She points not to
pyramids built during weary centuries by the sweat of miserable nations,
but to the lighthouse and the steamship, to the railroad and the
telegraph. She has restored eyes to the blind and hearing to the deaf. She
has lengthened life, she has minimized danger, she has controlled madness,
she has trampled on disease. And on all these grounds, I think that none
of our sons should grow up wholly ignorant of studies which at once train
the reason and fire the imagination, which fashion as well as forge, which
can feed as well as fill the mind."
[1] Byron.
[2] Emerson.
[3] H. Smith.
CHAPTER X.
EDUCATION.
"No pleasure is comparable to the standing upon the
vantage ground of truth."--BACON.
"Divine Philosophy!
Not harsh and crabbed as dull fools suppose,
But musical as is Apollo's lute,
And a perpetual feast of nectar'd sweets
Where no crude surfeit reigns."--MILTON.
It may seem rather surprising to include education among the pleasures of
life; for in too many cases it is made odious to the young, and is
supposed to cease with school; while, on the contrary, if it is to be
really successful it must be suitable, and therefore interesting, to
children, and must last through life.
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