{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_34257/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_34257","id":"gutenberg_34257","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/34257","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Teaching & Education","Culture","Education"],"text":"Produced by Al Haines\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nMEANS AND ENDS\n\nOF EDUCATION\n\n\n\nBY\n\nJ. L. SPALDING\n\nBishop of Peoria\n\n\n\n\n  WHO BRINGETH MANY THINGS,\n  FOR EACH ONE SOMETHING BRINGS\n\n\n\n\nCHICAGO\n\nA. C. McCLURG AND COMPANY\n\n1895\n\n\n\n\nCOPYRIGHT\n\nBY A. C. MCCLURG L Co.\n\nA.D. 1895\n\n\n\n\n\nBy Bishop Spalding\n\n  EDUCATION AND THE HIGHER LIFE.  12mo.  $1.00.\n  THINGS OF THE MIND.  12mo.  $1.00.\n  MEANS AND ENDS OF EDUCATION.  12mo.  $1.00.\n\n\nA. C. McCLURG AND CO.\n  CHICAGO.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS.\n\n\nCHAPTER\n\n   I.  TRUTH AND LOVE\n  II.  TRUTH AND LOVE\n III.  THE MAKING OF ONE'S SELF\n  IV.  WOMAN AND EDUCATION\n   V.  THE SCOPE OF PUBLIC-SCHOOL EDUCATION\n  VI.  THE RELIGIOUS ELEMENT IN EDUCATION\n VII.  THE HIGHER EDUCATION\n\n\n\n\nMEANS AND ENDS OF EDUCATION.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\nTRUTH AND LOVE.\n\nNone of us yet know, for none of us have yet been taught in early\nyouth, what fairy palaces we may build of beautiful thought--proof\nagainst all adversity;--bright fancies, satisfied memories, noble\nhistories, faithful sayings, treasure-houses of precious and restful\nthoughts; which care cannot disturb, nor pain make gloomy, nor poverty\ntake away from us--houses built without hands for our souls to live\nin.--RUSKIN.\n\nStirred up with high hopes of living to be brave men and worthy\npatriots, dear to God and famous to all ages.--MILTON.\n\n\nA great man's house is filled chiefly with menials and creatures of\nceremony; and great libraries contain, for the most part, books as dry\nand lifeless as the dust that gathers on them: but from amidst these\ndead leaves an immortal mind here and there looks forth with light and\nlove.\n\nFrom the point of view of the bank president, Emerson tells us, books\nare merely so much rubbish.  But in his eyes the flowers also, the\nflowing water, the fresh air, the floating clouds, children's voices,\nthe thrill of love, the fancy's play, the mountains, and the stars are\nworthless.\n\nNot one in a hundred who buy Shakspere, or Milton, or a work of any\nother great mind, feels a genuine longing to get at the secret of its\npower and truth; but to those alone who feel this longing is the secret\nrevealed.  We must love the man of genius, if we would have him speak\nto us.  We learn to know ourselves, not by studying the behavior of\nmatter, but through experience of life and intimate acquaintance with\nliterature.  Our spiritual as well as our physical being springs from\nthat of our ancestors.  Freedom, however, gives the soul the power not\nonly to develop what it inherits, but to grow into conscious communion\nwith the thought and love, the hope and faith of the noble dead, and,\nin thus enlarging itself, to become the inspiration and source of\nricher and wider life for those who follow.  As parents are consoled by\nthe thought of surviving in their descendants, great minds are upheld\nand strengthened in their ceaseless labors by the hope of entering as\nan added impulse to better things, from generation to generation, into\nthe lives of thousands.  The greatest misfortune which can befall\ngenius is to be sold to the advocacy of what is not truth and love and\ngoodness and beauty.  The proper translation of _timeo hominem unius\nlibri_ is not, \"I fear a man of one book,\" but \"I dread a man of one\nbook:\" for he is sure to be narrow, one-sided, and unreasonable.  The\nright phrase enters at once into our spiritual world, and its power\nbecomes as real as that of material objects.  The truth to which it\ngives body is borne in upon us as a star or a mountain is borne in upon\nus.  Kings and rich men live in history when genius happens to throw\nthe light of abiding worlds upon their ephemeral estate.  Carthage is\nthe typical city of merchants and traders.  Why is it remembered?\nBecause Hannibal was a warrior and Virgil a poet.\n\nThe strong man is he who knows how and is able to become and be\nhimself; the magnanimous man is he who, being strong, knows how and is\nable to issue forth from himself, as from a fortress, to guide,\nprotect, encourage, and save others.  Life's current flows pure and\nunimpeded within him, and on its wave his thought and love are borne to\nbless his fellowmen.  If he who gives a cup of water in the right\nspirit does God's work, so does he who sows or reaps, or builds or\nsweeps, or utters helpful truth or plays with children or cheers the\nlonely, or does any other fair or useful thing.  Take not seriously one\nwho treats with derision men or books that have been deemed worthy of\nattention by the best minds.  He is false or foolish.  As we cherish a\nhuman being for the courage and love he inspires, so books are dear to\nus for the noble thoughts and generous moods they call into being.  To\ndrink the spirit of a great author is worth more than a knowledge of\nhis teaching.\n\nHe who desires to grow wise should bring his reason to bear habitually\nupon what he sees and hears not less than upon what he reads; for thus\nhe soon comes to understand that whatever he thinks or feels, says or\ndoes, whatever happens within the sphere of his conscious life, may be\nmade the means of self-improvement.  \"He is not born for glory,\" says\nVauvenargues, \"who knows not the worth of time.\"  The educational value\nof books lies in their power to set the intellectual atmosphere in\nvibration, thereby rousing the mind to self-activity; and those which\nhave not this power lack vitality.\n\nIf in a whole volume we find one passage in which truth is expressed in\na noble and striking manner, we have not read in vain.  To read with\nprofit, we should read as a serious student reads, with the mind all\nalive and held to the subject; for reading is thinking, and it is\nvaluable in proportion to the stimulus it gives to the exercise of\nfaculty.  The conversation of high and ingenuous minds is doubtless as\ninstructive as it is delightful, but it is seldom in our power to call\naround us those with whom we should wish to hold discourse; and hence\nwe go back to the emancipated spirits, who having transcended the\nbounds of time and space, are wherever they are desired and are always\nready to entertain whoever seeks their company.  Genius neither can nor\nwill discover its secret.  Why his thought has such a mould and such a\ntinge he no more knows than why the flowers have such a tint and such a\nperfume; and if he knew he would not care to tell.  Nothing is wholly\nmanifest.  In the most trivial object, as in the simplest word, there\nlies a world of meaning which does not reveal itself to a passing\nglance.  If therefore thou wouldst come to right understanding,\nconsider all things with an awakened and interested curiosity.\n\nWhen the mind at last finds itself rightly at home in its world, it is\nas delighted as children making escape from restraining walls, as full\nof spirit as colts newly turned upon the greensward.\n\nIn the realm of truth each one is king, and what he knows is as much\nhis own as though he were its first discoverer.  However firmly thou\nholdest to thy opinions, if truth appears on the opposite side, throw\ndown thy arms at once.  A book has the power almost of a human being to\ninspire admiration or disgust, love or hatred.  To be useful is a noble\nthing, to be necessary is not desirable.  The youth has not enough\nambition unless he has too much.  It is difficult to give lessons in\nthe art of pleasing without teaching that of lying.  The discouraged\nare already vanquished.  In judging the deed let not the character of\nthe doer influence thy opinion, for good is good, evil evil, by\nwhomsoever done.  When the author is rightly inspired his words need\nnot interpretation.  They are as natural and as beautiful as the faces\nof children or as new-blown flowers, and their meaning is plain.  The\nspirit and love of dogmatism is characteristic of the imperfectly\neducated.  As there is a communion of saints, there is a communion of\nnoble minds, living and dead.  To speak of love which is not felt, of\npiety which is not a living sentiment within us, is to weaken both in\nourselves and in those who hear us the power of faith and affection.\nThe best that has been known and experienced by minds and hearts lies\nasleep in books, ready to awaken for whoever holds the magician's wand.\nBooks which at their first appearance create a breeze of excitement,\nare forgotten when the wind falls.\n\nA human soul rightly uttering itself, in whatever age or country,\nceases to belong to any age or country, and becomes part of the\nuniversal life of man.  A sprightly wit may serve only to lead us\nastray, and to enmesh us more hopelessly in error.  Deeper knowledge is\nthe remedy for the foolishness of sciolism: like cures like.  In the\nbooks in which men worth knowing have put some of the vital quality\nwhich makes them worth knowing, there is perennial inspiration.  They\nare the form and substance of an immortal spirit which, in creating\nthem, became itself.  \"I have not made my book,\" says Montaigne, \"more\nthan my book has made me.\"\n\nWere one to ask an acquaintance who knows men to point out the\nindividuals whom he should make his friends, his request would probably\nreceive an unsatisfactory reply: for how, except by trial, is it\npossible to say who will suit whom?  Those whose friendship would be\nvaluable might, for whatever cause, be disagreeable to him, as the\ngreatest and noblest may be unpleasant companions.  Many a one whom we\nadmire as he stands forth in history, whose words and deeds thrill and\nuplift us, we should detest had we known him in life; and others to\nwhom we might have been drawn would have cared nothing for us.  Between\nmen and books there is doubtless a wide difference, though a good book\ncontains the best of the life of some true man.  But when we are asked\nto point out the books one should learn to love, we are confronted with\nmuch the same difficulty as had we been asked to name the persons whom\nhe should make his friends.  A book can have worth for us only when we\nhave learned to love it; and since a real book, like a real man, has\nits proper character, it is not easy to determine whom it will please\nor displease.  Once it has taken a safe place in literature, it will,\nof course, be praised by everybody; but this, like the praise of men,\nis often meaningless.  All who read know something about the great\nbooks, but their knowledge, unless it leads them to intimate\nacquaintance with some one or several of these books, has little worth.\nBooks are, indeed, a world which each one must discover for himself.\nAnother may tell us about them, but the truth and beauty there is in\nthem for each one, each one must find.  The value of a book, like that\nof a man, lies not in its freedom from fault, but in its qualities, in\nthe good it contains.  Words which inspire the love of spiritual beauty\nand noble action cannot be false: the consent of the wise places them\nin the canon.  The imperishable goods are truth, freedom, love, and\nbeauty.  Valuable alone is that which enriches and ennobles life.\nThere are natures for whom the lack of knowledge is as painful as the\nlack of food.  They are ahungered and athirst for it, and their\nsuffering impels them to ceaseless meditation and study, as the only\nmeans of relief.\n\nThe self-educator's first and simplest aim should be to learn to know\nand do well whatever he knows and does; and to this end let him often\nobserve and consider how rare are they who know anything thoroughly or\ndo well any of the hundred things which are part of daily life: who\ntalk well, or write well, or behave well.  Herbert Spencer affirms that\nit is better to learn the meanings of things than the meanings of\nwords; but he loses sight of the fact that the meanings of things\nbecome plain only when things are clothed in words, which, in truth,\nare things, being nothing else than the very form and body of nature as\nit reveals itself within the mind of man.  The world is chiefly a\nmental fact.  From mind it receives the forms of time and space, the\nprinciple of causality, color, warmth, and beauty.  Were there no mind,\nthere would be no world.  The end of man is the pursuit of perfection,\nthrough communion with God, his fellows, and nature, by means of\nknowledge and conduct, of faith, hope, admiration, and love.  It is\neasy to praise work overmuch.  Like money, it is a means, not an end,\nand it is good or evil as it is made to help or harm the worker, for\nman is an end, not a means.  The work which millions are still forced\nto do is a curse,--the trail of the serpent is over it all, and no\npeople has the right to call itself civilized, while work which\ndehumanizes is not merely permitted, but encouraged.\n\nLet us not teach the young to believe they are born into a world of\ndelights and pleasures, but let us strive to enable them to realize\nthat, upon this earth, only the wise and good and strong can make\nthemselves really at home; that for the wicked and the weak its very\ndelights and pleasures turn to sorrow and suffering.  We pity the\nhard-driven beast of burden.  How then is it possible to look with\ncomplacency on a world in which multitudes of human beings are\ncondemned to the work of the ox and the ass?  For the healthy man,\nwealth and happiness would seem to be identical, if his desires are\nconfined to the things of which money is the equivalent.  But this is a\ndelusion, for the plenary possession of these things has never\nsatisfied a human being.  Man needs virtue, knowledge, love, and to\ntake the obvious view, he needs the power to enjoy the things money\nbuys; and of this money deprives him.\n\nWhen we consider the many unworthy means men take to gain wealth and\noffice, we are forced to believe that to reach their ends they are\nready to profess to hold opinions and beliefs about which they care\nnothing or which they really do not accept at all.  By this following\nof time-servers and place-hunters every noble cause is weakened and the\npurest faith is corrupted.\n\nTo labor for those we love, to sit in the hours of rest, with wife and\nchildren about us, smiling in the blaze of the fire we have lighted,\nsheltered by the roof we have built, secure in the sense of protection\nour presence inspires, is to feel that life is good.  But is it not a\nhigher thing to turn away, in disrespect of all this peace and comfort,\nand to strive alone, by thought and deed, to find the way which leads\nto God and to be a pioneer therein for those who wander helpless and\nastray?  The more we dwell with truth and love, the more conscious we\nbecome that they are the best, and are everlasting; and thus our\nimmortality is revealed to us.  Visibly we float on the boundless\nstream and disappear; but inasmuch as we are truth-loving and\nlove-cherishing, we dwell in an abiding city, and may behold our bodies\ncarried forth by the flood, as a man sees his house swept away, while\nhe himself remains.  Our thoughtlessness and indifference, our\nindolence and frivolousness, blind us to the infinite worth and\nsignificance of life; and they who call themselves religious often take\nit as lightly as worldlings and unbelievers.\n\nIn the Universe there is nothing which exists separate and apart from\nother things.  The satellites hold to the planets, the planets to the\nsuns, the suns to one another, all in obedience to the same laws which\nbind the body to earth, and cause the water to flow and the vapor to\nrise.  For the senses there is separateness, but for the mind there is\nunion and unity.  Communion is the law of souls as of bodies.  Both are\nimmersed in a boundless world, from which if they could be drawn forth\nthey would cease to be.  The principle of this infinite harmony is\nlove, is God.\n\nThe right human bond is that which unites soul with soul; and only they\nare truly akin who consciously live in the same world, who think,\nbelieve, and love alike, who hope for the same things, aspire to the\nsame ends.\n\nOur mental view never reaches the ultimate nature of being, and hence\nour knowledge, whether of material or of spiritual things, is\nincomplete.  Faith is the effort to supply the defect which inheres in\nall our knowing.  Knowledge springs from faith, faith from knowledge,\nas rivers from clouds, clouds from rivers.  The more we know, the more\nwe believe; and our growing consciousness does not make us content to\nrest in a mechanical view of nature, but it brings home to us with\nincreasing power the awfulness of the infinite mystery, which we more\nand more clearly perceive to be a spiritual rather than a material\nfact.  If at present there is a certain failure of will and consequent\ndiscouragement in the pursuit of moral and intellectual perfection,\nthis is a result of our passing bewilderment in the presence of the\nrevelations of science and of the mighty forces it places in the hands\nof man, and not of any new knowledge which tends to inspire misgivings\nconcerning the being of God and our kinship with Him:---\n\n  From nature up to law, from law to love:\n  This is the ascendant path in which we move,\n  Impelled by God in ways that lighten still,\n  Till all things meet in one eternal thrill.\n\n\nAs the Universe revealed by the Copernican astronomy and the other\nnatural sciences is infinitely more sublime and marvellous than such a\nworld as the Israelites, the Greeks, or the Romans imagined, so they\nwho see rightly in the luminous ether of modern intelligence understand\nbetter than the ancients that human life is not an ephemeral and\nsuperficial, but an immortal and central power, enrooted in God, and\ndrawing its substance and sustenance from Him.\n\nThe appeal to shame is a poor argument.  The fact that men of great\nintellectual power and learning have held an opinion to be true does\nnot make it so.  New knowledge may have shown it to be false, or the\ngeneral advance of the race may have changed the point of view.  The\npresumption of the larger wisdom of the Ancients we cannot accept: for\nwe, not they, are the true ancients.  The purest and the holiest prayer\nmen speak is this: \"Thy will be done.\"  They who utter it from the\ninmost soul, find peace, even as a fretful child sinks to rest upon the\nmother's bosom.  In learning to love the will of God they come at last\nnot merely to believe, but to feel that His will guides the Universe,\nand that all will be well.  When an utterance comes forth from the\ndepths of our spiritual being, men cannot but hearken.  It is as though\nwe should bring to exiles tidings of a long-lost home and country.\n\nTo what a weight he stoops who addresses himself with fixed resolve to\nthe life of thought!  The burden indeed is heavy, but the pathway lies\nthrough pleasant fields where great souls move to and fro in freedom\nand at peace.  And as he grows accustomed to his labor, the world\nwidens, the heavens break open, the dead live again, and with them he\nrises into the high regions where the petty cares and passions of\nmortals do not reach.\n\nHe who would educate himself must make use of his own powers.  He must\nobserve, think, examine, read, argue, ponder; he must learn when to\nhold judgment in suspense, and when to give the wings of the soul free\nsweep through the high and serene realms of truth and beauty.  The\nfarther we dwell from the crowd, with its current opinion, the better\nand truer shall we and our thoughts become.  They who write for\nmultitudinous readers rise with difficulty above the dignity of\nmountebanks.\n\nThere is a radical defect in the character of whoever works in the\nspirit of a trifler, however blameless his conduct.  The power to\ninspire faith in the seriousness and goodness of life is a sufficient\ntest of the worth of a scheme of education.\n\nNo one should fill an office which he is unable to hold without\nhindrance to the play of mind and heart that makes him a man.  The\ndignities we possess at the cost of knowledge and virtue are like\njewels for the sake of which one goes hungry and naked; mere glittering\nbaubles for which we barter the soul's prosperity.\n\nExperience is personal, and it is largely incommunicable; but\ngenius--and in this lies its power and charm--renders it communicable.\nWhat the poet or the painter has felt and seen, he makes all men feel\nand see.  The difference between man and man, between the child and the\nyouth, the youth and the adult, is chiefly a difference in feeling, in\nthe manner in which they are impressed; and it is our nature to be\ndrawn in admiration or reverence to those who by their words or deeds\ngive us deeper impressions of the worth of life, and thus open for us\nnew sources of feeling.\n\nFair thoughts rise in the heart and mind of genius, like the fragrant\nbreath which the dewy flowers exhale in the face of the rising sun, and\nthey utter themselves as simply as matin songs warbled by\nsweet-throated birds.\n\nFaith in the infinite nature and worth of truth, goodness, and love, is\nthe dawn which shall merge into the fulness of day, when, in other\nworlds, God looks upon the soul, reborn from out this seemingness.\n\nOur position, our reputation, our wealth, our comforts, are but a\nvesture like the body itself.  They shall fall away, and we shall\nremain with God.  There is no liberty but obedience to the impulse of\nthe higher nature which urges us to think nobly, to act rightly, and to\nlove constantly.  The dominion of appetite is slavery; the dominion of\nreason and conscience is freedom.\n\nRenan somewhere says he could wish for nothing better than that a\nlittle volume of selections from his writings might commend itself to\nyoung women, whose fair faces should bend over it, and find there a\nreflection of their own pure souls.  But where there is no God, the\nsoul is not mirrored, and we never really love an author who weakens\nfaith and hope.\n\nWith whatever success we advance towards the wide and serene life of\nthe pure reason, let us still cling to faith, hope, and love, the\nprimal powers which keep watch at our birth, and which bend over our\ncradles, and which alone lift us into the world of enduring peace and\nhold us within the sheltering arms of God.  In the enlightened mind,\nfaith is a higher virtue than it can be for the ignorant, and to\nsustain it there is need of a nobler life.\n\nHe whom neither learning nor power nor wealth can corrupt must have\nvirtue; for learning breeds conceit, and power begets pride, and wealth\ndebases both the mind and heart.\n\nThe intellect does not recognize that conscience may forbid its\nexercise, since knowledge cannot be evil.  If earth were a hell and\nlife a curse and the Universe but a cinder, it would still be good to\nknow the fact.  The saddest truth is better than the merriest lie.\n\nTo know a thing is to be conscious of its relation to the mind.  We\nknow it, not in itself, but in and through this relation.  Our\nknowledge of God, who is the absolute, is not absolute knowledge, but a\nknowledge of Him in so far as He is related to the mind of man.  Since,\nhowever, mind is reason and not unreason, there is harmony between it\nand things, between it and God; and hence to be conscious of its\nrelation to God and the universe is to be conscious of a real relation,\nin which both the thinker and his thought are in truth what they seem\nto be.  The ultimate reality is inferred, not directly perceived.  It\nreveals itself to the purest faith and love, and may be hidden from one\nwho knows all the sciences.\n\nAs man's relations to his fellows make him a social and political\nbeing, so his relations to the unseen power behind and within the\nvisible world, of whose presence he is always, however dimly,\nconscious, and to whom he refers whatever touches the senses, as well\nas the principle of life itself, make him a religious being.\n\nIn identifying what seem to be our particular interests with the\ninterests of all, we make escape from narrowness and isolation into the\ngeneral life of humanity; and when we come to understand that not only\nmankind but all nature is a Unity in the Consciousness of the Infinite\nand Eternal, bound together by thought and love, we enter into the\nglorious liberty of the Sons of God, and feel that nor height nor depth\nnor things past nor things to come shall separate us from the divine\ncharity.  We are akin to all that may become part of our life; and\nwhatever we know or love or admire is spiritualized and made human.  To\nunderstand the things of the spirit we must have spiritual experience.\nThe intuitions of time and space, as well as the principle of\ncausality, are given in the constitution of the mind.  So is the idea\nof being, of perfection, of beauty, of eternity, of infinity, of duty.\nTo think implies being, to perceive things as existing in time and\nspace implies consciousness of eternity and infinity.  To know the\nimperfect is possible only in the light of the perfect.  Subject is\nitself object, the first known and best understood, and the laws of\nmind are laws of being.  If the constitution of mind makes the\nrevelation of the material world possible only under the forms of time\nand space, intelligible only as sequence of cause and effect, the\nreason is to be found in the nature of things.  If the constitution of\nmind postulates one who knows and shapes, in a world in which whatever\nis, is intelligible, in which there is order, proportion, and purpose,\nit is because such an One is given in the nature of things, and He is\nGod.  However living our faith, it is faith and not knowledge; and\nshould it become knowledge, it would cease to be faith.\n\nThere are three kinds of authors,--those who impart knowledge, those\nwho give delight, and those who strengthen and inspire.\n\nA noble thought rightly expressed sweeps the higher nerve centres as\nthe touch of a perfect performer the strings of an instrument; but if\nthe instrument is poor and irresponsive, the appeal is made in vain.\nLife has the power to propagate itself, and if the words thou utterest\nare living, they will strike root somewhere and bud and blossom and\nbear fruit; but if there is no life in them, be content to have them\nfall and lie amid the dust of the dead.  God and the universe are what\nthey are, and the best even genius can do is to throw over them a\nrevealing light.  He who feels that he is always in the presence of God\nwill strive as religiously to think only what is true as he will strive\nto do only what is right.  A phrase which leaps forth aglow with life\nfrom the heart and brain of genius, not only lives forever, but retains\nforever the power to awaken, when brought into contact with a brain and\nheart, the thrill with which it first came into being.\n\nOnly a few know and love the poet, but they are young and fair, and the\nmusic of high thoughts and pure love is rhythmic with the current of\ntheir blood; and if among them there be found some who are old, they\nare choice spirits who have risen from out the lapses of time into\nregions where what is true and beautiful is so forever.  This little\nband of chosen ones accompanies him adown the centuries, and listens to\nthe melody which wells in his heart and breaks into songs that shall\ngive delight as long as the air of spring is pleasant and the flowers\nfragrant and the carollings of birds delightful; and while the poet\nstrolls on the outskirts of time, thus loved and thus attended, the\nstormy and glittering favorites of the crowd drop from sight and are\nforgotten, or remembered but as the echo of a name.\n\nA line from Homer, which sounds like a response from our own heart, is\nclothed with the mystery of diviner power, because it makes us feel\nthat we were alive thousands of years ago amid the Grecian isles, thus\nrevealing to us the unreality of time and space, and the everlasting\nnature of truth and beauty.\n\nAs it is right to admire and love whatever is good wherever it is\nfound, it needs must be the part of wisdom to seek to know and\nappreciate all that is true and high in the works of genius, though\nthere, like precious stones and metals in the mine, it be mingled with\nbaser matter.  It is but narrowness or intellectual pharisaism to turn\nfrom a great author because in his life and works there may be things\nof which we cannot approve.  Shall we abandon God because His world is\nfull of evil, or Christ because there is corruption in the church?  St.\nPaul appeals to pagan literature, St. Augustine is the disciple of\nPlato, St. Thomas Aquinas of Aristotle, and the culture and\ncivilization of Christendom are largely due to influences which are not\nChristian.  Whatever is good is from God.  There is no surer mark of\nthe lack of culture than the use of ill-natured and abusive epithets.\nTo feel the need of injurious words to express one's opinion, merely\nshows that one is angry, and anger is vulgar.\n\nWhatever is inspired by vanity is in bad taste.  This is why a showy\nstyle is a false style, why fine writing is poor writing.  The author\nyields to the spirit of vainglory, whereas he should be wholly bent\nupon uttering his thought as he knows it.  It is as though he should\ncall our attention to a costly garb when what we want to see is a man.\n\nAs a plain face is better than a mask, though fine, so one's own style,\nthough inferior, is better than any which is borrowed.\n\nTrue books survive without help or let of critics, by virtue of their\nvital quality, which attracts kindred spirits with irresistible power.\n\nWhen their worth becomes known, the critics set up a howl of praise,\nand many buy; but only a few make them their serious study, and learn\nto know and love them.  Truth is the mind's food; and, like that of the\nbody, it is nourishment only when it has been digested and assimilated.\nIt is, after all, but a little while since man began to think.  As yet\nhe is learning the alphabet.  Take heart then, and apply thy mind.  As\nwe grow older the years seem to run to months, the months to weeks, the\nweeks to days, the days to hours, the hours to moments, until time,\nlike an exhalation, appears to dissolve in the inane, and become the\nnothing it was and is and will be for eternity.\n\nIf thought were given us, like house and clothing, merely for our\npersonal comfort, wisdom would lead us to think with and like all the\nworld.  They who are eager for the good opinion of others seem to have\nbut weak faith in their own worth.\n\nThe art of pleasing would better deserve our study were there more who\nare worth pleasing, or were it less difficult to please without loss of\nsincerity and without stooping to the service of vulgar interests.  Not\nhow much or how many things thou knowest is of import.  An industrious\nreader, of retentive memory, will easily know more things than a great\nphilosopher compared with whom he is but a child.\n\nKnow thyself was the sum of what Socrates taught, and each of the seven\nwise men rested his fame upon an apothegm.  To expect the multitude to\nappreciate the best in life or literature, is to expect them to be what\nthey have never been and will probably never be.  Would you have an ox\nadmire the sunrise or the pearly dew, when all he feels the need of is\ngrass?  Appeal to the many if you will, but if your appeal is for the\nhighest, only the few will hearken.\n\nConsider not what great men or books are worth in themselves, but what\nthey are worth to thee; for thou art able to judge of their value only\nin so far as thou understandest and lovest them.\n\nIf thou canst not bear trouble, sorrow, and disappointment without loss\nof composure, thou art poorly equipped for life's struggle.  If thou\nmayst not lead the life thou wouldst wish, thou canst at least make the\nlife thou leadest the means to improve thyself.  If we were so\nconstituted that thought, feeling, and imagination might have free and\nhealthful play in ever-during darkness and isolation, life would still\nbe good.  Could I live surrounded by those I love, I should feel less\nkeenly the discontent which the consciousness of my higher needs\ncreates; and besides, it is not easy to rest in the comforts and\nluxuries which make and keep us inferior, except in the company of\nthose we love.  If our ordinary power of sight were as great as that we\ngain with the help of the microscope, the world would become for us a\nplace of horrors; and if we could clearly see ourselves as we are, life\nwould be less endurable.  God blurs our vision as a mother hides from\nher child its wound.\n\nPleasures which quickly end in revulsion of feeling are but momentary\nescapes from pain; and they alone are fortunate who are able to\npersevere in pursuits which give them pure delight.  \"All good,\" says\nKant, \"which is not based on the highest moral principle is but empty\nappearance and splendid misery.\"\n\nSensations of color, taste, sound, smell, touch, heat and cold,\nperceptions of magnitude, and temporal and spatial relations, is the\nsum of what we know; and yet we are conscious that reason means\ninfinitely more than this, that its proper object is the eternal world\nof truth, goodness, and beauty.  Think for thyself with a single view\nto truth; for so only will thy thought be of worth and service to\nothers.  We feel ourselves only in action, and hence the need of doing\nlest we lose ourselves and be swallowed in nothingness.  And for the\nold and feeble even worry, I suppose, is a comfort, for it helps to\nkeep this self-consciousness alive.  It is impossible to say whence a\nthought comes, and it is often difficult to determine the occasion by\nwhich it has been suggested.\n\nFortunate are the children all of whose knowledge comes from man and\nnature in their purity, whose memory holds no words which are not the\nsymbols of what they themselves have seen and felt, in whose minds no\nwill-o'-the-wisp from chimera worlds flits to and fro.  It is only by\nkeeping men in ignorance and vice that it is possible to keep them from\nthe contagion of great thoughts.  They who have little are thought to\nhave no right to anything.  Thus the plagiarized sayings of Napoleon\nand other nurslings of fame pass for their own; who their real authors\nwere, seeming to be a matter of indifference.\n\nIf I am not pleased with myself, but should wish to be other than I am,\nwhy should I think highly of the influences which have made me what I\nam?  Should I publish what I believe to be true and well expressed, and\ncompetent judges should declare it to be worthless in form and\nsubstance, the verdict would be interesting to me, and I should set to\nwork to discover why and how I had so far failed in discernment.  \"A\nthoroughly cultivated man,\" says Fontenelle, \"is informed by all the\nthinkers of the past, as though he had lived and continued to grow in\nknowledge during all the centuries.\"  The author is rewarded when his\nreaders are made better.\n\nThe most persuasive of men are the praisers of patent medicines.  Their\neloquence is more richly rewarded than that of all the orators, who\nalso are paid, for the most part, in inverse ratio to the amount of\ntruth they utter.  Fame, as fame, is the merest vanity.  No wise man\nwishes to be talked and written about, living or dead, to be a theme\nchiefly for fools.\n\nLiterature is writing in which genuine thought and feeling are rightly\nexpressed.  They who content themselves with what others have uttered,\nlearn nothing.  The blind need a guide, but they who are able to see\nshould look for themselves.  There is, indeed, in the words of genius a\nglow which never dies; but it only dazzles and misleads, if it fails to\nstimulate and strengthen our own powers of vision.  True speech is not\nidle; it is utterance of life, the mate of action, and the begetter of\nnoble deeds.  Strive for knowledge and strength, but do not appear to\nhave them.\n\n\"A book,\" says La Bruyere, \"which exalts the mind and inspires high and\nmanly thoughts, is good, and the work of a master.\"  A phrase suffices\nto tell the man is ignorant or the book worthless.  As the body is\nnourished by dead things, vegetable and animal, so the mind feeds on\nthe thoughts of those who have ceased to live, which, it would seem,\nare never rightly understood until the thinkers have passed away.\n\nTo be unwilling to be proved wrong is to fail in love of truth; to\nresent an objection is to lack culture.  One may believe what cannot be\ndemonstrated, but to grow angry because there is no proof is absurd.\n\nTo do deeds and to utter thoughts which long after we have departed\nshall remain to cheer, to illumine, to strengthen and console, is to be\nlike God; and the desire of noble minds is not of praise, but of\nabiding power for good.\n\nHe who is certain of himself needs not the good opinion of men, not of\nthose even who are competent to judge.  Only the vain and foolish or\nthe designing and dishonest will wish to receive credit for more\nability and virtue than they have.  An exaggerated reputation may\nnourish conceit or win favor; but the wise and the good put away\nconceit, and desire not favors which are granted from mistaken notions.\n\n\"I hate false words,\" says Landor, \"and seek with care, difficulty, and\nmoroseness those that fit the thing.\"\n\nDwell not with complacency upon aught thou hast or hast achieved, but\naddress thyself each day, like a simple-hearted child, to the task God\nsets thee; and remember when the last hour comes thou canst carry\nnothing to Him but faith in His mercy and goodness.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\nTRUTH AND LOVE.\n\nTruth, which only doth judge itself, teacheth that the inquiry of\ntruth, which is the love-making or wooing of it; the knowledge of\ntruth, which is the presence of it; and the belief of truth, which is\nthe enjoying of it, is the sovereign good of human nature.--BACON.\n\n\nAs those who have little think their little much, so those who have few\nideas believe with obstinacy that they are the sum of all truth.  If\nthe world could but be made to see what they see there would be no\nills.  They have not even a suspicion of the unutterable complexity of\nthe warp and woof of nature and of life; and when their opinions are\ncombated they imagine they thereby acquire new importance, and they\ndefend them with such zeal that they make proselytes and found sects in\nreligion, politics, and literature.  The source of the greater part of\nerror is the absoluteness the mind attributes to its knowledge and, as\npart of this, the persuasion that at each stage of our mental life, we\nare capable of seeing things as they are.  The aim of the philosopher,\nas of the Christian, is to escape from the ephemeral self by renouncing\nwhat is petty, partial, apparent, and transitory, that the true self\nmay unfold in the world of the permanent, of things which have an\naptitude for perpetuity; but the philosopher's efforts are intellectual\nand moral, while the Christian's source of strength is the love which\nis enrooted in divine faith.\n\n\"The brief precept,\" says St. Augustine, \"is given there once for\nall,--Love, and do what thou wilt.  If thou art silent, be silent for\nlove; if thou speakest, speak for love; if thou correctest, correct for\nlove; if thou sparest, spare for love.  The root of love is within, and\nfrom it only good can come.\"  Life springs from love, and love is its\nbeing, aim, and end.  Each soul is born of souls yearning that he be\nborn, and he lives only so far as he leaves himself and becomes through\nlove part of the life of God and the race of man.\n\nPrimordial matter, with which the physicists start, is twin brother of\nnothing.  In every conceivable hypothesis, we assume either that\nnothing is the cause of something, or that from the beginning there was\nsomething or some one who is all the universe may become.  If truth and\nlove and goodness are of the essence of the highest life evolved in\nnature, they are of the essence of that by which nature exists and\nenergizes.  If reason is valid at all, it avails as an immovable\nfoundation for faith in God and in man's kinship with him.  The larger\nthe world we live in, the greater the opportunities for self-education.\nHe who knows friends and foes, who is commended and found fault with,\nwho tastes the delights of home and breathes the air of strange lands,\nwho is followed and opposed, who triumphs and suffers defeat, who\ncontends with many and is left alone, who dwells with his own thoughts\nand in the company of the great minds of all time,--necessarily gains\nwisdom and power, and learns to feel himself a man.\n\nScience springs from man's yearning for truth; art, from his yearning\nfor beauty; religion, from his yearning for love: and as truth, beauty,\nand love are a harmony, so are science, art, and religion; and if\nconflicts arise, they are the results of ignorance and passion.  The\ncharm of faith, hope, and love, of knowledge, beauty, and religion,\nlies in their power to open life's prison, thus permitting the soul to\nescape to commune with the Infinite and Eternal, with the boundless\nmysterious world of being which forever draws us on and forever eludes\nour grasp.  The higher the man, the more urgent this need of\nself-escape.\n\nWe look upon lifelong imprisonment of the body as among the greatest of\nevils, but that the mind should be suffered to languish in the dungeon\nof ignorance, error, and prejudice, seems comparatively a slight thing.\nThy whole business, as a rational being, is to know and follow\ntruth,--with gratitude and joy if possible, but, in any case, with\ncourage and resignation.  Mind maketh man; and the most money and place\ncan do, is to make millionnaires and titularies.\n\nThe Alpine guides, who lead travellers through the sublimest scenery in\nthe world, are as insensible to its grandeur as the stocks they grasp;\nand we nearly all are as indifferent as these drudges to Nature's\ndivine spectacle, with its starlit heavens, its risings and settings of\nsun and moon, its storms and calms, its changes of season, its clouds\nand snows and breath of many-tinted flowers, its children's faces, and\nplumage and songs of birds.\n\nAs we judge of many things by samples, a glance may suffice to show the\nworthlessness of a book, but the value of one that is genuine is not\nquickly perceived, for it reveals itself the more the oftener it is\nread and pondered.  There is not a more certain, a purer, or a more\ndelightful source of contentment and independence than a taste for the\nbest literature.  In the midst of occupations and cares of whatever\nkind it enables us to look forward to the hour when the noblest minds\nand most generous hearts shall welcome us to their company to be\nentertained with great thoughts rightly uttered and with information\nconcerning whatever is of interest to man.\n\nIn every home the best works of the great poets, historians,\nphilosophers, orators, and story-writers should lie within reach of the\nyoung, who should be permitted, not urged, to read them.  We may know a\nman by the company he keeps; we may know him better still by the books\nhe loves: and if he loves none, he is not worth knowing.\n\nMatthew Arnold praises culture for \"its inexhaustible indulgence, its\nconsideration of circumstances, its severe judgment of actions joined\nto its merciful judgment of persons.\"\n\nWhen we have learned to love work, to love honest work, work well done,\nexcellently well done, we have within ourselves the most fruitful\nprinciple of education.\n\nWho shall speak ill of bodily health and vigor?  Herbert Spencer\naffirms that it is man's first duty to be a good animal.  But since we\ncannot all be athletes or be well even, let us not refuse to find\nconsolation in the fact that much of what is greatest, whether in the\nworld of thought or action, has been wrought by mighty souls in feeble\nand suffering bodies; and since men gladly risk health and life to\nacquire gold, shall we not be willing, if need be, to be \"sicklied o'er\nwith the pale cast of thought,\" if so we may attain to truth and love?\n\nGreat things are accomplished only by concentration.  What we ourselves\nthink, love, and do, until it becomes a habit, is the form and\nsubstance of our life.\n\nTo live in the company of those who have or seek culture is to breathe\nthe vital air of mental health and vigor.\n\nThe scientific investigator gives his whole attention to the facts\nbefore him; but the discipline of close observation, however favorable\nit may be to accuracy, weakens capacity for wide and profound views.\nOn the other hand, the speculative thinker is apt to grow heedless or\noblivious of facts.  Hence a minute observer is seldom a great\nphilosopher, a great philosopher rarely a careful observer.\n\n\"Employment,\" says Ruskin, \"is the half, and the primal half of\neducation, for it forms the habits of body and mind, and these are the\nconstitution of man.\"  Tell me at and in what thou workest, and I will\ntell thee what thou art.  The secret of education lies in the words of\nChrist,--He that hath eyes to see, let him see; he that hath ears to\nhear, let him hear.  The soul must flow through the channels of the\nsenses until it meets the universe and clothes it with the beauty and\nmeaning which reveal God.\n\nWhen I think of all the truth which still remains for me to learn, of\nall the good I yet may do, of all the friends I still may serve, of all\nthe beauty I may see, life seems as fresh and fair, as full of promise,\nas is to loving souls the dawn of their bridal day.  Animals, children,\nsavages, the thoughtless and frivolous, live in the present alone; they\nconsequently lead a narrow, ephemeral, and superficial existence.  They\nstrike no deep roots into the past, they forebode no divine future,\nthey enter not behind the veil where the soul finds ever-during truth\nand power.\n\n  \"The world is too much with us; late and soon,\n  Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers.\"\n\n\nWhatever sets the mind in motion may lead us to secret worlds, though\nit be a falling apple, as with Newton, or the swing of the pendulum, as\nwith Galileo, or a boy's kite, as with Franklin, or throwing pebbles\ninto the water, as with Turner.  Watt sat musing by the fire, and\nnoticed the rise and fall of the lid of the boiling kettle, and the\nsteam engine, like a vision from unknown spheres, rose before his\nimagination.  A child, carelessly playing with the glasses that lay on\nthe table of a spectacle-maker, gave the clew to the invention of the\ntelescope.  The pestle, flying from the hand of Schwarz, told him he\nhad found the explosive which has transformed the world.  Drifting\nplants, of a strange species, whispered to Columbus of a continent that\nlay across the Atlantic.  Patient observation and work are the\nmightiest conquerors.\n\nAmong the maxims, called triads, which have come down to us from the\nCeltic bards, we find this: \"The three primary requisites of\ngenius,--an eye that can see nature; a heart that can feel nature; and\nboldness that dares follow nature.\"  He who has no philosophy and no\nreligion, no theory of life and the world, has nothing which he finds\nit greatly important to say or do.  He lacks the impulse of genius, the\neducator's energy and enthusiasm.  Having no ideal, he has no end to\nwhich he may point and lead.  To do well it is necessary to believe in\nthe worth of what we do.  The power which upholds and leads us on is\nfaith,--faith in God, in ourselves, in life, in education.\n\nForever to be blessed and cherished is the love-inspired mother or the\nteacher whose generous heart and luminous mind first leads us to\nbelieve in the priceless worth of wisdom and virtue, thus kindling\nwithin the soul a quenchless fire which warms and irradiates our whole\nbeing.\n\nTo be God's workman, to strive, to endure, to labor, even to the end,\nfor truth and righteousness, this is life.\n\n\"My desire,\" says Dante, \"and my will rolled onward, like a wheel in\neven motion, swayed by the love which moves the sun and all the stars.\"\n\nIf there are any who shrink from wrong more than from disgrace they\nbest deserve to be called religious.\n\nStrive not to be original or profound, but to think justly and to\nexpress clearly what thou seest; and so it may happen that thy view\nshall pierce deeper than thou knowest.\n\nThe words and deeds which are most certain to escape oblivion are those\nwhich nourish the higher life of the soul.  Self-love, the love of\none's real self, of one's soul, is the indispensable virtue.  It is\nthis we seek when we strive to know and love truth and justice; it is\nthis we seek, when we love God and our fellow-men.  In turning from\nourselves to find them, we still seek ourselves; in abandoning life we\nseek richer and fuller life.\n\nTruth separate from love is but half truth.  Think of that which unites\nthee with thy fellows rather than of what divides thee from them.\nReligion is the bond of love, and not a subject for a debating club.\nIf thou wouldst refute thy adversaries, commit the task to thy life\nmore than to thy words.  Read the history of controversy and ask\nthyself whether there is in it the spirit of Christ, the meek and lowly\nOne?  Its champions belong to the schools of the sophists rather than\nto the worshippers of God in spirit and in truth.  And what has been\nthe issue of all their disputes but hatreds and sects, persecutions and\nwars?  If it is my duty to be polite and helpful to my neighbor, it is\nplainly also my duty to treat his opinions and beliefs with\nconsideration and fairness.\n\nThere is a place in South America where the whole population have the\ngoitre, and if a stranger who is free from the deformity chances to\npass among them, they jeer and cry, \"There goes one who has no goitre.\"\nWhat could be more delightfully human?  We think it a holy thing to put\ndown duelling, the battle of one with one; but we are full of\nenthusiasm over battles of a hundred thousand with a hundred thousand.\nThus the Southern slave-owners were sworn advocates of the rights of\nman and of popular liberty.\n\nThe explanation of many provoking things is to be found in Dr.\nJohnson's words,--\"Ignorance, simple ignorance;\" but of many more\nprobably in these other words,--Greed, simple greed.\n\n\"In science,\" says Bulwer, \"read by preference the newest books; in\nliterature, the oldest.\"  This is wiser than Emerson's saying: \"Never\nread a book which is not a year old.\"\n\nThe facility with which it is now possible to get at whatever is known\non any subject has a tendency to create the opinion that reading up in\nthis or that direction is education, whereas such reading as is\ngenerally done, is unfavorable to discipline of mind.  Shall our\nChautauquas and summer schools help to foster this superstition?\n\nWhat passion can be more innocent than the passion for knowledge?  And\nwhat passion gives better promise of blessings to one's self and to\none's fellow-men?  Why desire to have force and numbers on thy side?\nIs it not enough that thou hast truth and justice?\n\nThe loss of the good opinion of one's friends is to be regretted, but\nthe loss of self-respect is the only true beggary.\n\nZeal for a party or a sect is more certain of earthly reward than zeal\nfor truth and religion.\n\nAs it is unfortunate for the young to have abundance of money, fine\nclothes, and social success, so popularity is hurtful to the prosperity\nof the best gifts.  It draws the mind away from the silence and\nstrength of eternal truth and love into a world of clamor and noise.\nPatience is the student's great virtue; it is the mark of the best\nquality of mind.  It takes an eternity to unfold a universe; man is the\nsum of the achievements of innumerable ages, and whatever endures is\nslow in acquiring the virtues which make for permanence.\n\nThe will to know, manifesting itself in persistent impulse, in\nnever-satisfied yearning, is the power which urges to mental effort and\nenables us to attain culture.\n\n\"If a thing is good,\" says Landor, \"it may be repeated.  The repetition\nshows no want of invention; it shows only what is uppermost in the\nmind, and by what the writer is most agitated and inflamed.\"  What hast\nthou learned to admire, to long for, to love, genuinely to hope for and\nbelieve?  The answer tells thy worth and that of the education thou\nhast received.\n\nWhen we have said a thousand things in praise of education, we must, at\nlast, come back to the fundamental fact that nearly everything depends\non the kind of people of whom we are descended, and on the kind of\nfamily in which our young years have passed.  Nearly everything, but\nnot everything; and it is this little which makes liberty possible,\nwhich inspires hope and courage, which, like the indefinable something\nthat gives the work of genius its worth and stamp, makes us children of\nGod and masters of ourselves.  \"Wisdom is the principal thing,\" says\nSolomon; \"therefore get wisdom, and with all thy getting, get\nunderstanding.\"\n\nHe who makes himself the best man is the most successful one, while he\nwho gains most money or notoriety may fail utterly as man.\n\nWith the advance of civilization our wants increase; and yet it is the\nbusiness of religion and culture to raise us above the things money\nbuys, and consequently to diminish our wants.  They who are nearest to\nGod have fewest wants; and they who know and follow truth need not\nplace or title or wealth.\n\nTo every one the tempter comes, with a thousand pretexts drawn both\nfrom the intellect and the emotional nature, promising to lull\nconscience to sleep that he may lead the lower life in peace; but he\nwho hearkens becomes a victim as helpless and as wretched as the\nvictims of alcohol and opium.\n\nIn deliberate persevering action for high ends, all the subconscious\nforces within us, the many currents, which, like hidden water-veins, go\nto make our being, are taken up and turned in a deep-flowing stream\ninto the ocean of our life.  In such course of conduct the baser self\nis swallowed, and we learn to feel that we are part of the divine\nenergy which moves the universe to finer issues.  As life is only by\nmoments and in narrow space, a little thing may disturb us and a little\nthing may take away the cause of our trouble.  We are petty beings in a\nworld of petty concerns.  A little food, a little sleep, a little joy\nis enough to make us happy.  A word can fill us with dismay, a breath\ncan blow out the flickering flame of our self-consciousness.  I often\nride among graves, and think how easy it is for the fretful children of\nmen to grow quiet.  There they lie, having become weary of their toys\nand plays, on the breast of the great mother from whom they sprang,\nabout whose face they frolicked and fought and cried for a day, and\nthen fell back into her all-receiving arms, as raindrops fall into the\nwater and mingle with it and are lost.  No sight is so pathetic as that\nof a vast throng seeking to enjoy themselves.  The hopelessness of the\ntask is visible on all their thousand faces, athwart which, while they\ntalk or listen or look, the shadow of care flits as if thrown from dark\nwings wheeling in circuits above them.  The sorrow and toil and worry\nthey have thought to put away, still lie close to them, like a burden\nwhich, having been set down, waits to be taken up again.  God surely\nsees with love and pity His all-enduring and all-hoping children; it is\nHis voice we hear in the words of Christ, \"Misereor super turbam.\"  I\ncannot but wish to be myself, and therefore to be happy; but when I\nthink of God as essential to my happiness, I feel it is enough for me\nto know and love Him; for to imagine I might be of service to Him would\nbe the fondest conceit.  But He makes it possible for me to help my\nfellows, and in doing this, I fulfil the will of Him who is the father\nof all.  The divine reveals itself in the human; and that religion\nalone is true which, striking its roots deep into humanity, exerts all\nits power to make men more godlike by making them more human.\n\nThey who in good faith inflicted the tortures of the Inquisition were\nled not by the light of reason, or that which springs from the\ncontemplation of the life of Christ, but by the notion that the rack\nand fagot are instruments of mercy, if employed to save men from\neternal torments; and tyrants, who are always cruel, gave encouragement\nand aid to the victims of fanaticism.  Why should the sorrow or the sin\nor the loss of any human being give me pleasure?  Is it not always the\nsame story?  In the fall of one we all are degraded, since, whoever\nfails, it is our common nature which suffers hurt.\n\nWhether or not we have come forth from a merely animal condition, let\nus thank God we are human, and bend all our energies to remove the race\nfarther and farther from the life over which thought and love and\nconscience have no dominion.\n\nIn the presence of the mighty machine, whose wheels and arms are\neverywhere, whose power is drawn from the exhaustless oceans and the\nboundless heavens, the importance of the individual dwindles and seems\nthreatened with extinction.  At such a time it is good to know that a\nright human soul is greater than a universe of machinery.\n\nWe feel that we are higher than all the suns and planets, because we\nknow and love, and they do not; but when, in the light of this\nsuperiority, we turn to the thought of our own littleness, being\nscarcely more than nothing, such trouble rises in the soul that we\nthrow ourselves upon God to escape doubt of the reality of life.  If we\nbelieve that man is what he eats, his education is simply a question of\nalimentation; but if we hold that he is what he knows, and loves, and\nyearns, and strives for, his education is a problem of soul-nutrition.\n\nThe child is made educable by its faith in the father and mother, which\nis nothing else than faith in their truth and love; and the\neducableness of the man is in proportion to his faith in the sovereign\nand infinite nature of truth and love, which is faith in God.\n\nIt is in youth that we are most susceptible of education, because it is\nthe privilege of youth to be free from tyrannic cares, and to be\nsensitive to the charm of noble and disinterested passions.  If we show\nthe young soul the way to higher worlds, he will not ask us to strew it\nwith flowers, or pave it with gold, but he will be content to walk with\nbruised feet along mountain wastes, if at the summit is illumination\nand joy and peace.\n\nAs in religion many are called but few chosen, as in the race for\nwealth and place many start but few win the prize, so in the pursuit of\nintellectual and moral excellence, of the few who begin, the most soon\nweary, while of the remnant, many grow infirm in purpose or in body\nbefore the goal is reached.\n\nTime and space, which hold all things, separate all things; but\nreligion and culture bind them into unity through faith in God and\nthrough knowledge, thus forming a communion of holy souls and noble\nminds, for whom discord and division disappear in the harmony of the\ndivine order in which temporal and spatial conditions of separateness\nyield to the eternal presence of truth and love.  New ideas seem at\nfirst to remain upon the surface of the soul, and generations sometimes\npass before they enter into its substance and become motives of\nconduct; and, in the same way, sentiments may influence conduct, when\nthe notions from which they sprang have long been rejected.  The old\ntruth must renew itself as the race renews itself; it must be\nre-interpreted and re-applied to the life of each individual and of\neach generation, if its liberating and regenerating power is to have\nfree scope.  Reason and conscience are God's most precious gifts; and\nwhat does He ask but that we make use of them?\n\nRight thinking, like right doing, is the result of innumerable efforts,\ninnumerable failures, the final outcome of which is a habit of right\nthought and conduct.\n\nWhoever believes in truth, freedom, and love, and follows after them\nwith his whole heart, walks in God's highway, which leads to peace and\nblessedness.\n\nA thing may be obscure from defect of light or defect of sight; and in\nthe same way an author may be found dull either because he is so, or\nbecause his readers are dull.  The noblest book even is but dead matter\nuntil a mind akin to its creator's awakens it to life again.\n\nThe appeal to the imagination has infinitely more charm than the appeal\nto the senses.\n\n\"But when evening falls,\" says Machiavelli, \"I go home and enter my\nstudy.  On the threshold I lay aside my country garments, soiled with\nmire, and array myself in courtly garb.  Thus attired, I make my\nentrance into the ancient courts of the men of old, where they receive\nme with love, and where I feed upon that food which only is my own, and\nfor which I was born.  For four hours' space I feel no annoyance,\nforget all care; poverty cannot frighten nor death appall me.\"  A man\nof genius works for all, for he compels all to think.  An enlightened\nmind and a generous heart make the world good and fair.\n\nWhere there is perfect confidence, conversation does not drag; while\nfor those who love it is enough that they be together: if they are\nsilent, it is well; if they speak, mere nothings suffice.\n\nThe world of knowledge, all that men know, is, in truth, little and\nsimple enough.  It seems vast and intricate because we are imperfectly\neducated.\n\nThe soul, like the body, has its atmosphere, out of which it cannot\nlive.\n\nWhen opinions take the place of convictions, ideas that of beliefs,\ngreat characters become rare.\n\nThe pith of virtue lies not in thinking, but in doing.  A real man\nstrives to assert himself; for whether he seeks wealth, or power, or\nfame, or truth, or virtue, or the good of his fellows, he knows that he\ncan succeed only through self-assertion, through the prevalence of his\nown thought and life.\n\nThey who abdicate the rights God gives the individual, seek in vain to\npreserve by constitutional enactments a semblance of liberty.\n\nIf it is human to hate whom we have injured, it is not less so to\ndespise whom we have deceived; and yet those who are easily deceived\nare the most innocent or the most high-minded and generous.  It seems\nhardly a human and must therefore be a divine thing, to live and deal\nwith men without in any way giving them trouble and annoyance.  Truth\nloves not contention, and when men fight for it, it vanishes in the\nnoise and smoke of the combat.\n\nThe controversies of the schools, whether of philosophy, theology,\nliterature, or natural science, have been among the saddest exhibitions\nof ineptitude.  Is it conceivable that a thinker, or a believer, or a\nscholar, or an investigator should wrangle in the spirit of a pothouse\npolitician?  The more certain we are of ourselves and of the truth of\nwhat we hold, the easier it is for us to be patient and tolerant.\n\nWicked is whoever finds pleasure in another's pain.  We can know more\nthan we can love.  Hence communion with the world is wider through the\nmind than through the heart, though less intimate and less satisfying.\nIt is, however, longer active, for we continue to be delighted by new\ntruth when we have ceased to care to make new friends.  Learn to bear\nthe faults of men as thou sufferest the changes of weather,--with\nequanimity; for impatience and anger will no more improve thy neighbors\nthan they will prevent its being hot or cold.  What men think or say of\nthee is unimportant--give heed to what thou thyself thinkest and sayst.\nIf thou art ignored or reviled, remember such has been the fate of the\nbest, while the world's favorites are often men of blood or lust or\nmere time-servers.  He who does genuine work is conscious of the worth\nof what he does, and is not troubled with misgivings or discouraged by\nlack of recognition.  If God looked away from His universe it would\ncease to be; and He sees him.  The more we detach ourselves from crude\nrealism, from the naive views of uneducated minds, the easier it\nbecomes for us to lead an intellectual and religious life, for such\ndetachment enables us to realize that the material world has meaning\nand beauty only when it has passed through the alembic of the spirit\nand become purified, fit object for the contemplation of God and of\nsouls.  They are true students who are drawn to seek knowledge by\nmental curiosity, by affinity with the intelligible, like that which\nbinds and holds lover to lover, making their love all-sufficient and\nabove all price.  All that is of value in thy opinions is the truth\nthey contain--to hold them dearer than truth is to be irrational and\nperverse.  Thy faith is what thou believest, not what thou knowest.\nThe crowd loves to hear those who treat the tenets of their opponents\nwith scorn, who overwhelm their adversaries with abuse, who make a\nmockery of what their foes hold sacred; but to vulgarity of this kind a\ncultivated mind cannot stoop.  To do so is a mark of ignorance and\ninferiority; is to confuse judgment, to cloud intellect, and to\nstrengthen prejudice.  If there are any who are so absurd or so\nperverse as to be unworthy of fair and rational treatment, to refute\nthem is loss of time, to occupy one's self with them is to keep bad\ncompany.  With the contentious, who are always dominated by narrow and\npetty views and motives, enter not into dispute, but look beyond to the\nwide domain of reason and to the patience and charity of Christ.  When\nminds are alive and active, opposing currents of thought necessarily\narise.  Contradiction is the salt which keeps truth from corruption.\nAs we let the light fall at different angles upon a precious stone, and\nchange our position from point to point to study a work of art, so it\nis well to give more than one expression to the same truth, that the\nintellectual rays falling upon it from several directions, and breaking\ninto new tints and shades, its full meaning and worth may finally be\nbrought clearly into view.  If those with whom thou art thrown appear\nto thee to be hard and narrow, call to mind that they have the same\ntroubles and sorrows as thyself, essentially too the same thoughts and\nyearnings; and as, in spite of all thy faults, thou still lovest\nthyself, so love them too, even though they be too warped and\nprejudiced to appreciate thy worth.\n\n  The wise man never utters words of scorn,\n  For he best knows such words are devil-born.\n\n\nOur opponents are as necessary to us as our friends, and when those who\nhave nobly combated us die, they seem to take with them part of our\nmental vigor; they leave us with a deeper sense of the illusiveness of\nlife.  Freedom is found only where honest criticism of men and measures\nis recognized as a common right.\n\nAs one man's meat is another's poison, so in the world of intelligible\nthings what refreshes and invigorates one, may weary and depress\nanother.  What delights the child makes no impression upon the man.\nMen and women, the ignorant and the learned, philosophers and poets,\nmothers and maidens, doers and dreamers, find their entertainment\nlargely in different worlds.  Napoleon despised the idealogue; the\nidealogue sees in him but a conscienceless force.\n\nOutcries against wrong have little efficacy.  They alone improve men\nwho inspire them with new confidence, new courage, who help them to\nrenew and purify the inner sources of life.  Harsh zeal provokes\nexcess, because it provokes contradiction.  Whoever stirs the soul to\nnew depths, whoever awakens the mind to new thoughts and aspirations,\nis a benefactor.  The common man sees the fruits of his toil; the seed\nwhich divine men sow, ripens for others.  The counsels worldlings give\nto genius can only mislead.  Not only the truth which Christ taught,\nbut the truth which nearly all sublime thinkers have taught, has seemed\nto the generation to which it was announced but a beggarly lie.  The\npowerful have sneered with Pilate, while the mob have done the teachers\nto death.\n\nMake truth thy garb, thy house, wherein thou movest and dwellest, and\nart comfortable and at home.\n\nIf thou knowest what thou knowest and believest what thou believest,\nthou canst not be disturbed by contradiction, but shalt feel that thy\nopposers are appointed by God to confirm thee in truth.\n\nAs the merchant keeps journal and ledger, so should he whose wealth is\ntruth, take account in writing of the thoughts he gains from\nobservation, reflection, reading, and intercourse with men.  We become\nperfectly conscious of our impressions only in giving expression to\nthem; hence ability to express what we feel and know is one of the\nchief and most important aims and ends of education.\n\nWhat thou mayst not learn without employing spies, or listening to the\nstories of the malignant or the gossip of the vulgar, be content not to\nknow.\n\nOur miseries spring from idleness and sin; and idleness is sin and the\nmother of sin.  \"To confide in one's self and become something of\nworth,\" says Michelangelo, \"is the best and safest course.\"\nLife-weariness, when it is not the result of long suffering, comes of\nlack of love, for to love any human being in a true and noble way makes\nlife good.  Whatever mistakes thou mayst have made in the choice of a\nprofession and in other things, it is still possible for thee to will\nand do good, to know truth, and to love beauty, and this is the best\nlife can give.  Think of living, and thou shalt find no time to repine.\n\nThe character of the believer determines the character of his faith,\nwhatever the formulas by which it is expressed.  What we are is the\nchief constituent of the world in which we now live, and this must be\ntrue also of the world in which we believe and for which we hope.  For\nthe sensualist a spiritual heaven has neither significance nor\nattractiveness.  The highest truth the noblest see has no meaning for\nthe multitude, or but a distorted meaning.  What is divinest in the\nteaching of Christ, only one in thousands, now after the lapse of\ncenturies, rightly understands and appreciates.  It is not so much the\nthings we believe, know, and do, as the things on which we lay the\nchief stress of hope and desire, that shape our course and decide our\ndestiny.\n\nThey alone receive the higher gifts, who, to obtain them, renounce the\nlower pleasures and rewards of life.  Those races are noblest, those\nindividuals are noblest, who care most for the past and the future,\nwhose thoughts and hopes are least confined to the world of sense which\nfrom moment to moment ceaselessly urges its claims to attention.\nDesire fanned by imagination, when it turns to sensual things, makes\nmen brutish; but when its object is intellectual and moral, it lifts\nthem to worlds of pure and enduring delight.\n\nWhen we would form an estimate of a man, we consider not what he knows,\nbelieves, and does, but what kind of being his knowledge, faith, and\nworks have made of him.  He who makes us learn more than he teaches has\ngenius.  Whoever has freed himself from envy and bitterness may begin\nto try to see things as they are.\n\nEach one is the outcome of millions of causes, which, so far as he can\nsee, are accidental.  How ridiculous then to complain that if this or\nthat only had not happened, all would be well.  It is ignorance or\nprejudice to make a man's conduct an argument against the worth of his\nwritings.  Byron was a bad man, but a great poet; Bacon was venal, but\na marvellous thinker.\n\nBooks, to be interesting to the many, must abound in narrative, must\nrun on like chattering girls, and make little demand upon attention.\nThe appeal to thought is like a beggar's appeal for alms,--heeded by\none only in hundreds who pass; for, to the multitude, mental effort is\nas disagreeable as parting with their money.\n\nA newspaper is old the day after its publication, and there are many\nbooks which issue from the press withered and senile, but the best,\nlike the gods, are forever young and delightful.\n\n\"Whatever bit of a wise man's work,\" says Ruskin, \"is honestly and\nbenevolently done, that bit is his book or his piece of art.  It is\nmixed always with evil fragments,--ill-done, redundant, affected work;\nbut if you read rightly, you will easily discover the true bits, and\n_those_ are the book.\"  Again: \"No book is worth anything which is not\nworth much; nor is it serviceable until it has been read and re-read,\nand loved, and loved again; and marked so that you may refer to the\npassages you want in it.\"\n\nUnity, steadfastness, and power of will mark the great workers.  A\ndominant impulse urges them forward, and with firm tread they move on\ntill death bids them stay.  As the will succumbs to idleness and sin,\nit can be developed and maintained in health and vigor only by right\naction.\n\nIf thou makest thy intellectual and moral improvement thy chief\nbusiness, thou shalt not lack for employment, and with thy progress thy\njoy and freedom shall increase.\n\nProgress is betterment of life.  The accumulation of discoveries, the\nmultiplication of inventions, the improvement of the means of comfort,\nthe extension of instruction, and the perfecting of methods, are\nvaluable in the degree in which they contribute to this end.  The\ncharacteristic of progress is increase of spiritual force.  In material\nprogress even, the intellectual and moral element is the value-giving\nfactor.  Progress begets belief in progress.  As we grow in worth and\nwisdom, our faith in knowledge and conduct is developed and confirmed,\nand with more willing hearts we make ourselves the servants of\nrighteousness and love; for in the degree in which religion and culture\nprevail within us, co-operation for life tends to supersede the\nstruggle for life, which if not the dominant law, is, at least, the\ngeneral course of things when left to Nature's sway.\n\nCatchwords, such as progress, culture, enlightenment, and liberty, are\nfor the multitude rarely more than psittacisms, mere parrot sounds.  So\nlong as we genuinely believe in an ideal and strive to incarnate it,\nthe spirit of hope kindles the flame of enthusiasm within the breast.\nIts attainment, however, if the ideal is sensual or material, leads to\ndisappointment and weariness.  Behold yonder worshipper at the shrine\nof money and pleasure, whose life is but a yawn between his woman and\nhis wine.  But if the ideal is spiritual, failure in the pursuit cannot\ndishearten us, and success but opens to view diviner worlds towards\nwhich we turn our thought and love with self-renewing freshness of mind.\n\nIf thou seekest for beauty, it is everywhere; if for hideousness, it\ntoo is everywhere.\n\nTo believe in one's self, to have genuine faith in the impressions,\nthoughts, hopes, loves, and aspirations which are in one's own soul,\nand to strive ceaselessly to come to clear knowledge of this inner\nworld which each one bears within himself, is the secret of culture.\nTo bend one's will day by day to the weaving this light of the mind and\nwarmth of the heart into the substance of life, into conduct, is the\nsecret of character.  At whatever point of time or space we find\nourselves, we can begin or continue the task of self-improvement; for\nthe only essential thing is the activity of the soul, seeking to become\nconscious of itself, through and in God and His universe.\n\n  The little bird upbuilds its nest\n  Of little things by ceaseless quest:\n  And he who labors without rest\n  By little steps will reach life's crest.\n\n\nThe true reader is brought into contact with a personality which\nreveals itself or permits its secret to be divined.  In spirit and\nimagination he lives the life of the author.  In his book he finds the\nexperience and wisdom of years compressed into a few pages which he\nreads in an hour.  The vital sublimation of what made a man is thus\ngiven him in its essence to exalt or to degrade, to inspire or to\ndeaden his soul.  In looking through the eyes of another, he learns to\nsee himself, to understand his affinities and his tendencies, his\nstrength and his weakness.  Eat this volume and go speak to the\nchildren of Israel, said the spirit to the prophet Ezekiel.  The\nmeaning is--mentally devour, digest, and assimilate the book into the\nfibre and structure of thy very being, and then shalt thou be able to\nutter words of truth and wisdom to God's chosen ones.  The world's\nspiritual wealth, so far as it has existence other than in the minds of\nindividuals, is stored in literature, in books,--the great\ntreasure-house of the soul's life, of what the best and greatest have\nthought, known, believed, felt, suffered, desired, toiled, and died\nfor; and whoever fails to make himself a home in this realm of truth,\nlight, and freedom, is shut out from what is highest and most divine in\nhuman experience, and sinks into the grave without having lived.\n\nTo those who have uttered themselves in public speech, there comes at\ntimes a feeling akin to self-reproach.  They have taken upon themselves\nthe office of teacher, and yet what have they taught that is worth\nknowing and loving?  They have lost the privacy in which so much of the\ncharm and freedom of life consists; they have been praised or blamed\nwithout discernment; and a great part of what they have said and\nwritten seems to themselves little more than a skeleton from which the\nliving vesture has fallen.  Ask them not to encourage any one to become\nan author.  The more they have deafened the world with their voices,\nthe more will they, like Carlyle, praise the Eternal Silence.  They\nhave in fact been taught, by hard experience, that the worth of life\nlies not in saying or writing anything whatever, but in pure faith, in\nhumble obedience, in brave and steadfast striving.  The woman who\nsweeps a room, the mother who nurses her child, the laborer who sows\nand reaps, believing and feeling that they are working with God, are\nleading nobler lives and doing diviner things than the declaimers and\ntheorizers, and the religion which upholds them and lightens their\nburdens is better than all the philosophies.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\nTHE MAKING OF ONE'S SELF.\n\nThe wise man will esteem above everything and will cultivate those\nsciences which further the perfection of his soul.--PLATO.\n\n\nIt has become customary to call these endings of the scholastic year\ncommencements; just as the people of the civilized world have agreed to\nmake themselves absurd by calling the ninth month the seventh, the\ntenth the eighth, the eleventh the ninth, and the twelfth the tenth.\nAnd, indeed, the discourses which are delivered on these occasions\nwould be more appropriate and more effective if made to students who,\nhaving returned from the vacations with renewed physical vigor, feel\nalso fresh urgency to exercise of mind.  But now, so little is man in\nlove with truth, the approach of the moment when you are to make escape\nand find yourselves in what you imagine to be a larger and freer world,\noccupies all your thoughts, and thrills you with an excitement which\nmakes attention difficult; and, like the noise of crowds and brazen\ntrumpets, prevents the soul from mounting to the serene world where\nalone it is free and at home.\n\nSince, however, the invitation with which I have been honored directs\nmy address to the graduates of Notre Dame in this her year of Golden\nJubilee, I may, without abuse of the phrase, entitle it a commencement\noration; for the day on which a graduate worthy of the name leaves his\ncollege is the commencement day of a new life of study, more earnest\nand more effectual than that which is followed within academic walls,\nbecause it is the result of his sense of duty alone and of his\nuncontrolled self-activity.  And, though I am familiar with the serious\ndisadvantages with which a reader as compared with a speaker has to\ncontend, I shall read my address, if for no other reason, because I\nshall thus be able to measure my time; and if I am prolix, I shall be\nso maliciously, and not become so through the obliviousness which may\nresult from the illusive enthusiasm that is sometimes produced in the\nspeaker by his own vociferation, and which he fondly imagines he\ncommunicates to his hearers.\n\nThe chief benefit to be derived from the education we receive in\ncolleges and universities, and from the personal contact into which we\nare there thrown with enlightened minds, is the faith it tends to\ninspire and confirm in the worth of knowledge and culture, of conduct\nand religion; for nothing else we there acquire will abide with us as\nan inner impulse to self-activity, a self-renewing urgency to the\npursuit of excellence.  If we fail, we fail for lack of faith; but\nbelief is communicated from person to person,--_fides ex auditu_,--and\nto mediate it is the educator's chief function.  Through daily\nintercourse with one who is learned and wise and noble, the young gain\na sense of the reality of science and culture, of religion and\nmorality; which thus cease to be for them vague somethings of which\nthey have heard and read, and become actual things,--realities, like\nmonuments they have inspected, or countries through which they have\ntravelled.  They have been taken by the hand and led where, left to\nthemselves, they would never have gone.  The true educator inspires not\nonly faith, but admiration also, and confidence and love,--all\nsoul-evolving powers.  He is a master whose pupils are\ndisciples,--followers of him and believers in the wisdom he teaches.\nHe founds a school which, if it does not influence the whole course of\nthought and history, like that of Plato or Aristotle, does at least\nform a body of men, distinguished by zeal for truth and love of\nintellectual and moral excellence.  To be able thus, in virtue of one's\nintelligence and character, to turn the generous heart and mind of\nyouth to sympathy with what is intelligible, fair, and good in thought\nand life, is to be like God,--is to have power in its noblest and most\nhuman form; and its exercise is the teacher's chief and great reward.\nTo be a permanent educational force is the highest earthly distinction.\nIs not this the glory of the founders of religions, of the discoverers\nof new worlds?\n\nIn stooping to the mind and heart of youth, to kindle there the divine\nflame of truth and love, we ourselves receive new light and warmth.  To\nlisten to the noise made by the little feet of children when at play,\nand to the music of their merry laughter, is pleasant; but to come\nclose to the aspiring soul of youth, and to feel the throbbings of its\ndeep and ardent yearnings for richer and wider life, is to have our\nfaith in the good of living revived and intensified.  It is the divine\nprivilege of the young to be able to believe that the world can be\nmoulded and controlled by thought and spiritual motives; and in\nbreathing this celestial air, the choice natures among them learn to\nbecome sages and saints; or if it be their lot to be thrown into the\nfierce struggles where selfish and cruel passions contend for the\nmastery over justice and humanity, they carry into the combat the\nserene strength of reason and conscience; for their habitual and real\nhome is in the unseen world, where what is true and good has the\nOmnipotent for its defence.  Of this soul of youth we may affirm\nwithout fear of error--\n\n  \"The soul seeks God; from sphere to sphere it moves,\n  Immortal pilgrim of the Infinite.\"\n\n\nLife is the unfolding of a mysterious power, which in man rises to\nself-consciousness, and through self-consciousness to the knowledge of\na world of truth and order and love, where action may no longer be left\nwholly to the sway of matter or to the impulse of instinct, but may and\nshould be controlled by reason and conscience.  To further this process\nby deliberate and intelligent effort is to educate.  Hence education is\nman's conscious co-operation with the Infinite Being in promoting the\ndevelopment of life; it is the bringing of life in its highest form to\nbear upon life, individual and social, that it may raise it to greater\nperfection, to ever-increasing potency.  To educate, then, is to work\nwith the Power who makes progress a law of living things, becoming more\nand more active and manifest as we ascend in the scale of being.  The\nmotive from which education springs is belief in the goodness of life\nand the consequent desire for richer, freer, and higher life.  It is\nthe point of union of all man's various and manifold activity; for\nwhether he seeks to nourish and preserve his life, or to prolong and\nperpetuate it in his descendants, or to enrich and widen it in domestic\nand civil society, or to grow more conscious of it through science and\nart, or to strike its roots into the eternal world through faith and\nlove, or in whatever other way he may exert himself, the end and aim of\nhis aspiring and striving is educational,--is the unfolding and\nuplifting of his being.\n\nThe radical craving is for life,--for the power to feel, to think, to\nlove, to enjoy.  And as it is impossible to reach a state in which we\nare not conscious that this power may be increased, we can find\nhappiness only in continuous progress, in ceaseless self-development.\nThis craving for fulness of life is essentially intellectual and moral,\nand its proper sphere of action is the world of thought and conduct.\nHe who has a healthy appetite does not long for greater power to eat\nand drink.  A sensible man who has sufficient wealth for independence\nand comfort does not wish for more money; but he who thinks and loves\nand acts in obedience to conscience feels that he is never able to do\nso well enough, and hence an inner impulse urges him to strive for\ngreater power of life, for perfection.  He is akin to all that is\nintelligible and good, and is drawn to bring himself into\never-increasing harmony with this high world.  Hence attention is for\nhim like a second nature, for attention springs from interest; and\nsince he feels an affinity with all things, all things interest him.\nAnd what is thus impressed upon his mind and heart he is impelled to\nutter in deed or speech or gesture or song, or in whatever way thought\nand sentiment may manifest themselves.  Attention and expression are\nthus the fundamental forms of self-activity, the primary and essential\nmeans of education, of developing intellectual and moral power.\n\nInterest is aroused and held by need, which creates desire.  If we are\nhungry, whatever may help us to food interests us.  Our first and\nindispensable interests relate to the things we need for\nself-preservation and the perpetuation of the race; and to awaken\ndesire and stimulate effort to obtain them, instinct is sufficient, as\nwe may see in the case of mere animals.  But as progress is made,\nhigher and more subtle wants are developed.  We crave for more than\nfood and wife and children.  The social organism evolves itself; and as\nits complexity increases, the relations of the individual to the body\nof which he is a member are multiplied, and become more intricate.  As\nwe pass from the savage to the barbarous, and from the barbarous to the\ncivilized state, intellect and conscience are brought more and more\ninto play.  Mental power gains the mastery over brute force, and little\nby little subdues the energies of inorganic nature, and makes them\nserve human ends.  Iron is forced to become soft and malleable, and to\nassume every shape; the winds bear man across the seas; the sweet and\ngentle water is imprisoned and tortured until with its fierce breath it\ndoes work in comparison with which the mythical exploits of gods and\ndemi-gods are as the play of children.  Strength of mind and character\ntakes precedence of strength of body.  Hercules and Samson are but\nhelpless infants in the presence of the thinker who reads Nature's\nsecret and can compel her to do his bidding.  If we bend our thoughts\nto this subject, we shall gain insight into the meaning and purpose of\neducation, which is nothing else than the urging of intellect and\nconscience to the conquest of the world, and to the clear perception\nand practical acknowledgment of the primal and fundamental truth that\nman is man in virtue of his thought and love.\n\nInstruction, which is but part of education, has for its object the\ndevelopment of the intellect and the transmission of knowledge.  This,\nwhether we consider the individual or society, is indispensable.  It is\ngood to know.  Knowledge is not only the source of many of our highest\nand purest joys, but without it we can attain neither moral nor\nmaterial good in the nobler forms.  Virtue when it is enlightened gains\na higher quality.  And if we hold that action and not thought is the\nend of life, we cannot deny that action is, in some degree at least,\ncontrolled and modified by thought.  Nevertheless, instruction is not\nthe principal part of education; for human worth is more essentially\nand more intimately identified with character and heart than with\nknowledge and intellect.  What we will is more important than what we\nknow; and the importance of what we know is derived largely from its\ninfluence on the will or conduct.\n\nA nation, like an individual, receives rank from character more than\nfrom knowledge; since the true measure of human worth is moral rather\nthan intellectual.  The teaching of the school becomes a subject of\npassionate interest, through our belief in its power to educate\nsentiment, stimulate will, and mould character.  For in the school we\ndo more than learn the lessons given us: we live in an intellectual and\nmoral atmosphere, acquire habits of thought and behavior; and this,\nrather than what we learn, is the important thing.  To imagine that\nyouths who have passed through colleges and universities, and have\nacquired a certain knowledge of languages and sciences, but have not\nformed strongly marked characters, should forge to the front in the\nworld and become leaders in the army of religion and civilization, is\nto cherish a delusion.  The man comes first; and scholarship without\nmanhood will be found to be ineffectual.  The semi-culture of the\nintellect, which is all a mere graduate can lay claim to, will but help\nto lead astray those who lack the strength of moral purpose; and they\nwhom experience has made wise expect little from young men who have\nbright minds and have passed brilliant examinations, but who go out\ninto the world without having trained themselves to habits of patient\nindustry and tireless self-activity.\n\nMan is essentially a moral being; and he who fails to become so, fails\nto become truly human.  Individuals and nations are brought to ruin not\nby lack of knowledge, but by lack of conduct.  \"Now that the world is\nfilled with learned men,\" said Seneca, \"good men are wanting.\"  He was\nNero's preceptor, and saw plainly how powerless intellectual culture\nwas to save Rome from the degeneracy which undermined its civilization\nand finally brought on its downfall.  If in college the youth does not\nlearn to govern and control himself,--to obey and do right in all\nthings, not because he has not the power to disobey and do wrong, but\nbecause he has not the will,--nothing else he may learn will be of\ngreat service.  It seems to me I perceive in our young men a lack of\nmoral purpose, of sturdiness, of downright obstinate earnestness, in\neverything--except perhaps in money-getting pursuits; for even in these\nthey are tempted to trust to speculation and cunning devices rather\nthan to persistent work and honesty, which become a man more than\ncrowns and all the gifts of fortune.  Without truthfulness, honesty,\nhonor, fidelity, courage, integrity, reverence, purity, and\nself-respect no worthy or noble life can be led.  And unless we can get\ninto our colleges youths who can be made to drink into their inmost\nbeing this vital truth, little good can be accomplished there.  Now, it\noften happens that these institutions are, in no small measure, refuges\ninto which the badly organized families of the wealthy send their sons\nin the vain expectation that the fatal faults of inheritance and\ndomestic training will be repaired.  In college, as wherever there are\nmen, quality is more precious than quantity.  The number of students is\ngreat enough when they are of the right kind; and the work which now\nlies at our hand is to make it possible that those who have talent and\nthe will to improve themselves may enter our institutions of learning.\nBut those who are shown to be insusceptible of education should be\neliminated; for they profit not themselves, and are a hindrance to the\nothers.\n\nGladly I turn from them to you, young gentlemen, who have persevered in\nthe pursuit of knowledge and virtue, and to-day are declared worthy to\nreceive the highest honor Notre Dame can confer.  The deepest and the\nbest thing in us is faith in reason; for when we look closely, we\nperceive that faith in God, in the soul, in good, in freedom, in truth,\nis faith in reason.  Individuals, nations, the whole race, wander in a\nmaze of errors.  The world of the senses is apparent and illusive, that\nof pure thought vague and shadowy.  Science touches but the form and\nsurface; speculation is swallowed in abysses and disperses itself;\nignorance darkens, passion blinds the mind; the truth of one age\nbecomes the error of a succeeding; opinions change from continent to\ncontinent and from century to century.  The more we learn, the less we\nknow; and what we most of all desire to know eludes our grasp.  But,\nnevertheless, our faith in reason is unshaken; and holding to this\nfaith, we hold to God, to good, to freedom, and to truth.\n\nGoodness is the radical principle; the good, the primal aim and final\nend of life; for the good is whatever is helpful to life.  Hence what\nis true is good, what is useful is good, what is fair is good, what is\nright is good; and the true, the useful, the fair, and the right are\nintertwined and circle about man like a noble sisterhood, to waken him\nto life, and to urge him toward God, the supreme good, whose being is\npower, wisdom, love without limit.  The degree of goodness in all\nthings is measured by their approach to this absolute Being.  Hence the\ngreater our strength, wisdom, and love, the greater our good, the\nricher and more perfect our life.  There is no soul which does not bow\nwith delight and reverence before Beauty and Power; and when we come to\ntrue insight, we perceive that holiness is Beauty and goodness Power.\nGenuine spiritual power is from God, and compels the whole mechanic\nworld to acknowledge its absoluteness.  The truths of religion and\nmorality are of the essence of our life; they cannot be learned from\nanother, but must be wrought into self-consciousness by our own\nthinking and doing,--by habitual meditation, and constant obedience to\nconscience.  Virtue, knowledge, goodness, and greatness are their own\nreward: they are primarily and essentially ends, and only incidentally\nmeans.  Hence those who strive for perfection with the view thereby to\ngain recognition, money, or place, do not really strive for perfection\nat all.  They are also unwise; for virtue, knowledge, goodness, and\ngreatness are not the surest means to such ends, and they can be\nacquired only with infinite pains.  The highest human qualities cease\nto be the highest when they are made subordinate to the externalities\nof office and wealth.  The one aim of a mind smitten with the love of\nexcellence is to live consciously and lovingly with whatever is true or\ngood or fair.  And such a one cannot be disturbed whether by the\ngeneral indifference of men or by their praise or blame.  The\nstandpoint of the soul is: What thou art, not what others think thee.\nIf thou art at one with thy true self, God and the eternal laws bear\nthee up and onward.  The moral and the religious life interpenetrate\neach other.  To sunder them is to enfeeble both.  To weaken faith is to\nundermine character; to fail in conduct is to deprive faith of\ninspiration and vigor.  Learn to live thy religion, and thou shalt have\nlittle need or desire to argue and dispute about it.  Truth is mightier\nthan its witnesses, religion greater than its saints and martyrs.\nLearn to think, and thou shalt easily learn to live.\n\nIn the presence of the highest manifestations of thought and love, of\ntruth and beauty, nothing perfect or divine is incredible.  Men of\ngenius, philosophers, poets, and saints, who by thinking and doing make\nthis ethereal but most real world rise before us in concrete form and\nsubstance, are heavenly messengers and illuminators of the soul.  Had\nnone of them lived, how should we see and understand that man is\nGodlike and that God is truth and love?  We cannot make this high world\nplain by telling about it.  It is not a land which may be described.\nIt is a state of soul which they alone comprehend who have been\ntransformed by patient meditation and faithful striving.  But once it\nis revealed, a thousand errors and obscurities fall away from us.  If\nnot educated, strive at least to be educable,--a believer in wisdom,\nand sensitive to all high influence, and eager to be quit of thy\nignorance and hardness.  As the dead cannot produce the live, so\nmechanical minds, however much they may be able to drill, train, and\ninstruct, cannot educate.  The secret of the mother's specific\neducational power lies in the fact that she is a spiritual not a\nmechanical force, loves and is loved by her pupils.  The most ennobling\nand the most thoroughly satisfying sentiment of which we are capable is\nlove.  Until we love we are strangers to ourselves.  We are like beings\nasleep or lost to the knowledge of themselves and all things, till,\nawakening to the appeal of the pure light and the balmy air, they look\nupon what is not themselves; and, finding it fair and beautiful, learn\nin loving it to feel and know themselves.\n\nIncrease of the power to love is increase of life.  But love needs\nguidance.  We first awaken in the world of the senses, and are\nattracted by what we see and touch and taste.  The aim of education is\nto help the soul to rise above this world, in which, if we remain, we\nare little better than brutes.  Hence the teacher seeks in many ways to\nreveal to the young the fact that the perfect, the best, cannot be seen\nor touched, cannot be grasped even by the mind; but that it is,\nnevertheless, that which they should strive to make themselves capable\nof loving above all things.  And thus he prepares them to understand\nwhat is meant by the love of truth and righteousness, by the love of\nGod.  In the training of animals even, patience and gentleness are more\neffective than violence.  How, then, shall we hope by physical\nconstraint and harsh methods to educate human beings, who are human\nprecisely because they are capable of love and are swayed by rational\nmotives?  There is no soul so gross, so deeply buried in matter, but it\nshall from some point or other make a sally to show it still bears the\nimpress of God's image.  At such points the educator will keep watch,\nstudying how he may make this single ray of light interfuse itself with\nhis pupil's whole being.\n\nIt is not possible to know there is no God, no soul, no free will, no\nright or wrong; at the worst, it is only possible to doubt all this.\nThe universe is as inconceivable as God, and theories of matter as full\nof difficulties as theories of spirit.  It is a question of belief or\nunbelief; ultimately a question of health or disease, of life or death.\nThey who have no faith in God can have little faith in the worth of\nlife, which can be for them but an efflorescence of death, a sort of\ninexplicable malady of atoms dreaming they are conscious.  If the age\ntends irresistibly to destroy belief in God, the end will be the ruin\nof belief in the good of life.  In the mean while the doubt which\nweakens the springs of hope and love is not a symptom of health but of\ndisease, pregnant with suffering and misery for all, but most of all\nfor the young.  He who is loved in a true and noble way is surrounded\nby an element of spiritual light in which his worth is revealed to him.\nIn perceiving what he is to another, he comes to understand what he is\nor may be in himself.\n\nOur self respect even is largely due to the love we receive in\nchildhood and youth.  Enthusiasm springs from faith in God and in the\nsoul, which begets in us a high and heroic belief in the divine good of\nlife.  It is thus an educational force of highest value.  It calms and\nexalts the soul like the view of the starlit heavens and the\neverlasting mountains.  It is, in every good and noble cause, a\nfountain head of endurance and perseverance.  It bears us on with a\nsense of joy and vigor, such as is felt when, mounted on a high-mettled\nsteed, we ride in the pleasant air of a spring morning, amid the\nbeauties and grandeurs of nature.  In the front of battle and in the\npresence of death it throws around the soul the light of immortal\nthings.  It gives us the plenitude of existence, the full and high\nenjoyment of living.  On its wings the poet, the lover, the orator, the\nhero, and the saint are borne in rapture through worlds whose celestial\nglory and delightfulness cold and unmoved minds do not suspect.  It is\nnot a flame from the dry wood and withered grass, but a heat and glow\nfrom the abysmal depths of being.  It makes us content to follow after\ntruth and love in dark and narrow ways, as the miner, in central deeps\nwhere sunlight has never fallen, seeks his treasure.  It keeps us fresh\nand young; and, like the warmer sun, reclothes the world day by day\nwith new beauty.  It teaches patience, the love of work without haste\nand without worry.  It gives strength to hear and speak truth, and to\nwalk in the sacred way of truth, as though we but idly strolled with\npleasant friends amid fragrant flowers.  It gives us deeper\nconsciousness of our own liberty, faith in human perfectibility, which\nlies at the root of our noblest efforts; to which the more we yield\nourselves the more we feel that we are free.  It knows a thousand words\nof truth and might, which it whispers in gentlest tones to rightly\nattuned ears: Since the universe is a harmony whose diapason is God,\nwhy should thy life strike a discordant note?  Yield not to\ndiscouragement; thou art alive, and God is in His world.  The combat\nand not the victory proclaims the hero.  If thy success had been\ngreater, thou hadst been less.  The noisy participants in great\nconflicts, of whatever kind, exercise less influence upon the outcome\nthan choice spirits, who, turning aside from the thunder and smoke of\nbattle, gain in lonely striving and meditation view of new truth by\nwhich the world is transformed.\n\nWe owe more to Columbus than to Isabella; to Descartes than to Louis\nXIV.; to Bacon than to Elizabeth; to Pestalozzi than to Napoleon; to\nGoethe than to Bluecher; to Pasteur than to Bismarck.  If thou wouldst\nbe persuaded and convinced, persuade and convince thyself.  Be thy aim\nnot increase of happiness, but of knowledge, wisdom, power, and virtue;\nand thou shalt, without thinking of it, find thyself also happy.\nCharacter is formed by effort, resistance, and patience.  If necessity\nis the mother of invention, suffering is the mother of high moods and\ngreat thoughts.  Poets have sung to ease their sorrow-burdened or\nlove-tortured hearts; and the travail of souls yearning with ineffable\npain for truth has led to the nearest view of God.  Wisdom is the child\nof suffering, as beauty is the child of love.  If a truth discourages\nthee, thou art not yet ripe for it; for thee it is not yet wholly true.\nWork not like an ox at the plough, but like a setter afield; not\nbecause thou must, but because thou takest delight in thy task.  Only\nthey have come of age who have learned how to educate themselves.\nEducation, like life, works from within outward: the teacher loosens\nthe soil and removes the obstacles to light and warmth and moisture;\nbut growth comes of the activity of the soul itself.\n\nA new century will not make new men; but if, in truth, it be a new\ncentury, it will be made so by the deeper thought and diviner love of\nmen and women.  Let the old tell what they have done, the young what\nthey are doing, and fools what they intend to do.\n\nThe power to control attention, as a good rider holds his horse to the\nroad and to his gait, is a result of education; and when it is acquired\nother things become easy.\n\nLet not poverty or misfortune or insult or flattery or success, O\nseeker after truth and beauty! turn thee from thy divine task and\npurpose.  Pardon every one except thyself, and put thy trust in God and\nin thyself.  \"If I buy thee,\" asked one of a Spartan captive, \"and\ntreat thee well, wilt thou be good?\"--\"I will,\" he replied, \"if thou\nbuy me or not; or if, having bought me, thou treat me ill.\"\n\nIf there be anything of worth in thee, it will make thee strong and\ncontented; it is so good for thee to have it that thou canst easily\nforget it is unrecognized by others.\n\nIf all sufferings, sorrows, and disappointments had been left out of\nthy life, wouldst thou be more or less than thou art?  Less worthy,\ndoubtless, and less wise.  In these evils, then, there is something\ngood.  If thou couldst but bear this always in mind, thou shouldst be\nbetter able to suffer pain, whether of body or soul.  There are things\nthou hast greatly desired which, had they been given thee, would make\nthee wretched.  The wiser thou growest, the better shalt thou\nunderstand how little we know what is for the best.\n\n\"Had I but lived!\" cried Obermann.  And a woman of genius replied: \"Be\nconsoled, O Obermann!  Hadst thou lived, thou hadst lived in vain.\"  So\nit is.  In the end we neither regret that pleasures have been denied\nus, nor feel that those we have enjoyed were a gain unless they are\nassociated with the memory of high faith and thought and virtuous\naction.  He who is careful to fill his mind with truth and his heart\nwith love will not lack for retreats in which he may take refuge from\nthe stress and storms of life.  Noise, popularity, and buncombe:\nonions, smoke, and bedbugs.\n\nBe thy own rival, comparing thyself with thyself, and striving day by\nday to be self-surpassed.  If thy own little room is well lighted the\nwhole world is less dark.  If thou art busy seeking intellectual and\nmoral illumination and strength, thou shalt easily be contented.\nHigher place would mean for thee less liberty, less opportunity to\nbecome thyself.  The secret of progress lies in knowing how to make\nuse, not of what we have chosen, but of what is forced upon us.  To\noccupy one's self with trifles weans from the habit of work more\neffectually than idleness.  Perfect skill comes of talent, study, and\nexercise; and the study and exercise must continue through the whole\ncourse of life.  To cease to learn is to lose freshness and the power\nto interest.  We lack will rather than strength; are able to do more\nand better than we are inclined to do; and say we can not because we\nhave not the courage to say we will not.  The law of unstable\nequilibrium applies to thee, as to whatever has life.  Thou canst not\nremain what thou art, but must rise or fall.  The body is under the\nsway of physical law, but the progress of the mind is left in a large\nmeasure to the play of free will.  If thou willest what thou oughtest,\nthou canst do what thou willest; for obligation cannot transcend\nability.  Happy are they who from earliest youth understand the meaning\nof duty, and hearken to the stern but all-reasonable voice of this\ndaughter of God, the smile upon whose face is the fairest thing we know.\n\nHe who willingly accepts the law of moral necessity is free; for in\nthus accepting it he transcends it, and is self-determined; while he\nwho rebels against this law sinks to a lower plane of being than the\nproperly human, and becomes the slave of appetite and passion.  Duty\nmeans sacrifice; it is a turning from the animal to the spiritual self;\nfrom the allurements of the world of manifold sensation--from ease,\nidleness, gain, and pleasure--to the high and lonely regions, where the\ncommand of conscience speaks in the name of God and of the nature of\nthings.  Forget thyself and do thy best, as unconscious of\nvain-glorious thoughts as though thou wert a wind or a stream, an\nimpersonal force in the service of God and man.  Obey conscience, and\nlaugh in the face of death.  Convince thyself that the best thing for\nthee is to know truth and to make truth the law of thy life.  Let this\nfaith subordinate all else, as it is, indeed, faith in reason and in\nGod.  Abhorrence of lies is the test of character.  Hold fast by what\nthou knowest to be true, not doubting for a moment because thou canst\nnot reconcile it with other truth.  Somewhere, somehow, truth will be\nmatched with truth, as love mates heart with heart.\n\nA man's word is himself, his reason, his conscience, his faith, his\nlove, his aspiration.  If it is false or vain or vile, he is so.  It is\nthe expression of life as it has come to consciousness within him.  It\nis the revelation of quality of being; it is of the man himself, his\nsign and symbol, the form and mould and mirror of his soul.\n\n  Thou thinkest to serve God with lies,\n    Thou devil-worshipper and fool!\n\nThe moral value of the study of science lies in the love of truth it\ninspires and inculcates.  He who knows science knows that liars are\nimbeciles.  From the educator's point of view, truthfulness is the\nessential thing.  His aim and end is to teach truth, and the love of\ntruth, which leavens the whole mass and makes it life-giving.  But the\nliar has no proper virtue of any kind.\n\nThe doubt of an earnest, thoughtful, patient, and laborious mind is\nworthy of respect.  In such doubt there may be found indeed more faith\nthan in half the creeds.  But the scepticism of sciolists lacks the\ndepth and genuineness of truth.  To be frivolous where there is\nquestion of all that gives life meaning and value is want of sense.\nThe sciolist is one who has a superficial knowledge of various things,\nwhich for lack of deep views and coherent thought, for lack of the\nunderstanding of the principles of knowledge itself, he is unable to\nbring into organic unity.  The things he knows are confused and\nintermingled, and thus fail either to enlighten his mind or to impel\nhim to healthful activity.  He forms opinions lightly and pronounces\njudgment rashly.  Knowing nothing thoroughly, he has no suspicion of\nthe infinite complexity of the world of life and thought.  The evil\neffects of this semi-culture are most disagreeable and most harmful in\nthose whose being has been developed only on its temporal and earthly\nside.  Their spiritual and moral nature has no centre about which it\nmay move, and they wander on the surface of things in self-satisfied\nconceit, proclaiming that what is beyond the senses is beyond the reach\nof the mind, as though our innermost consciousness were not of what is\nintangible and invisible.\n\nAll divine things are within and about us, here and now; but we are too\ngross to see the celestial light, or to catch the whisperings of the\nheavenly voices.  God is here; but we, like plants and mollusks, live\nin worlds of which we do not dream, upheld and nourished and borne\nonward by a Power of whom we are but dimly conscious,--nay, of whom,\nfor the most part, we are unconscious.\n\nThere is a truth above the reach of logic, an impulse of the mind and\nheart which urges beyond the realms of sense, beyond the ken of the\ndialectician, to the Infinite and Eternal, before whom the material\nuniverse is but a force at whose finest touch souls awaken to the\nthrill of thought and love.\n\nWhen we are made conscious of the fact that the Divine Word is the\nlight of men, we readily understand that our every true thought, our\nevery good deed, our every deeper view of nature and of life, comes\nfrom God, who is always urging us into the glorious liberty of His\nchildren, until we become a heavenly republic in which righteousness,\npeace, and joy shall reign.  \"The restless desire of every man to\nimprove his position in the world is the motive power of all social\ndevelopment, of all progress,\" says Scherr, unable to perceive that the\nmightiest impulses to nobler and wider life have been given by those\nwho were not thinking at all of improving their position, but were\nwholly bent upon improving themselves.  Make choice, O youth! between\nhaving and being.  If having is thy aim, consent to be inferior; if\nbeing is thy aim, be content with having little.  Real students,\ncultivators of themselves, are not inspired by the love of fame or\nwealth or position, but they are driven by an inner impulse to which\nthey cannot but yield.  Their enthusiasm is not a fire that blazes for\nan hour and then dies out; it is a heat from central depths of life,\nself-fed and inextinguishable.\n\nThe impulse to nobler and freer life springs, never from masses of men,\nbut always from single luminous minds and glowing hearts.  The\nlightning of great thoughts shows the way to heroic deeds.  It is\nbetter to know than to be known, to love than to be loved, to help than\nto be helped; for since life is action, it is better to act than to be\nacted upon.  Whosoever makes himself purer, worthier, wiser, works for\nhis country, works for God.  The belief that the might of truth is so\ngreat that it must prevail in spite of whatever opposition, needs, to\nsay the least, interpretation; for it has often happened that truth has\nbeen overcome for whole generations and races; and the important\nconsideration is not whether it shall finally prevail, but whether it\nshall prevail for us, for our own age and people.  It is of the nature\nof spiritual gifts to work in every direction; they enrich the\nindividual and the nation; they develop, purify, and refine the\nintellectual, moral, and physical worlds in which men live and strive.\nThe State and the Church are organisms; the body, the social and\nreligious soul, under the guidance of God, creates for itself.  And not\nonly should there be no conflict between them, but there should be none\nbetween them and the free and full development of the individual.  A\npeasant whose mental state is what it might have been a thousand years\nago is for us, however moral and religious, an altogether\nunsatisfactory kind of man.  All knowledge is pure, and all speech is\nso if it spring from the simple desire to utter what is seen and\nrecognized as truth.  The love of liberty is rare.  It is not found in\nthose whose life-aim is money, pleasure, and place, which enslave; but\nin those who love truth, which is the only liberating power.  Knowledge\nis the correlative of being, and only a high and loving soul can know\nwhat truth is or understand what Christ meant when He said: \"Ye shall\nknow truth, and truth shall make you free.\"  High thinking and right\nloving may make enemies of those around us, but they make us Godlike.\nHow seldom in our daily experience of men do we find one who wishes to\nbe enlightened, reformed, and made virtuous!  How easy it is to find\nthose who wish to be pleased and flattered!\n\nAt no period in history has civilization been so widespread or so\ncomplex as to-day.  Never have the organs of the social body been so\nperfect.  Never has it been possible for so many to co-operate\nintelligently in the work of progress.  You, gentlemen, have youth and\nfaith and the elements of intellectual and moral culture.  In the\nfreshness and vigor of early manhood, you stand upon the threshold of\nthe new century.  You speak Shakspeare's and Milton's tongue; in your\nveins is the blood which in other lands and centuries has nourished the\nspirit which makes martyrs, heroes, and saints.  Your religion strikes\nits roots into the historic past of man's noblest achievements, and\nlooks to the future with the serene confidence with which it looks to\nGod.  Your country, if not old, is not without glory.  Its soil is as\nfertile, its climate as salubrious as its domain is vast.  It is\npeopled by that Aryan race, which, from most ancient days, has been the\ncreator and invincible defender of art and science and philosophy and\nliberty; and with all this the divine spirit and doctrine of the Son of\nMan have been interfused.\n\nWe are here in America constituted on the wide basis of universal\nfreedom, universal opportunity, universal intelligence, universal\ngood-will.  Our government is the rule of all for the welfare of all;\nit has stood the test of civil war, and in many ways proved itself both\nbeneficent and strong.  Already we have subdued this continent to the\nservice of man.  Within a hundred years we have grown to be one of the\nmost populous and wealthy and also one of the most civilized and\nprogressive nations of the earth.  Your opportunities are equal to the\nfullest measure of human worth and genius.  In the midst of a high and\nnoble environment it were doubly a disgrace to be low and base.  In\nintellectual and moral processes and results the important\nconsideration is not how much, but what and how.  How much, for\ninstance, one has read or written gives us little insight into his\nworth and character; but when we know what and how he has read and\nwritten, we know something of his life.  When I am told that America\nhas more schools, churches, and newspapers than any other land, I think\nof their kind, and am tempted to doubt whether it were not better if we\nhad fewer.\n\nThe more general and the higher the average education of the people,\nthe more urgent is the need of thoroughly cultivated and enlightened\nminds to lead them wisely.  The standard of our intellectual and\nprofessional education is still low; and neither from the press nor the\npulpit nor legislative halls do we hear highest wisdom rightly uttered.\nTo be an intellectual force in this age one must know--must know much\nand know thoroughly; for now in many places there are a few, at least,\nwho are acquainted with the whole history of thought and discovery, who\nare familiar with the best thinking of the noblest minds that have ever\nlived; and to imagine that a sciolist, a half-educated person, can have\nanything new or important to impart is to delude one's self.\n\nBut if you fail, you will fail like all who fail,--not from lack of\nknowledge, but from lack of conduct; for the burden which in the end\nbears us down is that of our moral delinquencies.  All else we may\nendure, but that is a sinking and giving way of the source of life\nitself.  It is better, in every way, that you should be true Christian\nmen than that you should do deeds which will make your names famous.\nAnd if you could believe this with all your heart, you would find peace\nand freedom of spirit, even though your labors should seem vain and\nyour lives of little moment.  The more reason and conscience are\nbrought to bear upon you, the more will you be lifted into the high and\nabiding world, where truth and love and holiness are recognized to be\nman's proper and imperishable good.  Become all it is possible for you\nto become.  What this is you can know only by striving day by day, from\nyouth to age, even unto the end; leaving the issue with God and His\nmaster-workman, Time.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\nWOMAN AND EDUCATION.\n\n  Progress, man's distinctive mark alone;\n  Not God's and not the beasts'; God is, they are;\n  Man partly is and wholly hopes to be.--Browning.\n\n\nThe partialness of man's life, the low level on which the race has been\ncontent to dwell, is attributable, in no small measure, to the\ninjustice done to woman.  It was assumed she was inferior, and to make\nthe assumption true, she was kept in ignorance, dwarfed and treated as\na means rather than as an end.\n\nThe right to grow is the primal right; it is the right to live, to\nunfold our being on every side in the ceaseless striving for truth and\nlove and beauty.  In comparison with this, purely political and civil\nrights are unimportant.  And in a free state this fundamental right\nmust not only be acknowledged and defended, but a public opinion must\nbe created which shall declare it to be the most sacred and inviolable.\nThe principle is universal, and is as applicable to woman as to man.\n\nThere is not a religion, a philosophy, a science, an art for man and\nanother for woman.  Consequently there is not, in its essential\nelements at least, an education for man and another for woman.  In\nsouls, in minds, in consciences, in hearts, there is no sex.  What is\nthe best education for woman?  That which will best help her to become\na perfect human being, wise, loving, and strong.  What is her work?\nWhatever may help her to become herself.  What is forbidden her?\nNothing but what degrades or narrows or warps.  What has she the right\nto do?  Any good and beautiful and useful thing she is able to do\nwithout hurt to her dignity and worth as a human being.\n\nBetween her and man the real question is not of more and less, of\ninferiority and superiority, but of unlikeness.  Chastity is woman's\ngreat virtue; truthfulness, which is the highest form of courage, is\nman's; yet men and women are equally bound to be chaste and truthful.\nMildness and sweet reasonableness are woman's subtlest charms; wisdom\nand valor, man's; yet women should be wise and brave, and men should be\nmild and reasonable.  The spiritual endowment of the sexes is much the\nsame, but they are not equally interested in the same things.  Man\nprefers thought; woman, sentiment; he reaches his conclusions through\nanalysis and argument; she, through feeling and intuition.  He has\ngreater power of self-control; she, of self-sacrifice.  He is guided by\nlaw and principle; she, by insight and tact; he demands justice; she,\nequity.  He wishes to be honored for wealth and position; she, for\nherself.  For him what he possesses is a means; for her, something to\nwhich she holds and is attached.  He asks for power; she, for\naffection.  He derives his idea of duty from reason; she, from faith\nand love.  He prefers science and philosophy; she, literature and art.\nHis religion is a code of morality; hers, faith and hope and love and\nimagination.  For her, things easily become persons; for him, persons\nare little more than things.  She has greater power of self-effacement,\nforgetting herself wholly in her love.  Whether she marry or become a\nnun, she abandons her name, the symbol of her identity, in proof that\nshe is dedicate to the race and to God.  The arguments of infidels have\nless weight with her than with man, for her sense of religion is more\ngenuine, her faith more inevitable.  She passes over objections as a\nchaste mind passes over what is coarse or impure.  She more easily\nfinds complacency in her appearance and surroundings, but she has less\npride and conceit than man.  She is more grateful, too, because she\nloves more, and the heart makes memory true.  If her greater fondness\nfor jewelry and showy adornment proves her to be more barbarous, her\ngreater refinement and chastity prove her to be more civilized than\nman.  And does not her delight in dress come of her care for beauty,\nwhich in a world of coarse and ugly creatures is a virtue as fair as\nthe face of spring?  Why should the flowers and the fields, the hills\nand the heavens, be beautiful, and man hideous, and the cities where he\nabides dismal?  Are we but cattle to be stalled and fed?  Are corn and\nbeef and iron the only good and useful things?  Are we not human\nbecause we think and admire, and are exalted in the presence of what is\ninfinitely true and divinely fair?\n\nFaith, hope, and love are larger and more enduring powers for woman\nthan for man.  She feeds the sacred fire which never dies on the altars\nof home and religion and country.  She lives a more interior life, and\nmore easily retains consciousness of the soul's reality and of God's\npresence.  If she speaks less of patriotism in peaceful times, in the\nhour of danger the white light flashes from her soul.  It is this that\nmakes brave men think of their mothers and wives and sisters when they\nmarch to battle.  They know that those sweet hearts, however keen the\npangs they suffer, would rather have them dead than craven.  When woman\nshall grow to the full measure of her endowments, a purer flame will\nglow upon the hearth, and love of country will be a more genuine\npassion.\n\nIf she gain a wider and more varied interest in life, she will become\nhappier, more willing and more able to help the progress of the race.\nLike man, she exists for herself and God, and in her relations to\nothers, her duties are not to the home alone, but to the whole social\nbody, religious and civil.  Whether man or woman, is a minor thing; to\nbe wise and worthy and loving is all in all.  Our deeper consciousness\nand practical recognition of the equality of the sexes is better\nevidence that we are becoming Christian and civilized than popular\ngovernment and all our mechanical devices.  We, however, still have\nprejudices as ridiculous and harmful as that which made it unbecoming\nin a woman to know anything or in a man of birth to engage in business.\nIf we hold that every human being has the right to do whatever is fair\nor noble or useful, we must also hold that it is wrong to throw\nhindrance in the way of the complete education of any human being.  We\nat last, however slowly, are approaching the standpoint of Christ, who,\nwith his divine eye upon the sexless soul, overlooks distinctions of\nsex, and placing the good of life in knowing and loving, in being and\ndoing, makes it the privilege and duty of all to help all to know and\nlove, to become and do.  Is it true?  Is it right?  These are the\nimmortal questions, springing from what within us is most like God, and\nthey who deal deceitfully with them have no claim upon attention.  They\nare jugglers and liars.\n\nWhat is developed is not really changed, but made more fully itself,\nand by giving to woman a truer education, the beauty and charm of her\nnature will be brought more effectively into play.  None of us love \"a\nwoman impudent and mannish grown;\" but knowledge and culture and\nstrength of mind and heart and body have no tendency to produce such a\ncaricature.  Whether there is question of man or woman, the aim and end\nof education is to bring forth in the individual the divine image of\nhumanity as it exists in the thought of God, as it is revealed in the\nlife of Christ.\n\n  \"Yet in the long years liker must they grow;\n  The man be more of woman, she more of man:\n  He gain in sweetness and in moral height,\n  Nor lose the wrestling thews that throw the world;\n  She mental breadth, nor fail in childward care;\n  More as the double-natured poet each.\"\n\n\nThe apothegm, man is born to do, woman to endure, no longer commends\nitself to our judgment.  Both are born to do and to endure; and in\neducating girls, we now understand that it is our business to\nstrengthen them and to stimulate them to self-activity.  We strive to\ngive them self-control, sanity, breadth of view, wide sympathies, and\nan abiding sense of justice.  One might, indeed, be tempted to think it\nwere well woman should retain a touch of folly, that she still may be\nable to believe the man she loves is half divine; but to think so one\nmust be a man, with his genius for self-conceit.  To train a girl\nchiefly with a view to success in society is to pervert, is to hinder\nfrom attaining to the power of free, rich, and varied life.  It is to\nneglect education for accomplishments; it is to prefer form to\nsubstance, manner to conduct, graceful carriage and dress to thought\nand love.  We degrade her when we consider her as little else than a\ncandidate for matrimony.  A man may remain single and become the\nnoblest of his kind, and so may a woman.  Marriage is first of all for\nthe race; the individual may stand alone and grow to the full measure\nof human strength and worth.  The popular contempt for single women who\nhave reached a certain age, is but a survival of the contempt for all\nwomen which is found among savages and barbarians.  In the education of\nwoman, as of man, the end is increase of power,--of the might there is\nin intelligence and love, of the strength there is in gentleness and\nsweetness and light, of the vigor there is in health, in the rhythmic\npulse and in deep breathing, of the sustaining joy there is in pure\naffection and in devotion to high purposes.  Whether there is question\nof boys or of girls, the safe way is to strive to make them all it is\npossible for them to become, putting our trust for the rest in human\nnature and in God; for talent, like genius, is a divine gift, and to\nprevent its development is to sin against religion and humanity.  For\ngirls as for boys, the aim should be not knowledge, but power; not\naccomplishments, but faculty.  Nine-tenths of what we learn in school\nis quickly forgotten, and is valueless unless it issue in increase of\nmoral and intellectual strength.  \"In whatever direction I turn my\nthoughts,\" says Schleiermacher, \"it seems to me that woman's nature is\nnobler and her life happier than man's; and if ever I play with an idle\nwish it is that I might be a woman.\"  Hardly any man, I imagine, would\nrather be a woman, and many women doubtless would rather be men; and\nyet there is much in Schleiermacher's thought, if we believe, as the\nwise do believe, that love is the best, and that they who love most are\nthe highest and, therefore, the happiest, since the noblest mind the\nbest contentment has.\n\n  What fountains to the desert are,\n  What flowers to the fresh young spring,\n  What heaven's breast is to the star,\n  That woman's love to earth doth bring.\n\n  Whether mid deserts she is found,\n  Or girt about by happy home,\n  Where'er she treads is holy ground\n  Above which rises love's high dome.\n\n  Or be she mother called or wife,\n  Or sister or the soul's twin mate,\n  She still is each man's best of life,\n  His crown of joy, his high estate.\n\n\nWhat is our Christian faith but the revelation of the supreme and\ninfinite worth of love, as being of the essence of God himself?  Is it\nnot easy to believe that to a loving soul in an all-chaste body the\nunseen world may lie open to view?  That Joan of Arc saw heavenly\nvisions and heard whisperings from higher worlds, who can doubt that\nhas considered how her most pure womanly soul redeemed a whole people,\nand, by them forsaken, from midst fierce flames took its flight to God?\n\nShould women vote?  The rule of the people is good only when it is the\nrule of the good and wise among the people, and of these, women, in\ngreat numbers, are part.  The leadership of the best comes near to\nbeing the leadership of God.  But the question of the suffrage for\nwomen is grave; it is one on which an enlightened mind will long hold\njudgment in suspense.  Does not political life, as it exists in our\ndemocracy, tend to corrupt both voters and office-seekers?  Is it not\nlargely a life of cant, pretence, and hypocrisy, of venality,\ncorruption, and selfishness, of lying, abuse, and vulgarity?  Do not\npublic men, like public women, sell themselves, though in a different\nway?  Is the professional politician, the professional\ncaucus-manipulator, the professional voter, the type of man we can\nadmire or respect even?  The objection so frequently raised, that\npolitical life would corrupt women, has, at least, the merit of a\ncertain grim humorousness.  Could it by any chance make them as bad as\nit makes men?  To tell them they are the queens of the home, to whom\nthe mingling with plebeians is degrading, is an insult to their\nintelligence.  We have forsworn kings and queens, both in private and\nin public life, and at home women are, for the most part, drudges.\nWhat need is there of a hollow phrase when the appeal to truth is\nobvious?\n\n  \"A servant with this clause\n    Makes drudgery divine;\n  Who sweeps a room as for thy laws,\n    Makes that and the action fine.\"\n\nActive participation in political life is not a refining, an ennobling,\na purifying influence.  Is it desirable that the half of the people to\nwhich the interests of the home, of the heart, of the religious and\nmoral education of the young are especially committed, should be hurled\ninto the maelstrom of selfish passion and coarse excitement?\n\nThe smartness and self-assertiveness of American women are already\nexcessive; they lack repose, serenity, and self-restraint.  If they\nrush into the arena of noisy and vulgar strife, will not the evil be\nincreased?  Will not the political woman lose something of the sacred\npower of the wife and mother?  Are not the primal virtues, those which\nmake life good and fair and which are a woman's glory,--are they not\nhumble and quiet and unobtrusive?  The suffrage has not emancipated the\nmasses of men, who are still held captive in the chains of poverty and\ndehumanizing toil.\n\nDo women themselves, those, at least, in whom the woman soul, which\ndraws us on and upward, is most itself, desire that the vote be given\nthem?\n\nBut whatever our opinions on the subject may be, let us not lose\ncomposure.  \"If a great change is to be made,\" says Edmund Burke, \"the\nminds of men will be fitted to it, the general opinions and feelings\nwill draw that way.  Every fear, every hope will forward it; and then\nthey who persist in opposing the mighty current will appear rather to\nresist the decrees of Providence itself than the mere designs of men.\nThey will not be resolute and firm, but perverse and obstinate.\"\n\nWhether or not woman shall become a politician, there is no doubt that\nshe is becoming a worker in a constantly widening field.  The\nelementary education of the country is already intrusted to her.  She\nis taking her position in the higher institutions of learning.  She has\ngained admission to professional life.  In the business world, her\ncompetition with man is more and more felt.  In literature, in our\ncountry at least, her appreciativeness is greater than man's, and her\nperformance not inferior to his.  There is a larger number of serious\nstudents among women than among men.  In the divinely imposed task of\nself-education, they are fast becoming the chief workers.  They are the\ngreat readers of books, especially of poetry.  The muse was the first\nschool-mistress, and the love of genuine poetry is still the finest\neducational influence.  The vulgar passions and coarse appetites which\nrob young men of faith in the higher life and of the power to labor\nperseveringly for ideal ends, have little hold upon the soul of woman.\nHer betrayers are frivolity and vanity, and a too confiding heart; and\nthe more she is educated the less will she take delight in what is\nmerely external, and the greater will become her ability to bring\nsentiment under the control of reason and conscience.\n\nThere are not two educations, then, one for man, and another for woman,\nbut both alike we bid contend to the uttermost for completeness of\nlife; bid both trust in human educableness, which makes possible the\nhope of attaining all divine things.  True faith in education is ever\nassociated with genuine humility.  Only they strive infinitely who feel\nthat their lack is infinite.\n\nThe power of education is as many sided and as manifold as life.  There\nis no finest seed or flower or fruit, no most serviceable animal, which\nhas not been brought to perfection by human thought and labor, or\nwhich, were this help withdrawn, would not degenerate; and if the\nhighest thought and the most intelligent labor were made to bear\nceaselessly upon the improvement of the race of man, we should have a\nnew world.\n\nWhen we consider all the beauty, knowledge, and love which are within\nman's reach, how is it possible not to believe that infinitely more and\nhigher lie beyond?  Call to mind whatever quality of life, physical,\nintellectual, or moral, and you will have little difficulty in seeing\nthat it is a result of education.  We are born, indeed, with unequal\nendowments; but strength of limb, ease and swiftness of motion, grace\nand fluency of speech, modulation of voice, distinctness of\narticulation, correctness of pronunciation, power of attention,\nfineness of ear, clearness of vision, control of hand and certainty of\ntouch in drawing, writing, painting, playing upon instruments and\noperating with the knife, truth and vividness of imagination, force of\nwill, refinement of manner, perfection of taste, skill in argument,\npurity of desire, rectitude of purpose, power of sympathy and love,\ntogether with whatever else goes to the making of a perfect man or\nwoman, are all acquired through educational processes.\n\nEducation is the training of a human being with a view to make him all\nhe may become; and hence it is possible to educate one's self in many\nways and on many sides.\n\nRefinement, grace, and cleanliness are aims and ends, as truly as are\nvigor and suppleness of mind and strength and purity of heart.  Like\nsunshine and flowers and the songs of birds, they help to make life\npleasant and beautiful.  Even the fishes are not clean, but the only\nclean animal is here and there a man or a woman who has forsworn dirt\nvisible and invisible.  We can educate ourselves in every direction, to\nsleep well even, and neither physicians nor poets have told half the\ngood there is in sleep.  The bare thought of it always brings to me the\nmemory of lulling showers, and grazing sheep, and murmuring streams,\nand bees at work, and the breath of flowers and cooing doves and\nchildren lying on the sward, and lazy clouds slumbering in azure skies.\nIt is pleasant as the approach of evening, fresh and fair as the rising\nsun which sets all the world singing, sacred and pure as babes smiling\nin their dreams on the breasts of gentle mothers.  If thou canst not\nsee the divine worth in nature and in works of genius, it is because\nthou art what thou art.  Can the worm at thy feet recognize thy\nsuperiority?  The blind and the heedless see nothing, O foolish maid.\n\nWhat I know and love is of my very being, is, in fact, my knowing and\nloving self.  Quality of knowledge and love determines quality of life,\nand when I know and love God I am divine.  As trees are enrooted in\nearth, as fishes are immersed in water, and our bodies in air, that\nthey may live, so the soul has its being in God that it may have life,\nthat it may know and love.  I become self-conscious only in becoming\nconscious of what is not myself; and when the not-myself is the\nEternal, is God, my self-consciousness is divine.  The marvel and the\nmystery of our being is that self-consciousness should exist at all,\nnot that it should continue to exist forever.  But words cannot\nstrengthen or explain or destroy our belief in God, in the immortality\nof the soul, and in the freedom of the will.  The antagonism supposed\nto exist between scientific facts or theories and religious faith would\ncease to be recognized as real, were it not for the eagerness with\nwhich those who are incapable of profound and comprehensive views,\ncatch up certain shibboleths and hurl them like firebrands upon the\ncombustible imaginations of the unthinking.\n\nTo prove, means, in the proper sense of the word, to test, to bring\nideas, opinions, and beliefs to the ordeal of reason, of accepted\nstandards of judgment.  It is a criticism of the mind and its\noperations, and hence it may easily happen that to prove is to weaken\nand unsettle.  In what is most vital, in belief in God, immortality,\nand freedom of the will, in religion and morality, our faith is\nstronger than any proof that may be brought in its defence; and this is\nnot less true of our faith in the reality of nature and the laws of\nscience; and when this is made plain by criticism, those whose mental\ngrasp is weak or partial, are confused and tempted to doubt.  They are\nnot helped, but harmed, and our ceaseless discussions and provings, in\npress and pulpit, are the source of much of the unrest, religious\ndoubt, and moral weakness of the age.  The people need to be taught by\nthose who know and believe, not by those whose skill is chiefly\nsyllogistic and critical.  Philosophic speculation is like a vast\nmountain into which men, generation after generation, have sunk shafts\nin search of some priceless treasure, and have left in the materials\nthey have thrown out the mark and evidence of failure.  But the noblest\nminds will still be haunted by the infinite mystery which they will\nseek in vain to explain.  Their faith in reason, like that of the\nvulgar, cannot be shaken, nor can defeat, running through thousands of\nyears, enfeeble their courage or dampen their ardor.  Let our\nincreasing insight into Nature's laws fill us with thankfulness and\njoy.  It is good, and makes for good.  Let us bow with respect and\nreverence before the army of patient investigators who bring highly\ndisciplined faculties to bear upon the most useful researches.  Let\nknowledge grow.  A nearer and truer view of the boundless fact will not\nmake the world less wonderful, or the soul less divine, or God less\nadorable.  If one should declare that it is contrary to the teachings\nof faith to hold that conversation may be carried on by persons a\nthousand miles apart, it would be sufficient to reply that such\nconversation takes place, and that to attempt to annul fact by doctrine\nis absurd.  There is no excuse for the controversial conflict between\nscience and religion; for science is ascertained fact, not theory about\nfact, and when fact is rightly ascertained it is accepted of all men.\nThe most certain fact, for each one, is that he knows and loves, and\nthat this power comes to him through communion with what is higher and\ndeeper and wider than himself,--with God.\n\nThere was a time when collisions among the masses of the sidereal\nsystem were frequent, shocks of unimaginable force by which the\ncelestial bodies were shivered into atoms, so that what now remains is\nbut a survival of worlds which escaped destruction in the chaotic\nstruggle when suns madly rushed on one another and rose in star-dust\nabout the face of God, who was, and is, and shall be, eternal and\nforever the same.  Where there is no thinker, there is no thing.  It is\nin, and through, and with Him that we know ourselves and our\nenvironment; and recognize that our particular life is, in its\nimplications, universal and divine.  He is the principle of unity which\nis present in whatever is an object of thought, and which gives the\nmind the power to co-ordinate the manifold of sensation into the\nharmony of truth; He is the principle of goodness and beauty, which\nmakes the universe fair, and thrills the heart of man with hope and\nlove.  Amid endless change, He alone is permanent, and He is power and\nwisdom and love, and they only are good and wise and strong who cleave\nto His eternal and absolute being.  But since here and now the real\nworld of matter as distinguished from the apparent is hidden behind the\nveil of sense, it is vain to hope that the world of eternal life shall\nbe made plain to the pure reason.  Religion, like life, is faith, hope,\nand love, striving and doing, not intellectual intuition and beatific\nvision.  We find it impossible to separate our thought of God from that\nof infinite goodness and love; but when we look away from our own souls\nto Nature's pitiless and fatal laws, we realize that this faith in\nall-embracing and all-conquering love is opposed by seemingly\ninsurmountable difficulties.  It is a mystery we believe, not a truth\nwe comprehend.  Systems of philosophy, morality, and religion, however\ncunningly devised, cannot make men philosophers, sages, or saints.\nThis they can become only through the communion which faith, hope, and\nlove have power to establish with the living fountain-head of truth,\nwisdom, and goodness.\n\nThe pursuit of knowledge, like the struggle for wealth and place, ends\nin disillusion, in the disappointment which results from the contrast\nbetween what we hope for and what we attain.  The greater the success,\nthe more complete the disenchantment.  As the rich and famous best see\nthe unsatisfactoriness of wealth and honor, so they who know much best\nunderstand how knowledge avails not, how it is but a cloud-built\ncitadel, whose foundations rest upon the uncertain air, whose walls and\nturrets lose in substance what they gain in height.  When we imagine we\nknow all things, we awake as from a dream to find that we know nothing,\nthat our knowing is but a believing, our science but a faith.  We are\nlittle children who wander in a father's wide domain, seeing many\nthings and understanding not anything, who imagine we are in a real and\nabiding world, while in truth we are but passing through the\npicture-gallery of the senses.\n\n  Faith, Hope, and Love:--these three\n    Are life's deep root;\n  They reach into infinity,\n    Whence life doth shoot.\n  But Faith and Hope have not attained\n    The Eternal best;\n  While Love, sweet Love, the end has gained,--\n    In God to rest.\n\n\nSo long as these life-begetting, life-sustaining, and life-developing\npowers hold mightier sway over the soul of woman than over that of man,\nso long will woman's heel crush the serpent's head and woman's arms\nbear salvation to the world.  She will not worship the rising sun, or\nbecome the idolatress of success, but within her heart will cherish\nfallen heroes and lost causes and the memory of all the sorrows by\nwhich God humanizes the world.\n\nIf we consider mankind merely as a phenomenon, the extinction of the\nrace need give us little more concern than the disappearance of\nPterodactyls and Ichthyosauri.  What repels from such contemplation is\nnot man's physical, but his spiritual being,--that which makes him\ncapable of thought and love, of faith and hope.  The universe is\nanthropomorphized, for whithersoever man looks he sees the reflection\nof his own countenance.  What he calls things are stamped with the\nimpress and likeness of himself, as he himself is an image of the\neternal mind, in which all things are mirrored.\n\nAn atheist or a materialist, an agnostic or a pessimist, may have\ngreater knowledge, greater intellectual force than the most devout\nbeliever in God; but is it possible for him to feel so thoroughly at\nhome in the world, to feel so deeply that, whatever happens, it is and\nwill be well with him?  In an atheistic world the spirit of man is ill\nat ease.  He who has no God makes himself the centre of all things,\nand, like a spoiled child, loses the power to admire, to enjoy, and to\nlove.  Genuine faith in God is such an infinite force that one may be\ntempted to doubt whether it is found.\n\nUndisciplined minds become victims of the formulas they receive, and if\nwhat they have accepted as truth is shown to be false or incomplete,\nthey grow discouraged and lose faith; but the wise know that the verbal\nvesture of truth is a symbol which has but a proximate and relative\nvalue.  The spirit is alive, and ceaselessly outgrows or transmutes the\nbody with which it is clothed.  What we can do with anything,--with\nmoney, knowledge, wealth,--depends on what we are.  Ruskin prefers holy\nwork to holy worship; but the antithesis is mistaken, for if worship is\nholy it impels to work, if work is holy it impels to worship.  God's\nmost sacred visible temple is a human body, and its profanation is the\nworst sacrilege.\n\nAll true belief, when we come to the last analysis, is belief in God,\nand the teacher of religion must keep this fact always in view.\n\nThe law of the struggle for life applies to opinions, beliefs, hopes,\naims, ideals, just as it applies to individuals and species.  Whatever\nsurvives, survives through conflict, because it is fit to survive.  It\ndoes not follow, however, that the best survives, though we must think\nthat in the end this is so, since we believe in God.  When serious\nminds grapple with problems so remote from vulgar opinion that they\nseem to be meaningless or insoluble, the multitude, ever ready, like a\ncrowd of boys, to mock and jeer, break forth into insult.  These men,\nthey cry are wicked, or they are fools.\n\nIn a society where it is assumed that all are equal, those who are\nreally superior incur suspicion as though it were criminal to be\ndifferent from the multitude; and hence they rarely win the favor of\nthe crowd.  The life-current of those who stir up a noise about them,\nruns shallow.  The champion of the prize-ring or the race-course is\nhailed with shouts, for the crowd understand the achievement; but what\ncan they know of the worth of a sage or a saint?  The noblest struggles\nare of the mind and heart wrestling with unseen powers, with spirits,\nas St. Paul says, that they may compel them to give up the secret of\ntruth and holiness.  A glimpse of truth, a thrill of love, is better\nthan the applause of a whole city.  In striving steadfastly for thy own\nperfection and the happiness of others thou walkest and workest with\nGod.  Thy progress will help others to labor for their own, and the\nhappiness thou givest will return to thee and become thine; and what is\nthe will of God, if it is not the perfection and happiness of his\nchildren?  To have merely enough strength to bear life's burden, to do\nthe daily task, to face the cares which return with the sun and follow\nus into the night, is to be weak, is to lack the strong spirit for\nwhich work is light as play, and whose secret is heard in whispers by\nthe hero and the saint.  To be able to give joy and help to others we\nmust have more life, wisdom, virtue, and happiness than we need for\nourselves; and it is in giving joy and help to others that we ourselves\nreceive increase of life, wisdom, virtue, and happiness.  Be persuaded\nwithin thy deepest soul, that moral evil can never be good, and that\nsin can never be gain.  So act that if all men acted as thou, all would\nbe well.  If to be like others is thy aim, thou art predestined to\nremain inferior.  To be followed and applauded is to be diverted from\none's work.  Better alone with it in a garret than a guest in a banquet\nhall.\n\n  Let thy prayer be work and work thy prayer,\n  As God's truth and love are everywhere,\n  And whether by word or deed thou strive\n  In Him alone thou canst be alive.\n\n\nIf thou hast done thy best, God will give it worth.\n\nIf thou carest not for truth and love, for thee they are nothing worth;\nbut it is because thou thyself art worthless.  Wisdom and virtue is all\nthou lackest; of other things thou hast enough.  When the passion for\nself-improvement is strong within us, all our relations to our\nfellow-men and nature receive new meaning and power, as opportunities\nto make ourselves what it is possible for us to become; and as we grow\naccustomed to take this view of whatever happens, we are made aware\nthat disagreeable things are worth as much as the pleasant, that foes\nare as useful as friends.  The obstacle arrests attention, provokes\neffort, and educates.  It throws the light back upon the eye, and\nreveals the world of color and form; from it all sounds reverberate.\nWe grow by overcoming; the force we conquer becomes our own.  We rise\non difficulties we surmount.  What opposes, arouses, strengthens, and\ndisciplines the will, discloses to the mind its power, and implants\nfaith in the efficacy of patient, persevering labor.  They who shrink\nfrom the combat are already defeated.  To make everything easy is to\nsmooth the way whereby we descend.  To surround the young with what\nthey ought themselves to achieve is to enfeeble and corrupt them.\nHappy is the poor man's son, who whithersoever he turns, sees the\nobstacle rise to challenge him to become a man; miserable the children\nof the rich, whose cursed-blessed fortune is an ever-present invitation\nto idleness and conceit.  O mothers, you whose love is the best any of\nus have known, harden your sons, and urge them on, not in the race for\nwealth, but in the steep and narrow way wherein, through self-conquest\nand self-knowledge, they rise toward God and all high things.  Nothing\nthat has ever been said of your power tells the whole truth, and the\nonly argument against you is the men who are your children.  Education\nis always the result of personal influence.  A mother, a father in the\nhome, a pure and loving heart at the altar, a true man or woman in the\nschool, a noble mind uttering itself in literature, which is personal\nthought and expression,--these are the forces which educate.  Life\nproceeds from life, and religion, which is the highest power of life,\ncan proceed only from God and religious souls.  Not by preaching and\nteaching, but by living the life, can we make ourselves centres of\nspiritual influence.\n\nBe like others, walk in the broad way, one of a herd, content to graze\nin a common pasture, believing equality man's highest law, though its\nmeaning be equality with the brute.  Is this our ideal?  It is an\natheistic creed.  There is no God, there is nothing but matter, but\natoms, and atoms are alike and equal,--let men be so too.  To struggle\nwith infinite faith and hope for some divine good is idolatry, is to\nbelieve in God; to be one's self is the unpardonable sin.  It is thy\naim to rise, to distinguish thyself; this means thou wouldst have\nhigher place, more money, a greater house than thy neighbor's.  It is a\nfoolish ambition.  Instead of trying to distinguish thyself, strive to\nbecome thyself, to make thyself worthy of the approval of God and wise\nmen.  \"I am not to be pitied, my lord,\" said Bayard; \"I die doing my\nduty.\"  God has not given His world into thy keeping, but he has given\nthee to thyself to fashion and complete.  If thou art busy seeking\nmoney or pleasure or praise, little time will remain wherein to seek\nand find thyself.  They who are interesting to themselves, are\ninteresting to themselves alone.  The self-absorbed are the victims of\nmental and moral disease.  The life which flows out to others, bearing\nlight and warmth and fragrance, feels itself in the blessings it gives;\nthat which is self-centred, stagnates like a pool, and becomes the\nhabitation of doleful creatures.\n\nThere is a popularity which is born of the worship of noble deeds,--it\nis the best.  There is another, which comes of the crowd's passion for\nwhat is noisy and spectacular,--it is the worst.  The one is the\npopularity of heroes, the other that of charlatans.\n\nWhatever thy chosen work, it is thy business to make thyself a man or a\nwoman, and not a mere specialist; yet in following a specialty with\nenthusiasm, thou shalt go farther towards perfection and completeness\nof life than the multitude of pretenders, who are not in earnest about\nanything.  Every harsh and unjust sentiment, every narrow and unworthy\nthought consented to and entertained, remains like a stain upon\ncharacter.  Whoever speaks or writes against freedom or knowledge or\nfaith in God, or love of man or reverence of woman, but makes himself\nridiculous; for men feel and believe that their true world is a world\nof high thoughts and noble sentiments, and they can neither respect nor\ntrust those who strive to weaken their hold upon this world.  Become\nthyself; do thy work.  For this, all thy days are not too many or too\nlong.  If thou and it are worthy to be known, the presentation can be\nmade in briefest time; and it matters little though it be deferred\nuntil after thy death.\n\nBesides whatever other conditions, time is necessary to bring the best\nthings to maturity, and to imagine that excellence demands less than\nlifelong work, is to mistake.  It is by the patient observation of the\ninfinitesimal that science has done its best work; and it is only by\nunwearying attention to the thousand little things of life that we may\nhope to make some approach to moral and intellectual perfection.  He\nwho works with joy and cheerfulness in the field which himself has\nfound and chosen, will acquire knowledge and skill, and his labor will\nbe transformed into increase and newness of life.\n\nWe gain a clear view of things only when we set them apart from\nourselves, and contemplate them simply as objects of thought.  To see\nthem aright we must be free from emotion and behold them in the cold\nair of the intellect.  To look on them as in some way bound up with our\npersonal good or evil, is to have the vision blurred.  Study in the\nspirit of an investigator, who has no other than a scientific interest\nin what he sets himself to examine.  The wise physician is wholly\nintent upon making a correct diagnosis, though the patient be his\nmother.  What gain would self-delusion bring him or her he loves?\nThings are what they are, and it is our business to know them.  Observe\nand hold thy judgment in suspense until patient looking shall have made\ntruth so plain that to pass judgment is superfluous.\n\nThe aim of mental training is clearness and accuracy of view, together\nwith the strength to keep steadfastly looking into the world of\nintelligible things.  What rouses desire tends to enslave; what gives\ndelight tends to liberate; the one appeals to the senses, the other to\nthe soul.  Hence, intellectual and moral pleasures alone are associated\nwith the sense of freedom and pure joy.  The lovers of freedom are as\nrare as the lovers of truth and of God.  For most, liberty is but a\ntrader's commodity, to be parted with for price, as their obedience is\na slave's service.  The chief good consists in acting justly and nobly,\nrather than in thinking acutely and profoundly.  The free play of the\nmind is delightful, but the law of moral obligation is the deepest\nthing in us.  Honor, place, and wealth, which are won at the price of\nself-improvement, the wise will not desire.  Great opportunities seldom\npresent themselves, but every moment of every hour of thy conscious\nlife is an opportunity to improve thyself, which for thee is the best\nand most necessary thing.  Since our power over others is small, but\nover ourselves large, let us devote our energies to self-improvement.\n\"Nor let any man say,\" writes Locke, \"he cannot govern his passions,\nnor hinder them from breaking out and carrying him into action; for\nwhat he can do before a prince or great man he can do alone or in the\npresence of God, if he will.\"\n\nThe sure way to happiness is to yield ourselves wholly to God, knowing\nthat he has care of us, and at the same time to seek to draw from life\nwhatever joy and delight it may bestow upon a high mind and a pure\nheart, receiving the blessing gladly, conscious all the while that what\nis external cannot really be ours, and is not, therefore, necessary to\nour contentment.\n\nThat many are wiser and stronger than thou, is not a motive for\ndiscouragement; the depressing thought is, that so few are wise and\nstrong.  He who gives his whole life to what he believes he is most\ncapable of doing, succeeds, whatever be the worth of his work.  There\nare many who are busy with many things; but one who has a high purpose,\nand who devotes all his energies to its fulfillment, is not easily\nfound; and great and interesting characters are, therefore, rare.\n\nTo what better use can we put life than to employ it in ameliorating\nlife?  It is to this every wise and good man devotes himself, whether\nhe be priest or teacher, physician or lawyer, philosopher or poet,\ncaptain of industry or statesman.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V.\n\nTHE SCOPE OF PUBLIC-SCHOOL EDUCATION.\n\nOur system of Public-School Education is a result of the faith of the\npeople in the need of universal intelligence for the maintenance of\npopular government.  Does this system include moral training?  Since\nthe teaching of religious doctrines is precluded, this, I imagine, is\nwhat we are to consider in discussing the Scope of Public-School\nEducation.  The equivalents of scope are aim, end, opportunity, range\nof view; and the equivalents of education are training, discipline,\ndevelopment, instruction.  The proper meaning of the word education, it\nseems, is not a drawing out, but a training up, as vines are trained to\nlay hold of and rise by means of what is stronger than themselves.  My\nsubject, then, is the aim, end, opportunity, and range of view of\npublic-school education, which to be education at all, in any true\nsense, must be a training, discipline, development, and instruction of\nman's whole being, physical, intellectual, and moral.  This, I suppose,\nis what Herbert Spencer means when he defines education to be a\npreparation for complete living.  Montaigne says the end of education\nis wisdom and virtue; Comenius declares it to be knowledge, virtue, and\nreligion; Milton, likeness to God through virtue and faith; Locke,\nhealth of body, virtue, and good manners; Herbart, virtue, which is the\nrealization in each one of the idea of inner freedom; while Kant and\nFichte declare it to consist chiefly in the formation of character.\nAll these thinkers agree that the supreme end of education is spiritual\nor ethical.  The controlling aim, then, should be, not to impart\ninformation, but to upbuild the being which makes us human, to form\nhabits of right thinking and doing.  The ideal is virtually that of\nIsrael,--that righteousness is life,--though the Greek ideal of beauty\nand freedom may not be excluded.  It is the doctrine that manners make\nthe man, that conduct is three-fourths of life, leaving but one-fourth\nfor intellectual activity and aesthetic enjoyment; and into this fourth\nof life but few ever enter in any real way, while all are called and\nmay learn to do good and avoid evil.\n\n\"In the end,\" says Ruskin, \"the God of heaven and earth loves active,\nmodest, and kind people, and hates idle, proud, greedy, and cruel\nones.\"  We can all learn to become active, modest, and kind; to turn\nfrom idleness, pride, greed, and cruelty.  But we cannot all make\nourselves capable of living in the high regions of pure thought and\nideal beauty; and for the few even who are able to do this, it is still\ntrue that conduct is three-fourths of life.\n\n\"The end of man,\" says Buechner, \"is conversion into carbonic acid,\nwater, and ammonia.\"  This also is an ideal, and he thinks we should be\npleased to know that in dying we give back to the universe what had\nbeen lent.  He moralizes too; but if all we can know of our destiny is\nthat we shall be converted into carbonic acid, water, and ammonia, the\nsermon may be omitted.  On such a faith it is not possible to found a\nsatisfactory system of education.  Men will always refuse to think thus\nmeanly of themselves, and in answer to those who would persuade them\nthat they are but brutes, they will, with perfect confidence, claim\nkinship with God; for from an utterly frivolous view of life both our\nreason and our instinct turn.\n\nThe Scope of Public-School Education is to co-operate with the\nphysical, social, and religious environment to form good and wise men\nand women.  Unless we bear in mind that the school is but one of\nseveral educational agencies, we shall not form a right estimate of its\noffice.  It depends almost wholly for its success upon the kind of\nmaterial furnished it by the home, the state, and the church; and, to\nconfine our view to our own country, I have little hesitation in\naffirming that our home life, our social and political life, and our\nreligious life have contributed far more to make us what we are than\nany and all of our schools.  The school, unless it works in harmony\nwith these great forces, can do little more than sharpen the wits.\nMany of the teachers of our Indian schools are doubtless competent and\nearnest; but their pupils, when they return to their tribes, quickly\nlose what they have gained, because they are thrown into an environment\nwhich annuls the ideals that prevailed in the school.  The controlling\naim of our teachers should be, therefore, to bring their pedagogical\naction into harmony with what is best in the domestic, social, and\nreligious life of the child; for this is the foundation on which they\nmust build, and to weaken it is to expose the whole structure to ruin.\nHence the teacher's attitude toward the child should be that of\nsympathy with him in his love for his parents, his country, and his\nreligion.  His reason is still feeble, and his life is largely one of\nfeeling; and the fountain-heads of his purest and noblest feelings are\nprecisely his parents, his country, and his religion, and to tamper\nwith them is to poison the wells whence he draws the water of life.  To\nassume and hold this attitude with sincerity and tact is difficult; it\nrequires both character and culture; it implies a genuine love of\nmankind and of human excellence; reverence for whatever uplifts,\npurifies, and strengthens the heart; knowledge of the world, of\nliterature, and of history, united with an earnest desire to do\nwhatever may be possible to lead each pupil toward life in its\ncompleteness, which is health and healthful activity of body and mind\nand heart and soul.\n\nAs the heart makes the home, the teacher makes the school.  What we\nneed above all things, wherever the young are gathered for education,\nis not a showy building, or costly apparatus, or improved methods or\ntext-books, but a living, loving, illumined human being who has deep\nfaith in the power of education and a real desire to bring it to bear\nupon those who are intrusted to him.  This applies to the primary\nschool with as much force as to the high school and university.  Those\nwho think, and they are, I imagine, the vast majority, that any one who\ncan read and write, who knows something of arithmetic, geography, and\nhistory, is competent to educate young children, have not even the most\nelementary notions of what education is.\n\nWhat the teacher is, not what he utters and inculcates, is the\nimportant thing.  The life he lives, and whatever reveals that life to\nhis pupils; his unconscious behavior, even; above all, what in his\ninmost soul he hopes, believes, and loves, have far deeper and more\npotent influence than mere lessons can ever have.  It is precisely here\nthat we Americans, whose talent is predominantly practical and\ninventive, are apt to go astray.  We have won such marvellous victories\nwith our practical sense and inventive genius that we have grown\naccustomed to look to them for aid, whatever the nature of the\ndifficulty or problem may be.  Machinery can be made to do much, and to\ndo well what it does.  With its help we move rapidly; we bring the ends\nof the earth into instantaneous communication; we print the daily\nhistory of the world and throw it before every door; we plough and we\nsow and we reap; we build cities, and we fill our houses with whatever\nconduces to comfort or luxury.  All this and much more machinery\nenables us to do.  But it cannot create life, nor can it, in any\neffective way, promote vital processes.  Now, education is essentially\na vital process.  It is a furthering of life; and as the living proceed\nfrom the living, they can rise into the wider world of ideas and\nconduct only by the help of the living; and as in the physical realm\nevery animal begets after its own likeness, so also in the spiritual\nthe teacher can give but what he has.  If the well-spring of truth and\nlove has run dry within himself, he teaches in vain.  His words will no\nmore bring forth life than desert winds will clothe arid sands with\nverdure.  Much talking and writing about education have chiefly helped\nto obscure a matter which is really plain.  The purpose of the public\nschool is or should be not to form a mechanic or a specialist of any\nkind, but to form a true man or woman.  Hence the number of things we\nteach the child is of small moment.  Those schools, in fact, in which\nthe greatest number of things are taught give, as a rule, the least\neducation.  The character of the Roman people, which enabled them to\ndominate the earth and to give laws to the world, was formed before\nthey had schools, and when their schools were most flourishing they\nthemselves were in rapid moral and social dissolution.  We make\neducation and religion too much a social affair, and too little a\npersonal affair.  Their essence lies in their power to transform the\nindividual, and it is only in transforming him that they recreate the\nwider life of the community.  The Founder of Christianity addressed\nhimself to the individual, and gave little heed to the state or other\nenvironment.  He looked to a purified inner source of life to create\nfor itself a worthier environment, and simply ignored devices for\nworking sudden and startling changes.  They who have entered into the\nhidden meaning of this secret and this method turn in utter incredulity\nfrom the schemes of declaimers and agitators.\n\nThe men who fill the world, each with his plan for reforming and saving\nit, may have their uses, since the poet tells us there are uses in\nadversity, which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, wears yet a\nprecious jewel in its head; but to one deafened by their discordant and\nclamorous voices, the good purpose they serve seems to be as mythical\nas the jewel in the toad's head.\n\nHave not those who mistake their crotchets for Nature's laws invaded\nour schools?  Have they not succeeded in forming a public opinion and\nin setting devices at work which render education, in the true sense of\nthe word, if not impossible, difficult?  Literature is a criticism of\nlife, made by those who are in love with life, and have the deepest\nfaith in its possibilities; and all criticism which is inspired by\nsympathy and faith and controlled by knowledge is helpful.  Complacent\nthoughts are rarely true, and hardly ever useful.  It is a prompting of\nnature to turn from what we have to what we lack, for thus only is\nthere hope of amendment and progress.  We are, to quote Emerson,\n\n  \"Built of furtherance and pursuing,\n  Not of spent deeds, but of doing.\"\n\n\nHence the wise and the strong dwell not upon their virtues and\naccomplishments, but strive to learn wherein they fail, for it is in\ncorrecting this they desire to labor.  They wish to know the truth\nabout themselves, are willing to try to see themselves as others see\nthem, that self-knowledge may make self-improvement possible.  They\nturn from flattery, for they understand that flattery is insult.  Now,\nif this is the attitude of wise and strong men, how much more should it\nnot be that of a wise and strong people?  Whenever persons or things\nare viewed as related in some special way to ourselves, our opinions of\nthem will hardly be free from bias.  When, for instance, I think or\nspeak of my country, my religion, my friends, my enemies, I find it\ndifficult to put away the prejudice which my self-esteem and vanity\ncreate, and which, like a haze, ever surrounds me to color or obscure\nthe pure light of reason.  It cannot do us harm to have our defects and\nshortcomings pointed out to us; but to be told by demagogues and\ndeclaimers that we are the greatest, the most enlightened, the most\nvirtuous people which exists or has existed, can surely do us no good.\nIf it is true, we should not dwell upon it, for this will but distract\nus from striving for the things in which we are deficient; and if it is\nfalse, it can only mislead us and nourish a foolish conceit.  It is the\norator's misfortune to be compelled to think of his audience rather\nthan of truth.  It is his business to please, persuade, and convince;\nand men are pleased with flattering lies, persuaded and convinced by\nappeals to passion and interest.  Happier is the writer, who need not\nthink of a reader, but finds his reward in the truth he expresses.\n\nIt is not possible for an enlightened mind not to take profound\ninterest in our great system of public education.  To do this he need\nnot think it the best system.  He may deem it defective in important\nrequisites.  He may hold, as I hold, that the system is of minor\nimportance, the kind of teacher being all important.  But if he loves\nhis country, if he loves human excellence, if he has faith in man's\ncapacity for growth, he cannot but turn his thoughts, with abiding\nattention and sympathy, to the generous and determined efforts of a\npowerful and vigorous people to educate themselves.  Were our\npublic-school system nothing more than the nation's profession of faith\nin the transforming power of education, it would be an omen of good and\na ground for hope; and one cannot do more useful work than to help to\nform a public opinion which will accept with thankfulness the free play\nof all sincere minds about this great question, and which will cause\nthe genuine lovers of our country to turn in contempt from the clamors\npoliticians and bigots are apt to raise when an honest man utters\nhonest thought on this all-important subject.\n\nI am willing to assume and to accept as a fact that our theological\ndifferences make it impossible to introduce the teaching of any\nreligious creed into the public school.  I take the system as it\nis,--that is, as a system of secular education,--and I address myself\nmore directly to the question proposed: What is or should be its scope?\n\nThe fact that religious instruction is excluded makes it all the more\nnecessary that humanizing and ethical aims should be kept constantly in\nview.  Whoever teaches in a public school should be profoundly\nconvinced that man is more than an animal which may be taught cunning\nand quickness.  A weed in blossom may have a certain beauty, but it\nwill bear no fruit; and so the boy or youth one often meets, with his\nirreverent smartness, his precocious pseudo-knowledge of a hundred\nthings, may excite a kind of interest, but he gives little promise of a\nnoble future.  The flower of his life is the blossom of the weed, which\nin its decay will poison the air, or, at the best, serve but to\nfertilize the soil.  If we are to work to good purpose we must take our\nstand, with the great thinkers and educators, on the broad field of\nman's nature, and act in the light of the only true ideal of\neducation,--that its end is wisdom, virtue, knowledge, power,\nreverence, faith, health, behavior, hope, and love; in a word, whatever\npowers and capacities make for intelligence, for conduct, for\ncharacter, for completeness of life.  Not for a moment should we permit\nourselves to be deluded by the thought that because the teaching of\nreligious creeds is excluded, therefore we may make no appeal to the\nfountain-heads which sleep within every breast, the welling of whose\nwaters alone has power to make us human.  If we are forbidden to turn\nthe current into this or that channel, we are not forbidden to\nrecognize the universal truth that man lives by faith, hope, and love,\nby imagination and desire, and that it is precisely for this reason\nthat he is educable.  We move irresistibly in the lines of our real\nfaith and desire, and the educator's great purpose is to help us to\nbelieve in what is high and to desire what is good.  Since for the\nirreverent and vulgar spirit nothing is high or good, reverence, and\nthe refinement which is the fruit of true intelligence, urge\nceaselessly their claims on the teacher's attention.  Goethe, I\nsuppose, was little enough of a Christian to satisfy the demands of an\nagnostic cripple even, and yet he held that the best thing in man is\nthe thrill of awe; and that the chief business of education is to\ncultivate reverence for whatever is above, beneath, around, and within\nus.  This he believed to be the only philosophical and healthful\nattitude of mind and heart towards the universe, seen and unseen.  May\nnot the meanest flower that blows bring thoughts that lie too deep for\ntears?  Is not reverence a part of all the sweetest and purest feelings\nwhich bind us to father and mother, to friends and home and country?\nIs it not the very bloom and fragrance, not only of the highest\nreligious faith, but also of the best culture?  Let the thrill of awe\ncease to vibrate, and you will have a world in which money is more than\nman, office better than honesty, and books like \"Innocents Abroad\" or\n\"Peck's Bad Boy\" more indicative of the kind of man we form than are\nthe noblest works of genius.  What is the great aim of the primary\nschool, if it is not the nutrition of feeling?  The child is weak in\nmind, weak in will, but he is most impressionable.  Feeble in thought,\nhe is strong in capacity to feel the emotions which are the sap of the\ntree of moral life.  He responds quickly to the appeals of love,\ntenderness, and sympathy.  He is alive to whatever is noble, heroic,\nand venerable.  He desires the approbation of others, especially of\nthose whom he believes to be true and high and pure, he has\nunquestioning faith, not only in God but in great men, who, for him,\nindeed, are earthly gods.  Is not his father a divine man, whose mere\nword drives away all fear and fills him with confidence?  The touch of\nhis mother's hand stills his pain; if he is frightened, her voice is\nenough to soothe him to sleep.  To imagine that we are educating this\nbeing of infinite sensibility and impressionability when we do little\nelse than teach him to read, write, and cipher, is to cherish a\ndelusion.  It is not his destiny to become a reading, writing, and\nciphering machine, but to become a man who believes, hopes, and loves;\nwho holds to sovereign truth, and is swayed by sympathy; who looks up\nwith reverence and awe to the heavens, and hearkens with cheerful\nobedience to the call of duty; who has habits of right thinking and\nwell doing which have become a law unto him, a second nature.  And if\nit be said that we all recognize this to be so, but that it is not the\nbusiness of the school to help to form such a man; that it does its\nwork when it sharpens the wits, I will answer with the words of William\nvon Humboldt: \"Whatever we wish to see introduced into the life of a\nnation must first be introduced into its schools.\"\n\nNow, what we wish to see introduced into the life of the nation is not\nthe power of shrewd men, wholly absorbed in the striving for wealth,\nreckless of the means by which it is gotten, and who, whether they\nsucceed or whether they fail, look upon money as the equivalent of the\nbest things man knows or has; who therefore think that the highest\npurpose of government, as of other social forces and institutions, is\nto make it easy for all to get abundance of gold and to live in sloven\nplenty; but what we wish to see introduced into the life of the nation\nis the power of intelligence and virtue, of wisdom and conduct.  We\nbelieve, and in fact know, that humanity, justice, truthfulness,\nhonesty, honor, fidelity, courage, integrity, reverence, purity, and\nself-respect are higher and mightier than anything mere sharpened wits\ncan accomplish.  But if these virtues, which constitute nearly the\nwhole sum of man's strength and worth, are to be introduced into the\nlife of the nation, they must be introduced into the schools, into the\nprocess of education.  We must recognize, not in theory alone but in\npractice, that the chief end of education is ethical, since conduct is\nthree-fourths of human life.  The aim must be to make men true in\nthought and word, pure in desire, faithful in act, upright in deed; men\nwho understand that the highest good does not lie in the possession of\nanything whatsoever, but that it lies in power and quality of being;\nfor whom what we are and not what we have is the guiding principle; who\nknow that the best work is not that for which we receive most pay, but\nthat which is most favorable to life, physical, moral, intellectual,\nand religious; since man does not exist for work or the Sabbath, but\nwork and rest exist for him, that he may thrive and become more human\nand more divine.  We must cease to tell boys and girls that education\nwill enable them to get hold of the good things of which they believe\nthe world to be full; we must make them realize rather that the best\nthing in the world is a noble man or woman, and to be that is the only\ncertain way to a worthy and contented life.  All talk about patriotism\nwhich implies that it is possible to be a patriot or a good citizen\nwithout being a true and good man, is sophistical and hollow.  How\nshall he who cares not for his better self care for his country?\n\nWe must look, as educators, most closely to those sides of the national\nlife where there is the greatest menace of ruin.  It is plain that our\nbesetting sin, as a people, is not intemperance or unchastity, but\ndishonesty.  From the watering and manipulating of stocks to the\nadulteration of food and drink, from the booming of towns and lands to\nthe selling of votes and the buying of office, from the halls of\nCongress to the policeman's beat, from the capitalist who controls\ntrusts and syndicates to the mechanic who does inferior work, the taint\nof dishonesty is everywhere.  We distrust one another, distrust those\nwho manage public affairs, distrust our own fixed will to suffer the\nworst that may befall rather than cheat or steal or lie.  Dishonesty\nhangs, like mephitic air, about our newspapers, our legislative\nassemblies, the municipal government of our towns and cities, about our\nchurches even, since our religion itself seems to lack that highest\nkind of honesty, the downright and thorough sincerity which is its\nlife-breath.\n\nIf the teacher in the public school may not insist that an honest man\nis the noblest work of God, he may teach at least that he who fails in\nhonesty fails in the most essential quality of manhood, enters into\nwarfare with the forces which have made him what he is, and which\nsecure him the possession of what he holds dearer than himself, since\nhe barters for it his self-respect; that the dishonest man is an\nanarchist and dissocialist, one who does what in him lies to destroy\ncredit, and the sense of the sacredness of property, obedience to law,\nand belief in the rights of man.  If our teachers are to work in the\nlight of an ideal, if they are to have a conscious end in view, as all\nwho strive intelligently must have, if they are to hold a principle\nwhich will give unity to their methods, they must seek it in the idea\nof morality, of conduct, which is three-fourths of life.\n\nI myself am persuaded that the real and philosophical basis of morality\nis the being of God, a being absolute, infinite, unimaginable,\ninconceivable, of whom our highest and nearest thought is that he is\nnot only almighty, but all-wise and all-good as well.  But it is\npossible, I think, to cultivate the moral sense without directly and\nexpressly assigning to it this philosophical and religious basis; for\ngoodness is largely its own evidence, as virtue is its own reward.  It\nall depends on the teacher.  Life produces life, life develops life;\nand if the teacher have within himself a living sense of the\nall-importance of conduct, if he thoroughly realize that what we call\nknowledge is but a small part of man's life, his influence will nourish\nthe feelings by which character is evolved.  The germ of a moral idea\nis always an emotion, and that which impels to right action is the\nemotion rather than the idea.  The teachings of the heart remain\nforever, and they are the most important; for what we love, genuinely\nbelieve in, and desire decides what we are and may become.  Hence the\ntrue educator, even in giving technical instruction, strives not merely\nto make a workman, but to make also a man, whose being shall be touched\nto finer issues by spiritual powers, who shall be upheld by faith in\nthe worth and sacredness of life, and in the education by which it is\ntransformed, enriched, purified, and ennobled.  He understands that an\neducated man, who, in the common acceptation of the phrase, is one who\nknows something, who knows many things, is, in truth, simply one who\nhas acquired habits of right thinking and right doing.  The culture\nwhich we wish to see prevail throughout our country is not learning and\nliterary skill; it is character and intellectual openness,--that higher\nhumanity which is latent within us all; which is power, wisdom, truth,\ngoodness, love, sympathy, grace, and beauty; whose surpassing\nexcellence the poor may know as well as the rich; whose charm the\nmultitude may feel as well as the chosen few.\n\n\"He who speaks of the people,\" says Guicciardini, \"speaks, in sooth, of\na foolish animal, a prey to a thousand errors, a thousand confusions,\nwithout taste, without affection, without firmness.\"  The scope of our\npublic-school education is to make common-places of this kind, by which\nall literature is pervaded, so false as to be absurd; and when this end\nshall have been attained, Democracy will have won its noblest victory.\n\nHow shall we find the secret from which hope of such success will\nspring?  By so forming and directing the power of public opinion, of\nnational approval, and of money, as to make the best men and women\nwilling and ready to enter the teacher's profession.  The kind of man\nwho educates is the test of the kind of education given, and there is\nproperly no other test.  When we Americans shall have learned to\nbelieve with all our hearts and with all the strength of irresistible\nconviction that a true educator is a more important, in every way a\nmore useful, sort of man than a great railway king, or pork butcher, or\ncaptain of industry, or grain buyer, or stock manipulator, we shall\nhave begun to make ourselves capable of perceiving the real scope of\npublic-school education.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI.\n\nTHE RELIGIOUS ELEMENT IN EDUCATION.\n\nThe theory of development, which is now widely received and applied to\nall things, from star dust to the latest fashion, is at once a sign and\na cause of the almost unlimited confidence which we put in the remedial\nand transforming power of education.  We no longer think of God as\nstanding aloof from nature and the course of history.  He it is who\nworks in the play of atoms and in the throbbings of the human heart;\nand as we perceive his action in the evolution both of matter and of\nmind, we know and feel that, when with conscious purpose we strive to\ncall forth and make living the latent powers of man's being, we are\nworking with him in the direction in which he impels the universe.\nEducation, therefore, we look upon as necessary, not merely because it\nis indispensable to any high and human kind of life, but also because\nGod has made development the law both of conscious and unconscious\nnature.  He is in act all that the finite may become, and the effort to\ngrow in strength, knowledge, and virtue springs from a divine impulse.\n\nAlthough we know that the earth is not the centre of the universe, that\nit is but a minor satellite, a globule lost in space, our deepest\nthought still finds that the end of nature is the production of\nrational beings, of man; for the final reason for which all things\nexist is that the infinite good may be communicated; and since the\nhighest good is truth and holiness, it can be communicated only to\nbeings who think and love.  Hence all things are man's, and he exists\nthat he may make himself like God; in other words, that he may educate\nhimself; for the end of education is to fit him for completeness of\nlife, to train all his faculties, to call all his endowments into play,\nto make him symmetrical and whole in body and soul.  This, of course,\nis the ideal, and consequently the unattainable; but in the light of\nideals alone do we see rightly and judge truly; and to take a lower\nview of the aim and end of education is to take a partial view.  To\nhold that God is, and that man truly lives only in so far as he is made\npartaker of the divine life, is, by implication, to hold that his\neducation should be primarily and essentially religious.  Our opinions\nand beliefs, however, are never the result of purely rational\nprocesses, and hence a mere syllogism has small persuasive force, or\neven no influence at all, upon our way of looking at things, or the\nmotives which determine action.\n\nAs it is useless to argue against the nature of things, so we generally\nplead in vain when our world-view is other than that of those whom we\nseek to convince; for those who observe from different points either do\nnot see the same objects or do not see them in the same light.  Life is\ncomplex, and the springs of thought and action are controlled in\nmysterious ways by forces and impulses which we neither clearly\nunderstand nor accurately measure.  What is called the spirit of the\nage, the spirit which, as the Poet says, sits at the roaring loom of\ntime and weaves for God the garment whereby He is made visible to us,\nexercises a potent influence upon all our thinking and doing.  We live\nin an era of progress, and progress means differentiation of structure\nand specialization of function.  The more perfect the organism, the\nmore are its separate functions assigned to separate parts.  As social\naggregates develop, a similar differentiation takes place.  Offices\nwhich were in the hands of one are distributed among several.  Agencies\nare evolved by which processes of production, distribution, and\nexchange are carried on.  Trades and professions are called into\nexistence.  As enlightenment and skill increase, men become more\ndifficult to please.  They demand the best work, and the best work can\nbe done, as a rule, only by specialists.  Specialization thus becomes a\ncharacteristic of civilization.  The patriarch is both king and priest.\nIn Greece and Rome, religion is a function of the State.  In the Middle\nAge, the Church and the State coalesce, and form such an intimate union\nthat the special domain of either is invaded by both.  But\ndifferentiation finally takes place, and we all learn to distinguish\nbetween the things of Caesar and the things of God.  This separation has\nfar-reaching results.  In asserting its independence, the State was\ndriven to use argument as well as force.  Thus learning, which in the\nconfusion that succeeded the incursions of the Barbarians was\ncultivated almost exclusively by ecclesiastics, grew to be of interest\nand importance to laymen.  They began to study, and the subjects which\nmost engaged their thoughts were not religious, in the accepted sense\nof the word.  The Protestant rebellion is but a phase of this\nrevolution.  It began with the introduction of the literature of Greece\ninto Western Europe.  The spirit of inquiry and mental curiosity was\nthereby awakened in wider circles; enthusiasm for the truth and beauty\nto which Greek genius has given the most perfect expression, was\naroused; and interest in intellectual and artistic culture was called\nforth.  New ideals were upheld to fresh and wondering minds.  The\ncontagion spread, and the thirst for knowledge was carried to\never-widening spheres.  It thus came to pass that the cleric and the\nscholar ceased to be identical.  The boundaries of knowledge were\nenlarged when the inductive method was applied to the study of nature,\nand it soon became impossible for one man to pretend to a mastery of\nall science.  And so the principle of the division of labor was\nintroduced into things of the intellect.  Of old, the prophet or the\nphilosopher was supposed to possess all wisdom; but now it had become\nplain that proficiency could be hoped for only by lifelong devotion to\nsome special branch of knowledge.  This led to other developments.  The\nbusiness of teaching, which had been almost exclusively in the hands of\necclesiastics, was now necessarily taken up by laymen also.  As\nfeudalism fell to decay, and the assertion of popular rights began to\npoint to the advent of democracy, the movement in opposition to\nprivilege logically led to the claim that learning should no longer be\nheld to be the appanage of special classes, but that the gates of the\ntemple of knowledge should be thrown open to the whole people.  To make\neducation universal, the most ready and the simplest means was to levy\na school tax; and as this could be done only by the State, the State\nestablished systems of education and assumed the office of teacher.\nThe result of all this has been that the school, which throughout\nChristendom is the creation of the church, has in most countries very\nlargely passed into the control of the civil government.\n\nThis transference of control need not, however, involve the exclusion\nof religious influence and instruction; though once the State has\ngained the ascendency, the natural tendency is to take a partial and\nsecular view of the whole question of education, and to limit the\nfunctions of the school to the training of the mental faculties.  And,\nas a matter of fact, this tendency is found in men of widely differing\nand even conflicting opinions and convictions concerning religion\nitself.  It is most pronounced, however, in the educational theories\nand systems of positivists and agnostics.  As they hold that there is\nno God, or that we cannot know that there is a God, they necessarily\nconclude that it is absurd to attempt to teach children anything about\nGod.  This view is forcibly expressed by Issaurat, a French writer on\neducation, in a recently published volume, which he calls \"The\nEvolution and History of Pedagogy.\"\n\n\"All religion,\" he affirms, in the concluding chapter of his book,\n\"impedes, thwarts, misdirects, and troubles the natural education of\nman, the normal and harmonious development of his physical, moral, and\nintellectual faculties; and since educational reform is not possible\nwithout reformation in the government, it is the duty of the State, not\nmerely to separate itself from the church, but to suppress the church\nand to found the science of education upon biological philosophy, upon\ntransformism--let us say the word, upon materialism.\"  This view is\nmanifestly the inevitable result of Issaurat's general system of\nthought and belief.  In his opinion, matter alone really exists, and\nwhat is called spirit is but a phase of its evolution.  The world of\nspirit, therefore, is illusory; and to bring up the young to believe\nthat it is the infinite, essential reality, is to teach them what is\nfalse, and to give a wrong direction to the whole course of life.  For\npractical purposes this is the view not only of materialists and\npositivists, but of agnostics as well, who, though they do not deny the\nexistence of spirit, assert that only the phenomenal can be known, or\nbecome the subject-matter of teaching.  They all agree in holding that\nthe theological world-view was the primitive one, which, yielding to\nthe metaphysical, has been finally superseded by the scientific, the\nsole basis of a rational philosophy.  The ideas of God, substance,\ncause, and end, are metaphysical ideas, which, if we wish to understand\nnature, must be ignored; for the study of nature is the study simply of\nfacts and their relations with one another.  There is, so they think,\nno such thing as substance, any more than there is such a thing as a\nprinciple of gravity, heat, light, electricity, or chemical affinity.\nThe vital principle too, which has played so great a part in\nphysiological inquiries, must be given up; and therefore, while nearly\nall the philosophers, from Kant to our own day, have made psychology\nthe foundation of the science of education, there is at present a\nmarked tendency to have it rest solely on biology.  Whether and to what\nextent these theories are true or false, is beyond the purpose of this\nargument.  True or false, they fairly describe the views of a large\nnumber of thinkers in our day, and enable us to form a conception of\ntheir philosophy of education.  \"Why trouble ourselves,\" asks Professor\nHuxley, \"about matters of which, however important they may be, we do\nknow nothing and can know nothing?  With a view to our duty in this\nlife, it is necessary to be possessed of only two beliefs: The first,\nthat the order of nature is ascertainable by our faculties to an extent\nthat is practically unlimited; the second, that our volition counts for\nsomething as a condition of the course of events.\"  Our volition counts\nas a condition, but it is after all only a part of the course of\nevents, and, consequently, the only belief it is necessary to hold is,\nthat the course of events is ascertainable by our faculties to a\npractically unlimited extent.  Such is the brief creed of materialists\nand agnostics.  The order of nature is the only known god, and man's\nsole end and duty is to make himself acquainted with it, that through\nobedience he may attain the highest perfection and happiness of which\nhe is capable.  This is the one true religion, and an enlightened\npeople should forbid that any other be taught in their schools.  Here\nwe have an intelligible and well-defined position, and the one which,\nfrom the point of view of such men as Issaurat and Huxley, is alone\ntenable.\n\nEvery one now, who thinks at all, has some theory of the world, and\nhence the shades of unbelief as of belief are many; and since views of\neducation are part of a more general system of philosophy, it is\ninevitable that those who disagree upon the fundamental questions of\nthought, disagree also in their notions as to what is the school's\nproper office.\n\nMaterialists, pantheists, positivists, secularists, and pessimists\nunite in denying that there is a God above and distinct from nature,\nwhile agnostics and cosmists affirm that such a being, if he exist,\nmust necessarily lie outside the domain of knowledge.  Positive\nreligious doctrines, therefore, are superstition.  As these views are\nreflected in a more or less vague way in the writings of the multitude\nof those who make the current literature, public opinion becomes averse\nto religious dogmas.  A large number of cultivated minds turn from all\ndefinite systems, whether of thought or belief.  Everything may be\ntolerated, if only the spirit of dogmatism is away.  They recognize how\ngreat a thing religion is, how profoundly it touches life, how\npowerfully it shapes conduct.  Without it, civilization is hard and\nmechanical, art is formal and feeble, and man himself but a shrewd\nanimal.  But, from their points of view, doctrines about God and Christ\nand the church have nothing to do with religion.  To think of God as\nsubstance is to convert him into nature, to think of him as a person is\nto limit him.  The only absolute is the moral order of the world.  The\nreligion of Christ is not a theory or a system of thought; it is a view\nof life, and its essence is found in belief in the reality of moral\nideas.  The supernatural may fall away,--even the notion of a\nProvidence which rules the world in the interest of the good may be\ngiven up,--and we still have the method and the secret of Jesus, all\nthat is of value in his life and teaching.  All theology is an\nillusion, all creeds are a mistake.  Religion rests upon the moral\npower, which is not a conclusion drawn from facts, but the fact\nitself,--the primal and essential fact in human life.  Religion is\nsimply morality suffused by the glow and warmth of a devout and\nreverent temper, and to teach doctrines about God and the church will\nnot make men religious.\n\nIt is obvious to object that morality supposes belief in a Personal God\nand in the soul of man, as law implies a law-giver.  This objection is\nmeaningless, not only for the thinkers whom I have mentioned, but for\nothers who find little interest in the literary and religious ideas of\nsuch men as Matthew Arnold.  Morality, they claim, is independent, not\nonly of metaphysics, but of religion as well.  It is a science, as yet,\nindeed, imperfectly developed, but a science nevertheless, just as\nchemistry or physiology is a science.  Human acts are controlled, not\nby a higher will or man's freedom of choice, but by physical laws.  The\npeculiarity of this view does not lie in the contention that ethics is\na science, but in the claim that it is a science altogether independent\nof metaphysical and religious dogmas.  All forces, it is asserted,\nphysical, mental, and moral, are identical; and morality, like bodily\nvigor, is a product of organism.  It is, in fact, but an elaboration of\nthe two radical instincts of nutrition and propagation, from which\nsprings the twofold movement of conscious life, the egoistic and the\naltruistic.  This theory is accepted alike in the German school of\nmaterialism, in the French school of positivism, and in the English\nschool of utilitarianism.  What the influence of modern empiricism upon\nAmerican opinion may be, it is difficult to determine.  Americans\ncertainly are a practical people, but they are not devoid of interest\nin speculative views.  More than any other people, possibly, they have\nfaith in the marvellous things which science is destined to accomplish,\nand they willingly listen to men of science, even when they quit the\nregions of fact for those of opinion.  Thus the various theories, to\nwhich the progress of natural knowledge has given rise, are received by\nthem, if not with implicit trust, with a kind of feeling, at least,\nthat they may be true.\n\nThere is even a disposition to treat doubts of the truth of\nChristianity as a mark of intellectual vigor, and sometimes as a sign\nof religious sincerity.  Preoccupied with material interests, but yet\nfinding time to read the thoughts of many minds and to hear the\ndiscussion of antagonistic opinions and systems, they find it difficult\nto trust with entire confidence to what they know or believe.  It all\nseems to be relative, and another generation may see everything in a\ndifferent light.  Problems take the place of principles, religious\nconvictions are feeble, the grasp of Christian truth is relaxed, and\nthe result is a certain moral hesitancy and infirmity.\n\nThey are not hostile to the churches, but they are more or less\nindifferent to their doctrines.  As each sect has its peculiar creed,\nthe dogmatic position of the church is thought to be of little moment.\nThe important thing is to promote intelligence and virtue.  The\ndistinctively sectarian view they look upon as narrow and false, and\nthe good which ecclesiastical organizations do is done in spite of\ntheir characteristic doctrines.  The note of sectarianism is to them\nwhat the note of provincialism is to a man of culture, or lack of\nbreeding to a gentleman.  The moral fervor, which sectarians more than\nothers feel, is, they freely grant, a power for good.  It has a\nwholesome influence upon character, and is a support of the virtues\nwhich make free institutions possible, and which alone can make them\npermanent.  But it has no necessary connection with theological\ndoctrines, since it is found in earnest believers, whatever their\ncreed.  It is the child of enthusiastic faith, and is nourished and\nkept living by worship, not by dogmatic asseverations.  As the power of\nthe churches does not lie in their creeds, to make these creeds a\nschool lesson cannot be desirable, especially when we reflect that the\nmethod of religion and the method of science are at variance.\n\nSuch, I imagine, are the views of large numbers of Americans, who are\nnot members of any church, but whose influence is strongly felt in\npolitical and commercial as well as in social and professional life.\nAnd numbers of zealous Protestants are in substantial agreement with\nthem, since they hold that faith is an emotional rather than an\nintellectual state of mind, and that religion is not so much a way of\nthinking as a way of feeling and acting.  They assume, of course, as\nthe prerequisites of religious belief, the dogmas of the existence of a\npersonal God and of an immortal human soul; but, for the rest, they lay\nstress upon conduct and piety, not upon orthodox faith.  A church must\nhave a creed, as a party must have a platform; but unhesitating\nconfidence in the truth of the doctrines which it thus formulates is\nnot indispensable.  American churches tend to ignore creeds.  This is\ndue, in a measure, to the growing desire to form a union among the\nseveral sects; but it is none the less a sign of waning belief in\ndogmatic religion.  Hence the increasing emphasis which preaching lays\nupon the moral, aesthetic, and emotional aspects of the religious life.\nHence, too, the assumption that the soul of the church may live, though\nthe body be dead.\n\nBut, apart from all theories and systems of belief and thought, public\nopinion in America sets strongly against the denominational school.\n\nThe question of education is considered from a practical rather than\nfrom a theoretical point of view, and public sentiment on the subject\nmay be embodied in the following words: The civilized world now\nrecognizes the necessity of popular education.  In a government of the\npeople, such as this is, intelligence should be universal.  In such a\ngovernment, to be ignorant is not merely to be weak, it is also to be\ndangerous to the common welfare; for the ignorant are not only the\nvictims of circumstances, they are the instruments which unscrupulous\nand designing men make use of, to taint the source of political\nauthority and to thwart the will of the people.  To protect itself, the\nState is forced to establish schools and to see that all acquire at\nleast the rudiments of letters.  This is so plain a case that argument\nbecomes ridiculous.  They who doubt the good of knowledge are not to be\nreasoned with, and in America not to see that it is necessary, is to\nknow nothing of our political, commercial, and social life.  But the\nAmerican State can give only a secular education, for it is separate\nfrom the church, and its citizens profess such various and even\nconflicting beliefs, that in establishing a school system, it is\ncompelled to eliminate the question of religion.  Church and State are\nseparate institutions, and their functions are different and distinct.\nThe church seeks to turn men from sin, that they may become pleasing to\nGod and save their souls; the State takes no cognizance of sin, but\nstrives to prevent crime, and to secure to all its citizens the\nenjoyment of life, liberty, and property.  Americans are a Christian\npeople.  Religious zeal impelled their ancestors to the New World, and\nwhen schools were first established here, they were established by the\nchurches, and religious instruction formed an important part of the\neducation they gave.  This was natural, and it was desirable even, in\nprimitive times, when each colony had its own creed and worship, when\nsociety was simple, and the State as yet imperfectly organized.  Here,\nas in the Old World, the school was the daughter of the church, and she\nhas doubtless rendered invaluable service to civilization, by fostering\na love for knowledge among barbarous races and in struggling\ncommunities.  But the task of maintaining a school system such as the\nrequirements of a great and progressive nation demands, is beyond her\nstrength.  This is so, at least, when the church is split into jealous\nand warring sects.\n\nTo introduce the spirit of sectarianism into the class-room would\ndestroy the harmony and good-will among citizens, which it is one of\nthe aims of the common school to cherish.  There is, besides, no reason\nwhy this should be done, since the family and the church give all the\nreligious instruction which children are capable of receiving.\n\nThis, it seems to me, is a fair presentation of the views and ideas\nwhich go to the making of current American opinion on the question of\nreligious instruction in State schools; and current opinion, when the\nsubject-matter is not susceptible of physical demonstration, cannot be\nturned suddenly in an opposite direction.  When men have grown\naccustomed to look at things in a certain way, they have acquired a\nmental habit, which no mere argument, however cogent or eloquent, is\nable to overcome.  To what extent this view of the school question\nprevails is readily perceived by whoever recalls to mind that not one\nof the States of the Union has attempted to introduce the\ndenominational system of education, while all the political parties\nhave bound themselves to uphold the present purely secular system.  The\nopinion that the prosperity of the nation depends upon the intelligence\nand activity of the people, and to no appreciable extent upon the\ninfluence of ecclesiastical organizations, has so far prevailed, that\nthe general feeling has come to be that the State has no direct\ninterest in the church, which is the concern merely of individuals.\nThe religious denominations themselves have helped to inspire this\nsentiment by their jealousies and rivalries.  The smaller sects feel\nthat State aid for denominational schools would accrue to the benefit\nchiefly of the larger; and the others are willing to forego favors\nwhich they could not receive without permitting the Catholic Church to\nparticipate also in the bounty of the government.\n\nThe Catholic view of the school question is as clearly defined as it is\nwell known.  It rests upon the general ground that man is created for a\nsupernatural end, and that the church is the divinely appointed agency\nto help him to attain his supreme destiny.  If education is a training\nfor completeness of life, its primary element is the religious, for\ncomplete life is life in God.  Hence we may not assume an attitude\ntoward the child, whether in the home, in the church, or in the school,\nwhich might imply that life apart from God could be anything else than\nbroken and fragmentary.  A complete man is not one whose mind only is\nactive and enlightened; but he is a complete man who is alive in all\nhis faculties.  The truly human is found not in knowledge alone, but\nalso in faith, in hope, in love, in pure-mindedness, in reverence, in\nthe sense of beauty, in devoutness, in the thrill of awe, which Goethe\nsays is the highest thing in man.  If the teacher is forbidden to touch\nupon religion, the source of these noble virtues and ideal moods is\nsealed.  His work and influence become mechanical, and he will form but\ncommonplace and vulgar men.  And if an educational system is\nestablished on this narrow and material basis, the result will be\ndeterioration of the national type, and the loss of the finer qualities\nwhich make men many-sided and interesting, which are the safeguards of\npersonal purity and of unselfish conduct.\n\nReligion is the vital element in character, and to treat it as though\nit were but an incidental phase of man's life is to blunder in a matter\nof the highest and most serious import.  Man is born to act, and\nthought is valuable mainly as a guide to action.  Now, the chief\ninspiration to action, and above all to right action, is found in\nfaith, hope, and love, the virtues of religion, and not in knowledge,\nthe virtue of the intellect.  Knowledge, indeed, is effectual only when\nit is loved, believed in, and held to be a ground for hope.  Man does\nnot live on bread alone, and if he is brought up to look to material\nthings, as to the chief good, his higher faculties will be stunted.  If\nto do rightly rather than to think keenly is man's chief business here\non earth, then the virtues of religion are more important than those of\nthe intellect; for to think is to be unresolved, whereas to believe is\nto be impelled in the direction of one's faith.  In epochs of doubt\nthings fall to decay; in epochs of faith the powers which make for full\nand vigorous life, hold sway.  The education which forms character is\nindispensable, that which trains the mind is desirable.  The essential\nelement in human life is conduct, and conduct springs from what we\nbelieve, cling to, love, and yearn for, vastly more than from what we\nknow.  The decadence and ruin of individuals and of societies come from\nlack of virtue, not from lack of knowledge.  \"The hard and valuable\npart of education,\" says Locke, \"is virtue; this is the solid and\nsubstantial good, which the teacher should never cease to inculcate\ntill the young man places his strength, his glory, and his pleasure in\nit.\"  We may, of course, distinguish between morality and religion,\nbetween ethics and theology.  As a matter of fact, however, moral laws\nhave everywhere reposed upon the basis of religion, and their sanction\nhas been sought in the principles of faith.  As an immoral religion is\nfalse, so, if there is no God, a moral law is meaningless.\n\nTheorists may be able to construct a system of ethics upon a foundation\nof materialism; but their mechanical and utilitarian doctrines have not\nthe power to exalt the imagination or to confirm the will.  Their\neducational value is feeble.  Here in America we have already passed\nthe stage of social development in which we might hold out to the\nyoung, as an ideal, the hope of becoming President of the Republic, or\nthe possessor of millions of money.  We know what sorry men presidents\nand millionnaires may be.  We cannot look upon our country simply as a\nwide race-course with well-filled purses hanging at the goal for the\nprize-winners.  We clearly perceive that a man's possessions are not\nhimself, and that he is or ought to be more than anything which can\nbelong to him.  Ideals of excellence, therefore, must be substituted\nfor those of success.  Opinion governs the world, but ideals draw souls\nand stimulate to noble action.  The more we transform with the aid of\nmachinery the world of matter, the more necessary does it become that\nwe make plain to all that man's true home is the world of thought and\nlove, of hope and aspiration.  The ideals of utilitarianism and\nsecularism are unsatisfactory.  They make no appeal to the infinite in\nman, to that in him which makes pursuit better than possession, and\nwhich, could he believe there is no absolute truth, love, and beauty,\nwould lead him to despair.  To-day, as of old, the soul is born of God\nand for God, and finds no peace unless it rest in him.  Theology,\nassuredly, is not religion; but religion implies theology, and a church\nwithout a creed is a body without articulation.  The virtues of\nreligion are indispensable.  Without them, it is not well either with\nindividuals or with nations; but these virtues cannot be inculcated by\nthose who, standing aloof from ecclesiastical organizations, are\nthereby cut off from the thought and work of all who in every age have\nmost loved God, and whose faith in the soul has been most living.\nReligious men have wrought for God in the church, as patriots have\nwrought for liberty and justice in the nation; and to exclude the\nrepresentatives of the churches from the school is practically to\nexclude religion,--the power which more than all others makes for\nrighteousness, which inspires hope and confidence, which makes possible\nfaith in the whole human brotherhood, in the face even of the political\nand social wrongs which are still everywhere tolerated.  To exclude\nreligion is to exclude the spirit of reverence, of gentleness and\nobedience, of modesty and purity; it is to exclude the spirit by which\nthe barbarians have been civilized, by which woman has been uplifted\nand ennobled and the child made sacred.  From many sides the demand is\nmade that the State schools exercise a greater moral influence, that\nthey be made efficient in forming character as well as in training the\nmind.  It is recognized that knowing how to read and write does not\ninsure good behavior.  Since the State assumes the office of teacher,\nthere is a disposition among parents to make the school responsible for\ntheir children's morals as well as for their minds, and thus the\ninfluence of the home is weakened.  Whatever the causes may be, there\nseems to be a tendency, both in private and in public life, to lower\nethical standards.  The moral influence of the secular school is\nnecessarily feeble, since our ideas of right and wrong are so\ninterfused with the principles of Christianity that to ignore our\nreligious convictions is practically to put aside the question of\nconscience.  If the State may take no cognizance of sin, neither may\nits school do so.  But in morals sin is the vital matter; crime is but\nits legal aspect.  Men begin as sinners before they end as criminals.\n\nThe atmosphere of religion is the natural medium for the development of\ncharacter.  If we appeal to the sense of duty, we assume belief in God\nand in the freedom of the will; if we strive to awaken enthusiasm for\nthe human brotherhood, we imply a divine fatherhood.  Accordingly, as\nwe accept or reject the doctrines of religion, the sphere of moral\naction, the nature of the distinction between right and wrong, and the\nmotives of conduct all change.  In the purely secular school only\nsecular morality may be taught; and whatever our opinion of this system\nof ethics may otherwise be, it is manifestly deficient in the power\nwhich appeals to the heart and the conscience.  The child lives in a\nworld which imagination creates, where faith, hope, and love beckon to\nrealms of beauty and delight.  The spiritual and moral truths which are\nto become the very life-breath of his soul he apprehends mystically,\nnot logically.  Heaven lies about him; he lives in wonderland, and\nfeels the thrill of awe as naturally as he looks with wide-open eyes.\nDo not seek to persuade him by telling him that honesty is the best\npolicy, that poverty overtakes the drunkard, that lechery breeds\ndisease, that to act for the common welfare is the surest way to get\nwhat is good for one's self; for such teaching will not only leave him\nunimpressed, but it will seem to him profane, and almost immoral.  He\nwants to feel that he is the child of God, of the infinitely good and\nall-wonderful; that in his father, divine wisdom and strength are\nrevealed; in his mother, divine tenderness and love.  He so believes\nand trusts in God that it is our fault if he knows that men can be\nbase.  In nothing does the godlike character of Christ show forth more\nbeautifully than in His reverence for children.  Shall we profess to\nbelieve in Him, and yet forbid His name to be spoken in the houses\nwhere we seek to train the little ones whom He loved?  Shall we shut\nout Him whose example has done more to humanize, ennoble, and uplift\nthe race of man than all the teachings of the philosophers and all the\ndisquisitions of the moralists?  If the thinkers, from Plato and\nAristotle to Kant and Pestalozzi, who have dealt with the problems of\neducation, have held that virtue is its chief aim and end, shall we\nthrust from the school the one ideal character who, for nearly nineteen\nhundred years, has been the chief inspiration to righteousness and\nheroism; to whose words patriots and reformers have appealed in their\nstruggles for liberty and right; to whose example philanthropists have\nlooked in their labors to alleviate suffering; to whose teaching the\nmodern age owes its faith in the brotherhood of men; by whose courage\nand sympathy the world has been made conscious that the distinction\nbetween man and woman is meant for the propagation of the race, but\nthat as individuals they have equal rights and should have equal\nopportunities?  We all, and especially the young, are influenced by\nexample more than by precepts and maxims, and it is unjust and\nunreasonable to exclude from the schoolroom the living presence of the\nnoblest and best men and women, of those whose words and deeds have\ncreated our Christian civilization.  In the example of their lives we\nhave truth and justice, goodness and greatness, in concrete form; and\nthe young who are brought into contact with these centres of influence\nwill be filled with admiration and enthusiasm; they will be made gentle\nand reverent; and they will learn to realize the ever-fresh charm and\nforce of personal purity.  Teachers who have no moral criteria, no\nideals, no counsels of perfection, no devotion to God and godlike men,\ncannot educate, if the proper meaning of education is the complete\nunfolding of all man's powers.\n\nThe school, of course, is but one of the many agencies by which\neducation is given.  We are under the influence of our whole\nenvironment,--physical, moral, and intellectual; political, social, and\nreligious; and if, in all this, aught were different, we ourselves\nshould be other.  The family is a school and the church is a school;\nand current American opinion assigns to them the business of moral and\nreligious education.  But this implies that conduct and character are\nof secondary importance; it supposes that the child may be made subject\nto opposite influences at home and in the school, and not thereby have\nhis finer sense of reverence, truth, and goodness deadened.  The\nsubduing of the lower nature, of the outward to the inner man, is a\nthing so arduous that reason, religion, and law combined often fail to\naccomplish it.  If one should propose to do away with schools\naltogether, and to leave education to the family and the Church, he\nwould be justly considered ridiculous; because the carelessness of\nparents and the inability of the ministry of the Church would involve\nthe prevalence of illiteracy.  Now, to leave moral and religious\neducation to the family and the churches involves, for similar reasons,\nthe prevalence of indifference, sin, and crime.  If illiteracy is a\nmenace to free institutions, vice and irreligion are a greater menace.\nThe corrupt are always bad citizens; the ignorant are not necessarily\nso.  Parents who would not have their children taught to read and\nwrite, were there no free schools, will as a rule neglect their\nreligious and moral education.  In giving religious instruction to the\nyoung, the churches are plainly at a disadvantage; for they have the\nchild but an hour or two in seven days, and they get into their Sunday\nclasses only the children of the more devout.\n\nIf the chief end of education is virtue; if conduct is three-fourths of\nlife; if character is indispensable, while knowledge is only\nuseful,--then it follows that religion--which, more than any other\nvital influence, has power to create virtue, to inspire conduct, and to\nmould character--should enter into all the processes of education.  Our\nschool system, then, does not rest upon a philosophic view of life and\neducation.  We have done what it was easiest to do, not what it was\nbest to do; and in this, as in other instances, churchmen have been\nwilling to sacrifice the interests of the nation to the whims of a\nnarrow and jealous temper.  The denominational system of popular\neducation is the right system.  The secular system is a wrong system.\nThe practical difficulties to be overcome that religious instruction\nmay be given in the schools are relatively unimportant, and would be\nset aside if the people were thoroughly persuaded of its necessity.  An\nobjection which Dr. Harris, among others, insists upon, that the method\nof science and the method of religion are dissimilar, and that\ntherefore secular knowledge and religious knowledge should not be\ntaught in the same school, seems to me to have no weight.  The method\nof mathematics is not the method of biology; the method of logic is not\nthe method of poetry; but they are all taught in the same school.  A\ngood teacher, in fact, employs many methods.  In teaching the child\ngrammatical analysis, he has no fear of doing harm to his imagination\nor his talent for composition.\n\nNo system, however, can give assurance that the school is good.  To\ndetermine this we must know the spirit which lives in it.  The\nintellectual, moral, and religious atmosphere which the child breathes\nthere is of far more importance, from an educational point of view,\nthan any doctrines he may learn by rote, than any acts of worship he\nmay perform.\n\nThe teacher makes the school; and when high, pure, devout, and\nenlightened men and women educate, the conditions favorable to mental\nand moral growth will be found, provided a false system does not compel\nthem to assume a part and play a role, while the true self--the faith,\nhope, and love whereby they live--is condemned to inaction.  The deeper\ntendency of the present age is not, I think, to exclude religion from\nany vital process, but rather to widen the content of the idea of\nreligion until it embrace the whole life of man.  The worship of God is\nnot now the worship of infinite wisdom, holiness, and justice alone,\nbut is also the worship of the humane, the beautiful, and the\nindustriously active.  Whether we work for knowledge or freedom, or\npurity or strength, or beauty or health, or aught else that is friendly\nto completeness of life, we work with God and for God.  In the school,\nas in whatever other place in the boundless universe a man may find\nhimself, he finds himself with God, in Him moves, lives, and has his\nbeing.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII.\n\nTHE HIGHER EDUCATION.[1]\n\n[1] A discourse pronounced at the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore,\nwhich, being enforced by the offer of three hundred thousand dollars by\nMiss Caldwell, led to the founding of the University at Washington.\n\n\nThe subject which I have been asked to treat is the higher education of\npriests; which, I suppose, is the highest education of man, since the\nideal of the Christian priest is the most exalted, his vocation the\nmost sublime, his office the most holy, his duties the most spiritual,\nand his mission--whether we consider its relation to morality, which is\nthe basis of individual and social welfare, or to religion, which is\nthe promise and the secret of immortal and godlike life--is the most\nimportant and the most sacred which can be assigned to a human being.\n\nReligion and education--like religion and morality--are nearly related.\nPure religion, indeed, is more than right education; and yet it may be\nsaid with truth that it is but a part of the best education, for it\nco-operates with other forces--with climate, custom, social conditions,\nand political institutions--to develop and fashion the complete man;\nand the special instruction of teachers--which is the narrow meaning of\nthe word--is modified, and to a great extent controlled, by these\npowers which work unseen, and are the vital agents that make possible\nall conscious educational efforts.\n\nThe faith we hold, the laws we obey, the domestic and social customs to\nwhich our thoughts and loves are harmonized, the climate we live in,\nmould our characters and give to our souls a deeper and more lasting\ntinge than any school, though it were the best.\n\nMy subject, however, does not demand that I consider these general and\nsilent agencies by which life is influenced, but leads me to the\ndiscussion of the methods by which man, with conscious purpose, seeks\nto form and instruct his fellow-man; to the discussion of the special\neducation which brings art to the aid of nature, and becomes the\nauxiliary and guide of the other forces which contribute to the\ndevelopment of our being.\n\nIn this age, when all who think at all turn their thoughts to questions\nof education, it is needless to call attention to the interest of the\nsubject, which, like hope, is immortal, and fresh as the innocent face\nof laughing childhood.\n\nIs not the school for all men a shrine to which their pilgrim thoughts\nreturn to catch again the glow and gladness of a world wherein they\nlived by faith and hope and love when round the morning sun of life the\ngolden purple clouds were hanging, and earth lay hidden in mist,\nbeneath which the soul created a new paradise?  To the opening mind all\nthings are young and fair; and to remember the delight that accompanied\nthe gradual dawn of knowledge upon our mental vision, sweet and\nbeautiful as the upglowing of day from the bosom of night, is to be\nforever thankful for the gracious power of education.  And is there not\nin all hearts a deep and abiding yearning for great and noble men, and\ntherefore an imperishable interest in the power by which they are\nmoulded?  When fathers and mothers look upon the fair blossoming\nchildren that cling to them as the vine wraps its tendrils round the\nspreading bough, and when their great love fills them with ineffable\nlonging to shield these tender souls from the blighting blasts of a\ncold and stormy world, and little by little to prepare them to stand\nalone and breast the gales of fortune, do they not instinctively put\ntheir trust in the power of education?\n\nWhen, at the beginning of the present century, Germany lay prostrate at\nthe feet of Napoleon, the wise and the patriotic among her children\nyielded not to despondency, but turned with confidence to truer methods\nand systems of education, and assiduous teaching and patient waiting\nfinally brought them to Sedan.\n\nWhen, in the sixteenth century, heresy and schism seemed near to final\nvictory over the Church, Pope Julius III. declared that the evils and\nabuses of the times were the outgrowth of the shameful ignorance of the\nclergy, and that the chief hope of the dawning of a brighter day lay in\ngeneral and thorough ecclesiastical education.  And the Catholic\nleaders who finally turned back the advancing power of Protestantism,\nre-established the Church in half the countries in which it had been\noverthrown, and converted more souls in America and Asia than had been\nlost in Europe, belonged to the greatest educational body the world has\never seen.  What is history but examples of success through knowledge\nand righteousness, and of failure through lack of understanding and of\nvirtue?\n\nWherein lies the superiority of civilized races over barbarians if not\nin their greater knowledge and superior strength of character?  And\nwhat but education has placed in the hands of man the thousand natural\nforces which he holds as a charioteer his well-reined steeds, bidding\nthe winds carry him to distant lands, making steam his tireless,\never-ready slave, and commanding the lightning to speak his words to\nthe ends of the earth?  What else than this has taught him to map the\nboundless heavens, to read the footprints of God in the crust of the\nearth ages before human beings lived, to measure the speed of light, to\nweigh the imperceptible atom, to split up all natural compounds, to\ncreate innumerable artificial products with which he transforms the\nworld and with a grain of powder marches like a conquering god around\nthe globe?\n\nWhat converts the meaningless babbling of the child into the stately\nmarch of oratoric phrase or the rhythmic flow of poetic language?  What\nhas developed the rude stone and bronze implements of savage and\nbarbarous hordes into the miraculous machinery which we use?  By what\npower has man been taught to carve the shapeless rock into an image of\nideal beauty, or with it to build his thought into a temple of God,\nwhere the soul instinctively prostrates itself in adoration?\n\nIs not all this, together with whatever else is excellent in human\nworks, the result of education, which gives to man a second nature with\nmore admirable endowments?  And is not religion itself a kind of\ncelestial education, which trains the soul to godlike life?\n\nNo progress in things divine or human is made by man except through\neffort, and effort is the power and the law of education.  The maxim of\nthe spiritual writers that not to struggle upward and onward is to be\ndrawn downward, applies to every phase of our life.  Whence do we\nderive strength of soul but from the uplifting of the mind and heart to\nGod which we call prayer?  To pray is to think, to attend, to hold the\nmind lovingly to its object; and this is what we do when we study.\nHence prayer, which is the voice of religion, is a part of\neducation,--nay, its very soul, breathing on all the chords of life,\ntill their thousand dissonances meet in rhythmic harmony.  What is the\npulpit but the holiest teacher's chair that has been placed upon the\nearth?\n\nAnd as the presence of a noble character is a more potent influence\nthan words, so sacramental communion with Christ is man's chief school\nof faith, of hope, and love.  There are worthy persons who turn, as\nfrom an unholy thought, from the emphatic announcement of the need of\nthe best human qualities for the proper defence of the cause of God in\nthe world.  Such speech seems to them to be vain and unreal; for God is\nall in all, and man is nothing.  But in our day it is easier to go\nastray in the direction of self-annihilation than in that of\nself-assertion; since the common tendency now of all false philosophies\nis pantheistic, and issues in unconscious contempt of individual life.\nIf man is but a bubble, merging forth and re-absorbed, without past or\nfuture, then indeed both he, and what he seems to do, sink into the\neternal flow of matter, and are undeserving of a thought.  This\ncertainly is not the Christian view, to which man is revealed as a\nlesser god, and co-worker with the Eternal, whose thought can reach the\ninfinite, and whose will can oppose that of the Omnipotent.  In Christ,\nGod co-operates with man for the salvation of the world; and in the\nChurch, man co-operates with God to this same end.  The more complete\nthe man, the more fit is he to work with God.  Even bodily\ndisfigurement is looked upon as an obstacle; how much more, then, shall\nlack of intelligence and want of heart render us unworthy of the divine\noffice?  I certainly shall never deny that love, which the Apostle\nexalts above faith and hope, is higher also than knowledge.  The light\nof the mind is as that of the moon--fair and soft and soothing, without\nheat, without the power to call forth and nourish life; but the light\nof the soul, which is love, is the sunlight, whose kiss, like a word of\nGod, makes the dead to live, and clothes the world in strength and\nbeauty.  Character is more than intellect, love is more than knowledge,\nreligion is more than morality; and a great heart brings us closer to\nGod, nearer to all goodness, than a bright mind.  Education is\nessentially moral, and the intellectual qualities themselves, which we\nseek to develop, derive their chief efficacy from underlying ethical\nqualities upon which they rest and from which they receive their energy\nand the power of self-control.  Inequality of will is the great cause\nof inequality of mind; and the will is strengthened by the practice of\nvirtue, as the body by food and exercise.  If this is a general truth,\nwith what special force must it not apply to the ministers of a\nreligion the paramount and ceaseless aim of which is to make men holy,\nso that at times it has almost seemed as though the Church were\nindifferent as to whether they are learned or beautiful or strong?  She\npronounces no man a doctor unless he be also a saint; and when I insist\nthat the priest shall possess the best mental culture of his age,--that\nwithout this he fights with broken weapons, speaks with harsh voice a\nlanguage men will neither hear nor understand, teaches truths which,\nhaving not the freshness and the glow of truth, neither kindle the\nheart nor fire the imagination,--I do not forget that, without the\nmoral earnestness which is born of faith and purity of life, mere\ncultivation of mind will not give him power to unseal the fountains of\nliving waters which refresh the garden of God.  The universal harmony\nis felt by a pure heart better than it can be perceived by a keen\nintellect.  To a sinless soul the darker side even of life and nature\nis not wholly dark, and the mental difficulties which the existence of\nevil involves in no way weaken the consciousness of the essential\ngoodness that lies at the heart of all things.  In the religious, as in\nthe moral world, men trust to what we are rather than to what we say,\nand the teacher of spiritual truth is never strong, unless his life and\ncharacter inspire a confidence which arguments alone do not create; for\nin questions that reach beyond the sphere of sensation, we feel that\ninsight is better than reasons, and hence we instinctively prefer the\ntestimony of a god-like soul to the conclusions of a cultivated mind:\nand indeed our Blessed Lord ever assumes that the obstacle to the\nperception of divine truth is moral and not intellectual.  The pure of\nheart see God; the evil-doer loves darkness and shuns the light.  St.\nPaul goes even farther, and associates mental cultivation with a\ntendency directly opposed to religious faith, which is humble.\n\"Knowledge puffeth up.\"  But the words of the Apostle should not be\nstretched beyond his purpose, which is to point to pride as a special\ndanger of the intellectual as sensuality is a danger of the ignorant.\nFor man to have aught is to run a risk, and hence to do as little as\npossible is in the thought of the timid a mark of prudence.  And\nindeed, if fear be nearer to wisdom than courage, then should we fear\neverything, for danger is everywhere.  A breath may sow the seed of\ndeath; a look may slay the soul.  In knowledge, in ignorance, in\nstrength, in weakness, in wealth, in poverty, in genius, in stupidity,\nin company, in solitude, in innocence itself, danger lurks.  But God\ndoes not abolish life that danger may cease to be; and they who put\ntheir trust in Him will not seek to darken the mind lest knowledge lead\nman astray, but will rather in a righteous cause make the venture of\nall things, as St. Ignatius preferred the hope of saving others to the\ncertainty of his own salvation.  And may we not maintain, since we hold\nthat there is no inappeasable conflict between God and Nature, between\nthe soul and matter, between revelation and science, that the apparent\nantagonism lies in our apprehension, and not in things themselves, and\nconsequently that reconcilement is to be sought for through the help of\nthoroughly trained minds?  The poet speaks the truth, \"A little\nknowledge is a dangerous thing.\"  They who know but little and\nimperfectly, see but their knowledge, if so it may be called, and walk\nin innocent unconsciousness of their infinite nescience.  The narrower\nthe range of our mental vision, the greater the obstinacy with which we\ncling to our opinions; and the half-educated, like the weak and the\nincompetent, are often contentious, but whosoever is able to do his\nwork does it, and finds no time for dispute.  He who possesses a\ndisciplined mind, and is familiar with the best thoughts that live in\nthe great literatures, will be the last to attach undue importance to\nhis own thinking.  A sense of decency and a kind of holy shame will\nkeep him far from angry and unprofitable controversy; nor will he\nmistake a crotchet for a panacea, nor imagine that irritation is\nenlightenment.  The blessings of a cultivated mind are akin to those of\nreligion.  They are larger liberty, wider life, purer delights, and a\njuster sense of the relative values of the means and ends which lie\nwithin our reach.  Knowledge, like religion, leads us away from what\nappears to what is, from what passes to what remains, from what\nflatters the senses to that which speaks to the soul.  Wisdom and\nreligion converge, as love and knowledge meet in God; and to the wise\nas to the religious man, no great evil can happen.  Into prison they\nboth carry the sweet company of their thoughts, their faith and hope,\nand are freer in chains than the great in palaces.  In death they are\nin the midst of life, for they see that what they know and love is\nimperishable, nor subject even to atomic disintegration.  He who lives\nin the presence of truth yearns not for the company of men, but loves\nretirement as a saint loves solitude; and in times like ours, when men\nno longer choose the desert for a dwelling-place, the passionate desire\nof intellectual excellence co-operates with religious faith to guard\nthem against dissipation and to lift them above the spirit of the age.\nThe thinker is never lonely, as he who lives with God is never unhappy.\nIs not the love of excellence, which is the scholar's love, a part of\nthe love of goodness which makes the saint?  And are not intellectual\ndelights akin to those religion brings?  They are pure, they elevate,\nthey refine; time only increases their charm, and in the winter of age,\nwhen the body is but the agent of pain, contemplation still remains\nlike the light of a higher world, to tinge with beauty the clouds that\ngather around life's setting.  How narrow and monotonous is sensation!\nhow wide and various is thought!  They who live in the senses are\nfettered and ill at ease; they who live in the soul are free and\njoyful.  And since the priest, unless he be a saint, must have, like\nother men, some human joy, and since he dwells not in the sacred circle\nof the love of wife and children, in which the multitudes find repose\nand contentment, what solace, what refreshment, in the midst of cares\nand labors, shall we offer him?  If there be aught for him that is not\nunworthy or dangerous, except the pleasures of the mind, to me it is\nunknown; and though a well-trained intellect should do no more than to\nenable us to take delight in pure and noble objects, it would be a\nchief help to worthy life.  And when the whole tendency of our social\nexistence is to draw men out of themselves and to make them seek the\ngood of life in what is external, as money, display, position, renown,\nis it not a gain, if, while we open their minds to the charm of\nintellectual beauty, we make them see that this eager striving for\nwealth and place is a vulgar chase?  And does not the spirit of\nrefinement in thought, in speech, in manner, add worth and fairness to\nhim whom it inspires, though the motive which preserves him from what\nis low or gross be no higher than a fastidious delicacy and\nself-respect?\n\nTo deny the moral influence of intellectual culture is as great an\nerror as to affirm that it alone is a sufficient safeguard of morality.\nIts tendency unquestionably is to make men gentle, amiable,\nfair-minded, truthful, benevolent, modest, sober.  It curbs ambition\nand teaches resignation; chastens the imagination and mitigates\nferocity; dissuades from duelling because it is barbarous, and from war\nbecause it is cruel, and from persecution because it trusts in the\nprevalence of reason.  It seeks to fit the mind and the character to\nthe world, to all possible circumstances, so that whatever happens we\nremain ourselves,--calm, clear-seeing, able to do and to suffer.  At\ngreat heights, or in the presence of irresistible force, as of a mighty\nwaterfall, we grow dizzy; and in the same way, in the midst of\nmultitudes, in the eagerness of strife, in the whirlwind of passion,\nequipoise is lost, and we cease to be ourselves, to become part of an\naggregate of forces that hurry us on, whither we know not.  To be able\nto stand in the presence of such power, and to feel its influence, and\nyet not to lose self-possession, is to be strong; is, on proper\noccasion, to be great.  And the aim of the best education is to teach\nus the secret and the method of this complete self-control; and in so\nfar it is not only moral, but also religious, though religion walks in\na more royal road, and bids us love God and trust so absolutely in Him\nthat life and death become equal, and all the ways and workings of men\nas the storm to one who on lofty mountain peak, amid the blue heavens,\nwith the sunlight around him and the quiet breathing of the winds, sees\nfar below, as in another world, the black clouds and lurid lightning\nflash and hears the roll of distant thunder.\n\nIt is far from my thought, it is needless to say, that mental\ncultivation can be made to take the place or do the work of religion,\neven in the case of the very few for whom the best discipline of mind\nis possible.  My aim is simply to show that the type of character which\nit tends to create is not necessarily at variance with religious\nprinciple and life, as is, for instance, that of the mere worldling;\nbut that it conspires with Christian faith to produce, if not the same,\nat least similar virtues, though its ethical influence is comparatively\nsuperficial, and the moral qualities which it produces lack consistency\nand the power to withstand the fire of the passions.  It is enough for\nmy purpose to point out that if intellectualism is often the foe of\nreligious truth, there is no good reason why it should not also be its\nally.\n\nNo excellence, as I conceive, of whatever kind, is rejected by Catholic\nteaching, and the perfection of the mind is not less divine than the\nperfection of the heart.  It is good to know, as it is good to hope, to\nbelieve, to love.  A cultivated intellect, an open mind, a rich\nimagination, with correctness of thought, flexibility of view, and\neloquent expression, are among the noblest endowments of man; and\nthough they should serve no other purpose than to embellish life, to\nmake it fairer and freer, they would nevertheless be possessions\nwithout price, for the most nobly useful things are those which make\nlife good and beautiful.  Like virtue they are their own reward, and\nlike mercy they bear a double blessing.  It is the fashion with many to\naffect contempt for men of superior culture, because they look upon\neducation as simply a means to tangible ends, and think knowledge\nvaluable only when it can be made to serve practical purposes.  This is\na narrow and a false view; for all men need the noble and the\nbeautiful, and he who lives without an ideal is hardly a man.  Our\nmaterial wants are not the most real for being the most sensible and\npressing, and they who create or preserve for us models of spiritual\nand intellectual excellence are our greatest benefactors.  Which were\nthe greater loss for England, to be without Wellington and Nelson, or\nto be without Shakspeare and Milton?  Whatever the answer be, in the\none case England would suffer, in the other the whole world would feel\nthe loss.  Though a thoroughly trained intellect is less worthy of\nadmiration than a noble character, its power is immeasurably greater;\nfor, example can influence but a few and for a short time, but when a\ntruth or a sentiment has once found its best expression, it becomes a\npart of literature, and like a proverb is current forevermore; and so\nthe kings of thought become immortal rulers, and without their help the\ngodlike deeds of saints and heroes would be buried in oblivion.  \"Words\npass,\" said Napoleon, \"but deeds remain.\"  The man of action\nexaggerates the worth of action, but the philosopher knows that to act\nis easy, to think, difficult; and that great deeds spring from great\nthoughts.  There are words that never grow silent, there are words that\nhave changed the face of the earth, and the warrior's wreath of victory\nis entwined by the Muse's hand.  The power of Athens is gone, her\ntemples are in ruins, the Acropolis is discrowned, and from Mars' Hill\nno voice thunders now; but the words of Socrates, the great deliverer\nof the mind, and the father of intellectual culture, still breathe in\nthe thoughts of every cultivated man on earth.  The glory of Jerusalem\nhas departed, the broken stones of Solomon's Temple lie hard by the\ngraves that line the brook of Kedron, and from the minaret of Mount\nSion the misbeliever's melancholy call sounds like a wail over a lost\nworld; but the songs of David still rise from the whole earth in\nheavenly concert, upbearing to the throne of God the faith and hope and\nlove of countless millions.  And is not the Blessed Saviour the Eternal\nWord?  And is not the Bible God's word?  And is not the Gospel the\nWord, which, like an electric thrill, runs to the ends of the world?\n\"Currit verbum,\" says St. Paul.  \"Man lives not on bread alone, but on\nevery word that cometh forth from the mouth of God.\"  Nay, there is\nlife in all the true and noble thoughts that have blossomed in the mind\nof genius and filled the earth with fragrance and with fruit.\n\nShall I be told that the intellectual cultivation and discipline, which\ngives to man control of his knowledge, the perfect use of his\nfaculties, justness of perception with ease and grace of expression,\ncannot bring serviceable advocacy or defence to the cause of divine\ntruth?  What does truth need but to be known?  And since to reach the\nmind and heart of man it must be clothed in words, what is so necessary\nto it as the garb and vesture, the form and color, the warmth and life,\nwhich shall so mark it that to be loved it needs but be seen?  And who\nshall so clothe it, if not he who has the freest, the most flexible,\nthe clearest, the best disciplined mind?  In the apostolic age, when\nthe manifestations of miraculous power accompanied the announcement of\nChristian doctrine, the lack of the persuasive words of human eloquence\nwas not felt.  Let him who can drink poison and touch scorpions, and\nnot suffer harm, despise the aid of learning; but for us, who are not\nso assisted, no cultivation of mind or preparation of heart can be too\ngreat; and to appear in the garb of a savage were less unseemly than to\nspeak the holiest and the highest truths in the barbarous tongue of\nignorance.\n\nOur way here cannot be doubtful.  Either we must hold with certain\npeculiar heretics that learning is a hindrance to the efficacious\nteaching of religious truth, or, denying this, we must hold, since\nmental culture is serviceable, that the best is most serviceable.\n\nMay we not take this for a principle,--to believe that God does\neverything, and then to act as though He left everything for us to do?\nOr this: Since grace supposes nature, the growth and strength of the\nChurch is not wholly independent of the natural endowments of her\nministers?\n\nAs a matter of fact we Catholics are constantly speaking and acting\nupon principles of this kind.  We maintain that without a proper\neducation our children must lose the faith; and that without careful\nmoral and mental training no man is likely to become a good priest; and\nall that I further insist upon is that if he is to do the best work, he\nmust have the best intellectual discipline.  In an intellectual age, at\nleast, he cannot be the worthy minister of worship, unless he is also\nthe accomplished teacher of truth.  In vain shall we clothe him in rich\nsymbolic vestments, place him in majestic temples, before marble\naltars, in the midst of solemn music, in the dim sober-tinted light,\nwith the great and noble looking out upon him, as from a spirit\nworld,--in vain shall all this be, if when he himself speaks, his words\nare felt to be but the echo of a coarse and empty mind.  And hence our\nenemies would gladly leave us the poetry of our worship, would even\nenter our churches to be comforted, to be soothed, to seek the\nelevation and enlargement of thought and sentiment which comes upon us\nin the presence of what is vast, mysterious, and sublime, if we would\nbut confess that it is only poetry, good and beautiful only as art is\ngood and beautiful.  The spirit of the time, in fact, it seems to me,\nis more and more disposed to grant us everything except the possession\nof intellectual truth.  That the Catholic Church is a marvellous power;\nthat her triumphs have been so enduring and so unexpected that only the\nfoolish or the ignorant will predict her downfall; that she overcame\npaganism; that she saved Christianity when Rome fell; that she\nrestrained the ferocity of the barbarians, protected the weak,\nencouraged labor, preserved the classics, maintained the unity and\nsanctity of marriage, defended the purity and dignity of woman,\nespoused the cause of the oppressed, and in a lawless and ignorant age\nproclaimed the supremacy of right and the worth of learning; that to\nthese signal services must be added her power to give ease and\npleasantness to the social relations of men, keeping them equally\nremote from Puritan severity and pagan license; her eye for beauty and\ngrace, which has made her the foster-mother of all the arts; her love\nof the excellent and the noble, which has enabled her to create types\nof character that are immortal; her practical wisdom, giving her the\nsecret of dealing with every phase of life, so that her saints are\ndoctors, apostles, mystics, philanthropists, artists, poets, kings,\nbeggars, warriors, peasants, barbarians, philosophers,--all this, if I\nmistake not, unbelievers even are more and more willing to concede.\nNor are they slow to express their admiration of the strength and\nmajesty of this single power amid the Christian nations, which reaches\nback to the great civilizations that have perished, which has preserved\nits organic unity intact amid the social revolutions of two thousand\nyears, and which is acknowledged still to be the greatest moral force\nin the world.  But, underlying all they say and think, is the\nassumption that the foundations of this noble structure are crumbling;\nthat the world of faith and thought in which it was upbuilt is become a\ndesert where no flower blooms, no living soul is found; that the temple\nis beautiful only as a ruin is beautiful, where owls hoot and bats flit\nto and fro.  \"There is not a creed, we are told, which is not shaken,\nnor an accredited dogma which is not shown to be questionable; not a\nreceived tradition which does not threaten to dissolve.\"\n\nThe conquests of the human mind in the realms of nature have produced a\nworld-wide ferment of thought, an intellectual activity which is\nwithout a parallel.  They have increased the power of man to an almost\nincredible degree, have given him control of the earth and the seas,\nhave placed within his grasp undreamed-of forces, have opened to his\nview unsuspected mysteries; they have placed him on a new earth and\nunder new heavens, and thrown a light never seen before upon the\nhistory of his race.  As a part of this vast development new questions\nhave risen, new theories have been broached, new doubts have suggested\nthemselves; and because we have changed, all else seems to have changed\nalso.  And since, underlying all questions, there is found a question\nof religion, the discussion of religious and philosophic problems has,\nin our day, become a social necessity, and the science of criticism,\ntogether with the physical sciences, has driven the disputants upon new\nand difficult ground, where the battle must be fought, and where\nretreat is not possible.\n\nAs well imagine that society will again take on the form of feudalism,\nas that the human mind will return to the point of view from which our\nancestors looked on nature.\n\nAnd this world-view shapes and colors all our thinking, in theology as\nin other sciences, so that truths which were latent have come to light,\nand principles which have long been held find new and wider application.\n\nNever has the defence of religion required so many and such excellent\nqualities of intellect as in the present day.  The early apologists who\ncontrasted the sublimity and purity of Christian faith with a corrupt\npaganism had not a difficult task.  In the Middle Age the intellect of\nthe world was on the side of Christ.  The controversy which sprang up\nwith the advent of Protestantism was biblical and historical, and its\ncriticism was superficial.  The anti-Christian schools of thought of\nthe eighteenth century were literary rather than philosophical, and the\nobjections they urged were founded chiefly upon political and social\nconsiderations.  In all these discussions the territory in dispute was\nwell defined and relatively small.  But into what a different world are\nnot we thrown!  These earlier explorers sailed upon rivers whose banks\nwere lined by firm-set rocky cliffs, by the overshadowing boughs of\nprimeval forests, with here and there pleasant slopes of green where\nthey might lie at rest amid the fragrance of wild flowers; but from our\nPeter's bark we look out upon the dark unfathomed seas towards an\nunknown world whose margin ever fades and recedes as we seem to draw\nnear the haven of our desire.\n\nAs in the beginning of the twelfth century the cry, \"God wills it!\"\nrang through Europe, and from all her lands armies of mailed knights\nsprang into battle-array and turned their faces towards the Holy City,\nresolved to wrench from infidel hands the Sacred Tomb of Christ, so\nnow, from her thousand watch-towers, science sounds her clarion note\nwith quite other intent, urging on to the attack of the citadel of God\nin the heart of man, renewing upon lower fields the war in which\nimmortal spirits contended with the Almighty \"in dubious battle on the\nplains of heaven, and shook his throne.\"  As \"he jests at scars that\nnever felt a wound,\" so here the lesser knowledge makes the bolder man.\nNot that difficulties should create doubts, or that objections may not\nbe answered, or that it is necessary to refute each hypothesis that\nappears and fades like a dissolving view, or to notice each\nunwarrantable inference from unquestioned facts, or that it is worth\nwhile to address ourselves to minds whose nebulous and shifting\nopinions make it impossible that they should receive correct\nimpressions; but the field upon which attacks upon religion are now\nmade is so vast, the confusion of thought into which new discoveries\nand speculations have thrown the minds of even educated men is so\nbewildering, the methods for the ascertainment of truth are so tangled\nand misapplied, the rushing on of multitudes to discuss problems which\nhave hitherto been left to philosophers, and which they alone can\nrightly enunciate, is so stupefying, that those who have the clearest\nperception of the mental state of the modern world, and who are able to\ntake the finest and most comprehensive view of the religious,\nphilosophic, and scientific controversies of the day, seem loath to\nenter into a struggle where the ground continually changes, and where\nvictory at the best is only partial, and but leads to further contest.\nIt is well to remember, also, that in the intellectual arena to attack\nis easier than to defend, and any shallow, incoherent talker or writer\ncan propose difficulties which the keenest thinker will find great\ntrouble to explain.  Since we and our works fall to ruin and pass away,\nwe seem instinctively to take the side of those who seek to undermine\nand overthrow systems of thought and belief which claim to be\nindestructible, and the human heart is half a traitor to the Church\nwhich declares that she is indefectible and infallible.  Is there not\nindeed, however we account for it, in all nature a kind of dread and\nhorror of the supernatural, such as one who hides within his bosom a\nsecret of dark guilt feels in the presence of the conscience of\nmankind?  And does not this make the world lean to the side of those\nwho would eliminate God from nature?\n\nAnd yet, since man's heart is the home of contradictions, is it not\nalso true to say that he is naturally religious?  His faith in God is\nas deep and unwavering as his faith in the testimony of the senses; and\nif there are atheists there are also men who hold that all things are\nunreal and only appear to be; that the world is but a myriad-formed, a\nmyriad-tinted idea, the dream of a substanceless dreamer.  Not only do\nwe believe in God and in the soul, but all that we love, all that we\nhope for, all that gives to life charm, dignity, and sacredness, is\ninterpenetrated, perfumed, and illumined by this faith.  If men could\nbe persuaded that the unconscious is the beginning and the end of all\nthings, what good would have been gained?  The light of heaven would\nfade away, and the soul's high faith be made a lie; the poor would have\nno friend, and the rich no heart; the wicked would be without fear, and\nthe good without hope; success would be consecrated, and death alone\nwould remain as the refuge of the unfortunate.  Even animal indulgence,\nin sinking out of the moral order, would lose its human charm.  If then\nin our day there is wide-spread scepticism, a sort of vague feeling\nthat science is undermining religion and that the most sacred beliefs\nare dissolving, the cause of this lies not so much in the natural\ntendencies of the mind and heart, as in social conditions, in passing\nphases of thought, in the shifting of the point of view from which men\nhave hitherto been accustomed to look on nature; and the continuance\nand the progress of doubt, and consequently of indifference, is, to\nsome extent at least, to be ascribed also to the fact that the most\nearnest believers in God and in Christianity have, for now more than a\ncentury, been less eager to acquire the best philosophic and literary\ncultivation of mind than others who, having lost faith in the\nsupernatural, seek for compensation in a wider and deeper knowledge of\nnature, and in the mental culture which enables them to enjoy more\nkeenly the high thoughts and fair images which live in literature and\nart.  As a well-trained intellect, in argument with the unskilful,\neasily makes the worse appear the better cause, so in an age or a\ncountry where the best discipline of mind is found chiefly among those\nwho are not Christians, or at least not Catholics, public opinion will\ndrift away from the Church, until the view finally becomes general\nthat, whatever she may have been in other times, her day is past.  Nor\nwill aught external, however fair or glorious, secure her against this\ndanger.  How often in the history of nations and of religions is not\noutward splendor the mark of inward decay?  When Rome was free, a\nsimple life sufficed; but when liberty fled, marble palaces arose.  The\nmonarch who built Versailles made the scaffold on which French royalty\nperished; and so a dying faith, like the setting sun, may drape itself\nin glory.  The Kingdom of God is within; there is the source of life\nand strength, without which nor numbers nor wealth, nor stately\nedifices nor solemn rites, avail.  Nor can we be certain of men's love\nwhen we cease to have influence over their thoughts.  The proper appeal\nis to the heart through the mind; and even a mother loses half her\npower when she ceases to be the intellectual superior of her children.\nHow then shall the heavenly Mother of the soul keep her place in the\nworld, if those who speak in her name mar by imperfect and ignorant\nutterance the celestial harmony of her doctrines?\n\nAh! let us learn to see things as they are.  In face of the modern\nworld, that which the Catholic priest most needs, after virtue, is the\nbest cultivation of mind, which issues in comprehensiveness of view, in\nexactness of perception, in the clear discernment of the relations of\ntruths and of the limitations of scientific knowledge, in fairness and\nflexibility of thought, in ease and grace of expression, in candor, in\nreasonableness; the intellectual culture which brings the mind into\nform gives it the control of its faculties, creates the habit of\nattention, and develops firmness of grasp.  The education of which I\nspeak is expansion and discipline of mind rather than learning; and its\ntendency is not so much to form profound dogmatists, or erudite\ncanonists, or acute casuists, as to cultivate a habit of mind, which,\nfor want of a better word, may be called philosophical; to enlarge the\nintellect, to strengthen and supple its faculties, to enable it to take\nconnected views of things and their relations, and to see clear amid\nthe mazes of human error and through the mists of human passion.  I\nspeak of that perfection of the intellect, which, to use the words of\nCardinal Newman, \"is the clear, calm, accurate vision and comprehension\nof all things as far as the finite mind can embrace them, each in its\nplace and with its own characteristics upon it.  It is almost prophetic\nfrom its knowledge of history; it is almost heart-searching from its\nknowledge of human nature; it has almost supernatural charity from its\nfreedom from littleness and prejudice; it has almost the repose of\nfaith because nothing can startle it; it has almost the beauty and\nharmony of heavenly contemplation, so intimate is it with the eternal\norder of things and the music of the spheres.\"  This is, indeed, ideal;\nbut they who believe not in ideals were not born to know the real worth\nof things:\n\n        \"Spite of proudest boast\n  Reason, best reason is to imperfect man\n  An effort only and a noble aim,--\n  A crown, an attribute of sovereign power,\n  Still to be courted, never to be won.\"\n\n\nIt is plain that education of this kind aims at something quite\ndifferent from the mere imparting of useful knowledge.  It takes the\nview that it is good to know, even though knowledge should not be a\nmeans to wealth or power or any other common aim of life.  It regards\nthe mind as the organ of truth, and trains it for its own sake, without\nreference to the exercise of a profession.  Hence its distinguishing\ncharacteristic is that it is liberal and not professional.  It holds\ncultivated faculties in higher esteem than learning, and it makes use\nof knowledge to improve the intellect, rather than of the intellect to\nacquire knowledge.  Hence, one may be a skilful physician, a judicious\nlawyer, a learned theologian, and yet be greatly lacking in mental\nculture.  It is a common experience to find that professional men are\napt to be narrow and one-sided.  Their mind, like the dyer's hand, is\nsubdued to what it works in.  They want comprehensiveness of view,\nflexibility of thought, openness to light, and freedom of mental play.\nThey think in grooves, make the rules of their art the measure of\ntruth, and their own methods of inquiry the only valid laws of\nreasoning.  These same defects may be observed in those who are given\nexclusively to the study of physical science.  When they sweep the\nheavens with the telescope and do not find God, they conclude that\nthere is no God.  When the soul does not reveal itself under the\nmicroscope, they argue it does not exist; and since there is no thought\nwithout nervous movement, they claim that the brain thinks.\n\nNow, if it is desirable that those who are charged with the teaching\nand defence of divine truth should be free from this narrowness and\none-sidedness, this lack of openness to light and freedom of mental\nplay, the education of the priest must be more than a professional\neducation; and he must be sent to a school higher and broader than the\necclesiastical seminary, which is simply a training college for the\npractical work of the ministry.  The purpose for which it was\ninstituted is to prepare young men for the worthy exercise of the\ngeneral functions of the priestly office, and the good it has done is\ntoo great and too manifest to need commendation.  But the\necclesiastical seminary is not a school of intellectual culture, either\nhere in America or elsewhere, and to imagine that it can become the\ninstrument of intellectual culture is to cherish a delusion.  It must\nimpart a certain amount of professional knowledge, fit its students to\nbecome more or less expert catechists, rubricists, and casuists, and\nits aim is to do this; and whatever mental improvement, if any, thence\nresults, is accidental.  Hence its methods are not such as one would\nchoose who desires to open the mind, to give it breadth, flexibility,\nstrength, refinement, and grace.  Its text-books are written often in a\nbarbarous style, the subjects are discussed in a dry and mechanical\nway, and the professor, wholly intent upon giving instruction, is\nfrequently indifferent as to the manner in which it is imparted; or\nelse not possessing himself a really cultivated intellect, he holds in\nslight esteem expansion and refinement of mind, looking upon it as at\nthe best a mere ornament.  I am not offering a criticism upon the\necclesiastical seminary, but am simply pointing to the plain fact that\nit is not a school of intellectual culture, and consequently, if its\ncourse were lengthened to five, to six, to eight, to ten years, its\nstudents would go forth to their work with a more thorough professional\ntraining, but not with more really cultivated minds.  The test of\nintellect is not so much what we know as the manner in which it is\nknown; just as in the moral world, the important consideration is not\nwhat virtues we possess, but the completeness with which they are ours.\nHe who really believes in God, serves Him, loves Him, is a hero, a\nsaint; whereas he who half believes may have a thousand good qualities,\nbut not a great character.  Knowledge is not education any more than\nfood is nutrition; and as one may eat voraciously, and yet remain\nwithout bodily health or strength, so one may have great learning, and\nyet be almost wholly lacking in intellectual cultivation.  His learning\nmay only oppress and confuse him, be felt as a load, and not as a vital\nprinciple, which upraises, illumines, and beautifies the mind; mentally\nhe may still be a boy, in whom memory predominates, and whose intellect\nis only a receptacle of facts.  Memory is the least noble of the\nintellectual faculties, and the nearest to animal intelligence; and to\nknow well is, in the eyes of a true educator, of quite other importance\nthan to know much.  But a memory, more or less well-stored, is nearly\nall a youth carries with him from the college to the seminary, and here\nhe enters, as I have already pointed out, upon a course not of\nintellectual discipline, but of professional studies, whose object is\nnot \"to open the mind, to correct it, to refine it, to enable it to\nknow, and to digest, master, rule, and use its knowledge, to give it\npower over its own faculties, application, flexibility, method,\ncritical exactness, sagacity, resource, eloquent expression,\" but\nsimply to impart the requisite skill for the ordinary exercise of the\nholy ministry.  Hence it is not surprising that priests who are\nzealous, earnest, self-sacrificing, who to piety join discretion and\ngood sense, rarely possess the intellectual culture of which I am\nspeaking, for the simple reason that a university and not a seminary is\nthe school in which this kind of education is received.  That the\nabsence of such trained intellects is a most serious obstacle to the\nprogress of the Catholic faith, no thoughtful man will doubt or deny.\nSince the mind is a power, in religion, as in every sphere of thought\nand life, the discipline which best develops and perfects its faculties\nwill fit it to do its work, whatever it may be, in the most effective\nmanner.  Hence, though the education of which I speak does not directly\naim at being useful, it is in fact the most useful, and prepares better\nthan any other for the business of life.  It enables a man to master a\nsubject with ease, to fill an office with honor; and whatever he does,\nthe mark of completeness and finish will be found upon his work.  He\nsees more clearly, judges more calmly, reasons more pertinently, speaks\nmore seasonably than other men.  The free and full possession of his\nfaculties gives him power to turn himself to whatever may be demanded\nof him, whether it be to govern wisely, or to counsel judiciously, or\nto write gracefully, or to plead eloquently.  Whatever course in life\nhe may take, whatever line of thought or investigation he may pursue,\nhis intellectual culture will give him superiority over men who, with\nequal or greater talents, lack his education; and he possesses withal\nresources within himself, which in a measure make him independent of\nfortune, and which, when failure comes and the world abandons him,\nremain, like faith, or hope, or a friend, to make him forget his\nmisfortunes.\n\nOf the English universities, with all their shortcomings, Cardinal\nNewman says: \"At least they can boast of a succession of heroes and\nstatesmen, of literary men and philosophers, of men conspicuous for\ngreat natural virtues, for habits of business, for knowledge of life,\nfor practical judgment, for cultivated tastes, for accomplishments, who\nhave made England what it is,--able to subdue the earth, able to\ndomineer over Catholics.\"  It is only in a university that all the\nsciences are brought together, their relations adjusted, their\nprovinces assigned.  There natural science is limited by metaphysics;\nmorality is studied in the light of history; language and literature\nare viewed from the standpoint of ethnology; the criticism which seeks\nbeauty and not deformity, which in the gardens of the mind takes the\nhoney and leaves the poison, is applied to the study of eloquence and\npoetry; and over all religion throws the warmth and life of faith and\nhope, like a ray from heaven.  The mind thus lives in an atmosphere in\nwhich the comparison of ideas and truths with one an other is\ninevitable; and so it grows, is strengthened, enlarged, refined, made\npliant, candid, open, equitable.\n\nWhen numbers of priests will be able to bring this cultivation of\nintellect to the treatment of religious subjects, then will Catholic\ntheology again come forth from its isolation in the modern world; then\nwill Catholic truth again irradiate and perfume the thoughts and\nopinions of men; then will Catholic doctrines again sink into their\nhearts, and not remain loose in the mind to be thrown aside, as one\ncasts away the outworn vesture of the body; then will it be felt that\nthe fascination of Christian faith is still fresh, supreme, as far\nabove the charm of science as the joy of a poet's soul is above the\npleasures of sense.  The religious view of life must forever remain the\ntrue view, since no other explains our longings and aspirations, or\njustifies hope and enthusiasm; and the worship of God in spirit and in\ntruth, which Christ has revealed to the world, the religion not of an\nage or a people, but of all time and of the human race, must eternally\nprevail when brought home to us in a language which we understand; for\nwe place the testimony of reason above that of the senses.  To the eye\nthe sun rises and sets, to the mind it is stationary; and we accept,\nnot what is seen, but what is known.  Is there need of stronger\nevidence that the power within, which is our real self, is spiritual?\nAnd is it not enough to see clearly, to perceive that in the struggle\nof mind with matter, which is the essential form of the conflict of\nspiritualism with materialism, of religion with science, the soul, in\nthe end, will be victorious, and rest in the real world of faith and\nintuition, and not in the pictured world of the senses?\n\nReligion, indeed, like morality, is in the nature of things, and\nCatholic faith is Una's Red Cross Knight, on whose shield are old dints\nof deep wounds and cruel marks of many a bloody field, who is assailed\nby all the powers of earth and of the nether world, armed with whatever\nweapons may hurt the mind or corrupt the heart, but whom heavenly\nProvidence rescues from the jaws of monsters and leads on to victory.\n\nBut what true believer thinks himself excused from effort, because\nChrist has declared that the gates of hell shall not prevail against\nHis Church?  Does he not know that though, when we consider her whole\ncourse through the world, she has triumphed, so as to have become the\nmiracle of history, yet has she at many points suffered disastrous\ndefeat?  Hence, those who love her must be vigilant, and stand prepared\nfor battle.  And in an age when persecution has either died away or\nlost its harshness, when crying abuses have disappeared, when heresy\nhas run its course, and the struggle of the world with the Church has\nbecome almost wholly intellectual, it is not possible, assuredly, that\nher ministers should have too great power of intellect.  And\nconsequently it is not possible that the bishops, in whose hands the\neducation of priests is placed, should have too great a care that they\nreceive the best mental culture.  And if this is a general truth, with\nwhat pertinency does it not come home to us here in America, who are\nthe descendants of men who, on account of their faith, have for\ncenturies been oppressed and thrust back from opportunities of\neducation, and who, when persecution and robbery had reduced them to\nignorance and poverty, were forced to hear their religion reproached\nwith the crimes of her foes?  And now, when at length a fairer day has\ndawned for us in this new world, what can be more natural than our\neager desire to move out from the valleys of darkness towards the hills\nand mountain tops that are bathed in sunlight?  What more praiseworthy\nthan the fixed resolve to prove that not our faith, but our misfortunes\nmade and kept us inferior.  And, since we live in the midst of millions\nwho have indeed good will towards us, but who still bear the yoke of\ninherited prejudices, and who, because for three hundred years real\ncultivation of mind was denied to Catholics who spoke English, conclude\nthat Protestantism is the source of enlightenment, and the Church the\nmother of ignorance, do not all generous impulses urge us to make this\nreproach henceforth meaningless?  And in what way shall we best\naccomplish this task?  Surely not by writing or speaking about what the\ninfluence of the Church is, or by pointing to what she has done in\nother ages, but by becoming what we claim her spirit tends to make us.\nHere, if anywhere, the proverb is applicable--_verba movent, exempla\ntrahunt_.  As the devotion of American Catholics to this country and\nits free institutions, as shown not on battle-fields alone, but in our\nwhole bearing and conduct, convinces all but the unreasonable of the\ndepth and sincerity of our patriotism, so when our zeal for\nintellectual excellence shall have raised up men who will take place\namong the first writers and thinkers of their day their very presence\nwill become the most persuasive of arguments to teach the world that no\nbest gift is at war with the spirit of Catholic faith, and that, while\nthe humblest mind may feel its force, the lofty genius of Augustine, of\nDante, and of Bossuet is upborne and strengthened by the splendor of\nits truth.  But if we are to be intellectually the equals of others, we\nmust have with them equal advantages of education; and so long as we\nlook rather to the multiplying of schools and seminaries than to the\ncreation of a real university, our progress will be slow and uncertain,\nbecause a university is the great ordinary means to the best\ncultivation of mind.  The fact that the growth of the Church here, like\nthat of the country itself, is chiefly external, a growth in wealth and\nin numbers, makes it the more necessary that we bring the most\nstrenuous efforts to improve the gifts of the soul.  The whole tendency\nof our social life insures the increase of churches, convents, schools,\nhospitals, and asylums; our advance in population and in wealth will be\ncounted from decade to decade by millions, and our worship will\napproach more and more to the pomp and splendor of the full ritual; but\nthis very growth makes such demands upon our energies, that we are in\ndanger of forgetting higher things, or at least of thinking them less\nurgent.  Few men are at once thoughtful and active.  The man of deeds\ndwells in the world around him; the thinker lives within his mind.\nContemplation, in widening the view, makes us feel that what even the\nstrongest can do is lost in the limitless expanse of space and time;\nand the soul is tempted to fall back upon itself and to gaze passively\nupon the course of the world, as though the general stream of human\nevents were as little subject to man's control as the procession of the\nseasons.  Busy workers, on the other hand, having little taste or time\nfor reflection, see but the present and what lies close to them, and\nthe energy of their doing circumscribes their thinking.\n\nBut the Church needs both the men who act and the men who think; and\nsince with us everything pushes to action, wisdom demands that we\ncultivate rather the powers of reflection.  And this is the duty alike\nof true patriots and of faithful Catholics.  All are working to develop\nour boundless material resources; let a few at least labor to develop\nman.  The millions are building cities, reclaiming wildernesses, and\nbringing forth from the earth its buried treasures; let at least a\nremnant cherish the ideal, cultivate the beautiful, and seek to inspire\nthe love of moral and intellectual excellence.  And since we believe\nthat the Church which points to heaven is able also to lead the nations\nin the way of civilization and of progress, why should we not desire to\nsee her become a beneficent and ennobling influence in the public life\nof our country?  She can have no higher temporal mission than to be the\nfriend of this great republic, which is God's best earthly gift to His\nchildren.  If, as English critics complain, our style is inflated, it\nis because we feel the promise of a destiny which transcends our powers\nof expression.  Whatever fault men may find with us, let them not doubt\nthe world-wide significance of our life.  If we keep ourselves strong\nand pure, all the peoples of the earth shall yet be free; if we fulfil\nour providential mission, national hatred shall give place to the\nspirit of generous rivalry, the people shall become wiser and stronger,\nsociety shall grow more merciful and just, and the cry of distress\nshall be felt, like the throb of a brother's heart, to the ends of the\nworld.  Where is the man who does not feel a kind of religious\ngratitude as he looks upon the rise and progress of this nation?  Above\nall, where is the Catholic whose heart is not enlarged by such\ncontemplation?  Here, almost for the first time in her history, the\nChurch is really free.  Her worldly position does not overshadow her\nspiritual office, and the State recognizes her autonomy.  The monuments\nof her past glory, wrenched from her control, stand not here to point,\nlike mocking fingers, to what she has lost.  She renews her youth, and\nlifts her brow, as one who, not unmindful of the solemn mighty past,\nyet looks with undimmed eye and unfaltering heart to a still more\nglorious future.  Who in such a presence, can abate hope, or give heed\nto despondent counsel, or send regretful thoughts to other days and\nlands?  Whoever at any time, in any place, might have been sage, saint,\nor hero, may be so here and now; and though he had the heart of\nFrancis, and the mind of Augustine, and the courage of Hildebrand, here\nis work for him to do.\n\nIn whatsoever direction we turn our thoughts, arguments rush in to show\nthe pressing need for us of a centre of life and light such as a\nCatholic university would be.  Without this we can have no hope of\nentering as a determining force into the living controversies of the\nage; without this it must be an accident if we are represented at all\nin the literature of our country; without this we shall lack a point of\nunion to gather up, harmonize, and intensify our scattered forces;\nwithout this our bishops must remain separated, and continue to work in\nrandom ways; without this the noblest souls will look in vain for\nsomething larger and broader than a local charity to make appeal to\ntheir generous hearts; without this we shall be able to offer but\nfeeble resistance to the false theories and systems of education which\ndeny to the Church a place in the school; without this the sons of\nwealthy Catholics will, in ever increasing numbers, be sent to\ninstitutions where their faith is undermined; without this we shall\nvainly hope for such treatment of religious questions and their\nrelations to the issues and needs of the day, as shall arrest public\nattention and induce Catholics themselves to take at least some little\nnotice of the writings of Catholics; without this in struggles for\nreform and contests for rights we shall lack the wisdom of best counsel\nand the courage which skilful leaders inspire.  We are a small minority\nin the presence of a vast majority; we still bear the disfigurements\nand weaknesses of centuries of persecution and suffering; we cling to\nan ancient faith in an age when new sciences, discoveries, and theories\nfascinate the minds of men, and turn their thoughts away from the past\nto the future; we preach a spiritual religion to a people whose\nprodigious wealth and rapid triumphs over nature have caused them to\nexaggerate the value of material progress; we teach the duty of\nself-denial to a refined and intellectual generation, who regard\nwhatever is painful as evil, whatever is difficult as omissible; we\ninsist upon religious obedience to the Church in face of a society\nwhere children are ceasing to reverence and obey even their\nparents;--if in spite of all this we are to hold our own, not to speak\nof larger hopes, it is plain that we may neglect nothing which will\nhelp us to put forth our full strength.\n\nI do not, of course, pretend that this higher education is all that we\nneed, or that, of itself, it is sufficient; but what I claim is that it\nwould be a source of strength for us who are in want of help.  God\nworks in many ways, through many agencies, and I bow in homage to the\nhumblest effort in a righteous cause of the lowliest human being.\nThere are diversities of graces, but the same spirit; diversities of\nministries, but the same Lord.  _Numquid omnes doctores?_ asks St.\nPaul.  But since he places teachers by the side of apostles and\nprophets, surely they will teach to best purpose who to the humility of\nfaith add the luminousness of knowledge.  To those who reject the idea\nof human co-operation in things divine I speak not; but we who believe\nthat we are co-operators with Christ cannot think that it is possible\nto bring to this godlike work either too great preparation of heart or\ntoo great cultivation of mind.  Nor must we think lightly even of\nrefinement of thought and speech and behavior, for we know that manners\ncome of morals, and that morals in turn are born of manners, as the\nocean breathes forth the clouds and the clouds fill the ocean.\n\nLet there be then an American Catholic university, where our young men,\nin the atmosphere of faith and purity, of high thinking and plain\nliving, shall become more intimately conscious of the truth of their\nreligion and of the genius of their country; where they shall learn the\nrepose and dignity which belong to their ancient Catholic descent, and\nyet not lose the fire which glows in the blood of a new people; to\nwhich from every part of the land our eyes may turn for guidance and\nencouragement, seeking light and self-confidence from men in whom\nintellectual power is not separate from moral purpose, who look to God\nand His universe from bending knees of prayer, who uphold--\n\n  \"The cause of Christ and civil liberty\n  As one, and moving to one glorious end.\"\n\n\nShould such an intellectual centre serve no other purpose than to bring\ntogether a number of eager-hearted, truth-loving youths, what light and\nheat would not leap forth from the shock of mind with mind; what\ngenerous rivalries would not spring up; what intellectual sympathies,\nresting on the breast of faith, would not become manifest, grouping\nsouls like atoms, to form the substance and beauty of a world?\n\nO solemn groves that lie close to Louvain and to Freiburg, whose air is\nbalm and whose murmuring winds sound like the voices of saints and\nsages whispering down the galleries of time, what words have ye not\nheard bursting forth from the strong hearts of keen-witted youths, who,\nTitan-like, believed they might storm the citadel of God's truth!  How\nmany a one, heavy and despondent, in the narrow, lonesome path of duty,\nhas remembered you, and moved again in unseen worlds, upheld by faith\nand hope!  Who has listened to the words of your teachers and not felt\nthe truth of the saying of Pope Pius II.,--that the world holds nothing\nmore precious or more beautiful than a cultivated intellect?  The\npresence of such men invigorates like mountain air, and their speech is\nas refreshing as clear-flowing fountains.  To know them is to be\nforever their debtor.  The company of a saint is the school of saints;\na strong character develops strength in others, and a noble mind makes\nall around him luminous.\n\nWhy may not eight million Catholics upbuild a home for great teachers,\nfor men who, to real learning and cultivation of mind, shall add the\npersuasiveness of easy and eloquent diction; whose manifest and\nindisputable superiority shall put to shame the self-conceit of\nAmerican young men, our most familiar intellectual bane, and an\ninsuperable obstacle to all improvement,--self-conceit, which is the\nbeatitude of vulgar characters and shallow minds?  If our students\nshould find in such an institution but one man, who, like Socrates,\nwith ironic questioning might make for them the discovery of the new\nworld of their own ignorance, the gain would be great enough.\n\nWhy may we not have a centre of light and truth which will raise up\nbefore us standards of intellectual excellence; which will enable us to\nsee that our so-called educated men are as far from being scholars as\nthe makers of our horrible show-bills are from being artists; which\nwill teach us that it is not only false but vulgar to call things by\npretentious names,--as, for instance, to call a politician a statesman,\na declaimer an orator, or a Latin school a university.\n\nAh! surely as to whether an American Catholic university is desirable\nthere cannot be two opinions among enlightened men.  But is it\nfeasible?  A true university is one of the noblest foundations of the\ngreat Catholic ages, when faith rose almost to the height of creative\npower, and it were folly in me to maintain that such an undertaking is\nnot surrounded by many and great difficulties.  To begin with the\nmaterial for foundation, money is necessary, and this, I am persuaded,\nwe may have.  A noble cause will find or make generous hearts.  Men\nabove all we need, for every kind of existence propagates itself only\nby itself.  But let us bear in mind that the best teacher is not\nnecessarily or often he who knows the most, but he who has most power\nto determine the student to self-activity; for in the end the mind\neducates itself.  As distrust is the mark of a narrow intellect or a\nbad heart, so a readiness to believe in the ability of others is not\nonly a characteristic of able men, but it is also the secret charm\nwhich calls around them helpers and followers.  Hence, a strong man who\nloves his work is a better educator than a half-hearted professor who\ncarries whole libraries in his head.\n\nTo bring together in familiar and daily life a number of young men,\nchosen for the brightness of their minds and an eager yearning for\nknowledge, is to create an atmosphere of intellectual warmth and light,\nwhich invigorates and inspires the master, while it stimulates his\ndisciples.  In such company it will not be difficult to form teachers.\nBut will it be possible to find young men who will consent, when after\nyears of study they have finally reached the priesthood, to continue in\na higher institution the arduous and confining labors to the end of\nwhich they have looked as to the beginning of a new life?  In other\nlands such students are found, and if with us there is a tendency to\nrush with precipitancy and insufficient preparation to whatever work we\nmay have chosen, this is but a proof of the need of special efforts to\nrestrain an ardor which springs from weakness and not from strength.\nHaste is a mark of immaturity.  He who is certain of himself and master\nof his tools, knows that he is able, and neither hurries nor worries,\nbut works and waits.  The rank weed shoots up in a day and as quickly\ndies; but the long-growing olive-tree stands from century to century,\nand drops from its gently waving boughs ripe fruit through the quiet\nautumn air.  The Church endures forever; and we American Catholics, in\nthe midst of our rapidly-moving and ever-changing society, should be\nthe first to learn to temper energy with the patient strength which\ngives the courage to toil and wait through a long life, if so we make\nourselves worthy to speak some fit word or do some needful deed.  And\nto whom shall this lesson first be taught if not to the clerics, whose\nnatural endowments single them out as future leaders of Catholic\nthought and enterprise; and where can this lesson so well be learned as\nin a school whose standard of intellectual excellence shall be the\nhighest?\n\nWhile we look, therefore, to the founding of a true university, we will\nbegin, as the university of Paris began in the twelfth century, and as\nthe present university of Louvain began fifty years ago, with a\nnational school of philosophy and theology, which will form the central\nfaculty of a complete educational organism.  Around this, the other\nfaculties will take their places, in due course of time; and so the\nbeginning which we make will grow, until like the seed planted in the\nearth, it shall wear the bloomy crown of its own development.\n\nAnd though the event be less than our hope, though even failure be the\noutcome, is it not better to fail than not to attempt a worthy work\nwhich might be ours?  Only they who do nothing derive comfort from the\nmistakes of others; and the saying that a blunder is worse than a crime\nis doubtless true for those who have no other measure of worth and\nsuccess than the conventional standards of a superficial public\nopinion.  We at least know--\n\n      \"There lives a Judge\n  To whose all-pondering mind a noble aim\n  Faithfully kept is as a noble deed;\n  In whose pure sight all virtue doth succeed.\"\n\n\n\n\nTHE END.","title":"Means and Ends of Education","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":51417}