Imatges de pàgina
PDF
EPUB

of the sensualist; they are not the hungering and thirsting for uncertain riches; they are not the dissipation of the lovers of pleasure, but the seclusion of literary ease, converse with high thoughts and the mighty of the earth, figures and languages, science and philosophy, "the feast of reason and the flow of soul."

6TH REASON.-As an active and healthy child grows daily in stature and in strength, so those whose minds are well trained, and actively employed, are sensible of a daily growth in wisdom. This perception of progression keeps the mind cheerful and equable, and prevents much of the ennui and " tedium vitæ" from which the uninformed too frequently suffer.

7TH REASON. All true learning is friendly to truth, and all truth is allied to goodness. On the other hand, ignorance is the handmaid of error, and error the parent of sin. Inasmuch, therefore, as all solid learning must have truth for its basis, it must be favourable to morality and virtue.

SIMILES.-Learning conduces to morality, as trees and flowers to the purity of the air.

As light promotes physical development, so learning develops the moral virtues.

A furnace purges the dross from gold and silver, and learning purges the mind from the alloy of error.

True learning may be compared to a winnowing fan, which separates wheat from the chaff.

As cultivated land is more healthy, prolific, and beautiful; more free from noxious weeds, pernicious exhalations, and reptiles, than that which is uncultivated; so, also, a well-informed mind is divested of many foolish superstitions, vulgar errors, and injurious prejudices, which infest the ignorant and uneducated.

The well disciplined mind may be compared to a welltrained Arab steed; the unlearned to "the wild ass's colt."

As the earth, before it was consigned to man for his habitation, "was without form and void," but after the "Spirit of God moved on the face of the waters" was pronounced by the Great Creator to be "very good;" so the mind of man, without education, is no better than a moral chaos.

HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS.

QUOTATIONS.-Lord Bacon says that "Bonitas and Veritas differ only as the seal and print."

All depraved affections are false valuations; but goodness and truth are ever the same.-Lord Bacon.

Learning produces reflection, and reflection virtue. Ignorant men differ from the beasts only in their figure. -Cleanthes.

They who educate children well are more to be honoured than they who produce them; for the latter give them life alone, but the former give them the art of living well. -Aristotle.

Alexander the Great used to say, "he was more indebted to Aristotle who gave him knowledge, than to Philip who gave him life."

Wise men, without law, will lead the lives of wise men. -Aristophanes.

It is better to be unborn than untaught; for ignorance is the root of evil.-Plato.

Aristippus being asked what he had learnt by philosophy, replied, "The art of living well."

Totos se alii ad poetas, alii ad geometras, alii ad musicos contulerunt, atque in iis artibus, ut mentes ad humanitatem fingerentur atque virtutem, omne tempus atque ætates suas consumserunt.-Cicero.

Philosophus non linguæ solum, verum etiam animi ac virtutis est magister.-Cicero.

CONCLUSION.

THEME LVII. Refinement is a National Benefit.

INTRODUCTION.

1ST REASON. When the arts flourish, men are kept in more constant employment, and enjoy the fruits of honourable labour. But before a nation has matured into refinement, its inhabitants are first huntsmen, then shepherds, and then warriors; the mass has no regular occupation, and even those who are most constantly employed derive a very precarious advantage from their toil.

2ND REASON. When the arts flourish, a taste for literature always prevails. The spirit of the age affects all ranks of people; the mind, being roused, carries the love of refinement into all the ramifications of civilised life; profound ignorance is no longer tolerated; but prosperity and peace give an impulse to education, literature, and every mental occupation.

3RD REASON.-Refinement is favourable to sociability. The natural tendency of commerce and education is to draw men from solitudes into cities. Literary societies are organised, clubs are established, public institutions founded, and numerous devices contrived to bring men into closer bonds of brotherly love and mutual inter

course.

4TH REASON. The humane habits of a refined people have a most salutary effect upon laws and governments. Coercive measures are less needed; the severity of despotism would be out of character; and the brute force which is essential to keep in awe a horde of barbarians, is no longer required.

5TH REASON. As nations become more refined, and wealth more generally diffused, factions are less violent, revolutions less tragical, seditions less frequent, and wars less popular and less cruel.

6TH REASON.-Treachery, cunning, and blood-thirstiness are nearly peculiar to uncivilized life. Few would think their life or fortune so secure in the hands of a Moor or Tartar, as in the hands of a French or English gentleman.

7TH REASON.-Civilisation is favourable to religion. Superstition may have a more powerful influence over ignorant barbarians, but the tendency of education is to exalt truth over error.

8TH REASON.-Asylums, hospitals, charity schools, missionary enterprises, &c., are now the glory of the most civilised nations of the world.

SIMILES.-Cultivation improves a soil, a tree, a plant; and refinement improves a nation.

The precious ores are more valuable after they have been dug from the mine, freed from their impurities, and refined in the furnace.

A well-rigged ship is infinitely to be preferred to a canoe or raft.

Who would compare an Indian wigwam to the mansion of an English gentleman?

A horde of barbarians is no more to be compared to a civilised nation, than the tents of Kedah to Solomon's temple.

A beautiful statue is the mechanical refinement of a block of marble; the unwrought marble has very little use and beauty, but the exquisite statue has a moral influence, is a national glory, and has intrinsic worth.

Raw meat is not so good for food as that which has been skilfully dressed and cooked.

HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS.

QUOTATIONS.-Refinement is the translation of virtue into our own language.-Lord Bacon.

Politeness is the true ornament of virtue.-Lord Bacon. Refinement makes virtue shine, and vice blush.-Lord Bacon.

True worth and virtue, in the mild

And genial soil of cultivated life,

Thrive most, and may perhaps thrive only there.

Cowper.

Blest he, though undistinguished from the crowd
By wealth or dignity, who dwells secure
Where man by nature fierce has laid aside

His fierceness, having learnt, though slow to learn,
The manners and the arts of civil life :
His wants indeed are many, but supply
Is obvious, placed within the easy reach
Of temperate wishes and industrious hands :
Here virtue thrives as in her proper soil,
Not rude and surly, and beset with thorns,
And terrible to sight, as when she springs
(If ere she sprung spontaneous) in remote
And barbarous climes, where violence prevails,
And strength is lord of all,-but gentle, kind,
By culture tamed, by liberty refreshed,
And all her fruits by radiant truth matured.
War and the chase engross the savage horde;
War followed by revenge, or to supplant
The envied tenants of some happier spot;
The chase for sustenance, precarious trust!
His hard condition, with severe constraint,
Binds all his faculties, forbids all growth
Of wisdom; proves a school in which he learns
Sly circumvention, unrelenting hate,
Mean self-attachment, and scarce else beside.

She judges of refinement by the eye;
He by the test of conscience, and a heart
Not soon deceived; aware that what is base
No polish can make sterling.-Cowper.

Our jarring interests of themselves create
The according music of a well mixed state;

Cowper.

Where small and great, where, weak and mighty, made

To serve, not suffer; strengthen, not invade ;
More powerful each as needful to the rest,
And in proportion as it blesses, blessed.
Thus God and Nature link the general frame,
And bid self-love and social be the same.-Pope.

« AnteriorContinua »