which 
 he generally takes to mean money. Whatever 
 is restful, as reflection and meditation, gives him 
 qualms of conscience ; he is ashamed to be at 
 leisure. He thinks, watch in hand, as he eats, 
 with his eye on the daily market- report. He 
 seems always afraid lest he forget or neglect 
 something, and so miss an opportunity to 
 gain a dollar. This workingman's haste, this 
 
PATRIOTISM. 231 
 
 alertness for a chance to turn a penny, is 
 fatal to distinction of thought and behavior; 
 it destroys the sense for form, for proportion, 
 and grace. Hence this type of American, 
 in all the relations of life, is quick, sharp, and 
 abrupt. In his intercourse with friends and 
 relations, with women and children, he is pre- 
 occupied by thoughts of business, and seems 
 to say: " Appreciate my politeness, for time is 
 money." His natural inclination is to marry a 
 wife with as little ceremony as he buys a horse. 
 Joyful occasions are almost as unwelcome to him 
 as the sad, for both alike are interruptions of 
 business. If he is poor he works with the 
 hope of becoming rich; if he is rich he works 
 from dread of poverty. He cannot take recre- 
 ation without apology, as though he should 
 say, " I beg pardon, but my health or my 
 wife's requires this of me. " He writes a letter in 
 the style of a telegram, and would prefer to talk 
 only through a telephone from ear of being but- 
 ton-holed. He looks forward to the time when 
 he shall travel a hundred instead of fifty miles 
 an hour; and in his rapid journeys he is all the 
 while thinking or talking of business or politics, 
 which for him is mainly a question of finance. 
 The men in whom he takes interest are money 
 men and politicians. In his spare moments he 
 reads the newspapers, which are filled with 
 
232 THINGS OF THE MIND. 
 
 whatever concerns trade and material progress, 
 interspersed with accounts of all kinds of crime. 
 His idea of pleasure is sport. He admires a horse 
 more for the price it brings than for beauty and 
 grace; a pugilist more for the money than the 
 victory he wins. He measures all. things by the 
 same standard. A book, a preacher, a play, like 
 a mine or a railway, are worth what they will 
 sell for in the market. What is dear is fine, and 
 he will even submit to all sorts of discomfort if 
 it is expensive. A poet is an idle, foolish being, 
 for poetry, unless some freak of fashion give it 
 value, is unsalable. Dancing is a good enough 
 pursuit, if one knows how to make it lucrative. 
 He easily breaks forth into abuse of the very 
 rich, for it is natural to abuse one's more suc- 
 cessful rivals. 
 
 The gospel of work and utility has been 
 preached to us and imposed on us, until we all 
 have become or are in danger of becoming the 
 drudges and victims of the uneasy and insatiable 
 demon of greed. The ideal is the possession of 
 more and more, and in striving for this we for- 
 get and lose ourselves, lose even the power to 
 enjoy the wealth for which we sacrificed all that 
 makes life good and pleasant. To add to the 
 trouble, we seem no longer to be free. We lack 
 self-control, and are borne onward by this mate- 
 rial movement, as the crest is carried by the 
 
PATRIOTISM. 233 
 
 wave. We have lost relish for a life which is 
 simple, pure, moderate, and healthful. We are 
 the victims of an environment, and to survive at 
 all, we feel we must survive as money-getters. 
 That the majority now believe in this Mammon- 
 worship is no proof that it is not a degrading 
 and idolatrous worship. " The majority are 
 bad," said one of the wise men of Greece ; we 
 at least may say that they are unthinking and 
 heedless of the best. They need the guidance 
 and the strength which are found in the wisdom 
 and example of the few; but we hitch our most 
 gifted men to the drays of commerce and the 
 machinery of manufacture, where they are goaded 
 on, and driven to death by the tyranny of com- 
 petition. They should be treated like coursers, 
 which for the most part are idle, nursing the 
 strength that renders them capable of memora- 
 ble deeds. We boast of our industrial captains, 
 who stand at the head of great material enter- 
 prises, not perceiving that their work, like that 
 of the unhappy beings they employ, prevents 
 them from becoming men; for, however many 
 millions of money they may have, they have low 
 thoughts and feeble faith and love. If we love 
 our country, let us not be afraid to speak even 
 unpleasant truth in this age when it has grown 
 to be the fashion to lie to the people, as formerly 
 men lied to kings. 
 
234 THINGS OF THE MIND. 
 
 There is no better measure of the progress of 
 an individual than the degree of his ability to 
 stand alone, in thought and action, undisturbed 
 by the adverse opinions and judgments of his 
 fellow-men. He who leads his own life is a real, 
 not an artificial, man. Let us believe in the 
 worth of character, and while we strive to up- 
 build our own, let us also seek to spread this 
 faith, which is fundamental for all who would 
 uphold popular government. When the people 
 are a herd they are easily swayed and ruled by 
 one man; when they are individualized, the 
 dominion of one is not possible. Let us hold 
 and teach that better than millions of money or 
 cattle, is a brave heart, a hopeful temper, an 
 enlightened mind, a cheerful and appreciative 
 soul, content in quiet virtue, and able to take 
 delight in familiar things and in the common 
 blessings which God sends to all. 
 
 Let us dread whatever is hard or exaggerated 
 or vulgar; whatever shows lack of delicacy of 
 thought or purity of conduct; whatever springs 
 from a spirit of false audacity or foolish boast- 
 fulness. Let our patriotism be a sort of religion, 
 urging us to elevation, seriousness, and chastity 
 of thought and desire ; for, after all, our confi- 
 dence that popular government is the best rests 
 on faith, not on knowledge. Let us make our- 
 selves wise and helpful, strong and self-contained, 
 
PATRIOTISM. 235 
 
 whether we are happy or unhappy. What gives 
 pleasure is of little moment; what gives power 
 and wisdom is all-important. Let us make true 
 Emerson's prophecy : "Trade and government 
 will not alone be the favored aims, but every 
 useful, every elegant art, every exercise of imagi- 
 nation, the height of reason, the noblest affection, 
 the purest religion will find their home in our 
 institutions, and write our laws for the benefit 
 of men." 
 
 THE END. 
 
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