Chapter 40
Be careful to avoid that over-intellectual culture which is purchased at the expense of moral vigor. An observant professor of one of our colleges has remarked that "the mind may be so rounded and polished by education, and so well balanced, as not to be energetic in any one faculty. In other men not thus trained, the sense of deficiency and of the sharp, jagged corners of their knowledge leads to efforts to fill up the chasms, rendering them at last far better educated men than the polished, easy-going graduate who has just knowledge enough to prevent consciousness of his ignorance. While all the faculties of the mind should be cultivated, it is yet desirable that it should have two or three rough-hewn features of ma.s.sive strength. Young men are too apt to forget the great end of life, which is to be and do, not to read and brood over what other men have been and done."
"I repeat that my object is not to give him knowledge, but to teach him how to acquire it at need," said Rousseau.
All learning is self-teaching. It is upon the working of the pupil's own mind that his progress in knowledge depends. The great business of the master is to teach the pupil to teach himself.
"Thinking, not growth, makes manhood," says Isaac Taylor. "Accustom yourself, therefore, to thinking. Set yourself to understand whatever you see or read. To join thinking with reading is one of the first maxims, and one of the easiest operations."
"How few think justly of the thinking few: How many never think who think they do."
CHAPTER x.x.xI
THE SELF-IMPROVEMENT HABIT
If you want knowledge you must toil for it.--RUSKIN.
We excuse our sloth under the pretext of difficulty.--QUINTILLIAN.
What sculpture is to a block of marble, education is to the human soul.--ADDISON.
A boy is better unborn than untaught.--GASCOIGNE.
It is ignorance that wastes; it is knowledge that saves, an untaught faculty is at once quiescent and dead.--N. D. HILLIS.
The plea that this or that man has no time for culture will vanish as soon as we desire culture so much that we begin to examine seriously into our present use of time.--MATTHEW ARNOLD.
Education, as commonly understood, is the process of developing the mind by means of books and teachers. When education has been neglected, either by reason of lack of opportunity, or because advantage was not taken of the opportunities afforded, the one remaining hope is self-improvement. Opportunities for self-improvement surround us, the helps to self-improvement are abundant, and in this day of cheap books and free libraries, there can be no good excuse for neglect to use the faculties for mental growth and development which are so abundantly supplied.
When we look at the difficulties which hindered the acquisition of knowledge fifty years to a century ago; the scarcity and the costliness of books, the value of the dimmest candle-light, the unremitting toil which left so little time for study, the physical weariness which had to be overcome to enable mental exertion in study, we may well marvel at the giants of scholars.h.i.+p those days of hards.h.i.+p produced. And when we add to educational limitations, physical disabilities, blindness, deformity, ill-health, hunger and cold, we may feel shame as we contemplate the fulness of modern opportunity and the helps and incentives to study and self-development which are so lavishly provided for our use and inspiration, and of which we make so little use.
Self-improvement implies one essential feeling: the desire for improvement. If the desire exists, then improvement is usually accomplished only by the conquest of self--the material self, which seeks pleasure and amus.e.m.e.nt. The novel, the game of cards, the billiard cue, idle whittling and story-telling will have to be eschewed, and every available moment of leisure turned to account. For all who seek self-improvement "there is a lion in the way," the lion of self-indulgence, and it is only by the conquest of this enemy that progress is a.s.sured.
Show me how a youth spends his evenings, his odd bits of time, and I will forecast his future. Does he look upon this leisure as precious, rich in possibilities, as containing golden material for his future life structure? Or does he look upon it as an opportunity for self-indulgence, for a light, flippant good time?
The way he spends his leisure will give the keynote of his life, will tell whether he is dead in earnest, or whether he looks upon it as a huge joke.
He may not be conscious of the terrible effects, the gradual deterioration of character which comes from a frivolous wasting of his evenings and half-holidays, but the character is being undermined just the same.
Young men are often surprised to find themselves dropping behind their compet.i.tors, but if they will examine themselves, they will find that they have stopped growing, because they have ceased their effort to keep abreast of the times, to be widely read, to enrich life with self-culture.
It is the right use of spare moments in reading and study which qualify men for leaders.h.i.+p. And in many historic cases the "spare" moments utilized for study were not spare in the sense of being the spare time of leisure. They were rather _spared_ moments, moments spared from sleep, from meal times, from recreation.
Where is the boy to-day who has less chance to rise in the world than Elihu Burritt, apprenticed at sixteen to a blacksmith, in whose shop he had to work at the forge all the daylight, and often by candle-light?
Yet he managed, by studying with a book before him at his meals, carrying it in his pocket that he might utilize every spare moment, and studying nights and holidays, to pick up an excellent education
He had a thirst for knowledge and a desire for self-improvement, which overcame every obstacle in his pathway. A wealthy gentleman offered to pay his expenses at Harvard. But no, Elihu said he could get his education himself, even though he had to work twelve or fourteen hours a day at the forge. Here was a determined boy. He s.n.a.t.c.hed every spare moment at the anvil and forge as if it were gold. He believed, with Gladstone, that thrift of time would repay him in after years with usury, and that waste of it would make him dwindle. Think of a boy working nearly all the daylight in a blacksmith shop, and yet finding time to study seven languages in a single year.
It is not lack of ability that holds men down but lack of industry. In many cases the employee has a better brain, a better mental capacity than his employer. But he does not improve his faculties. He dulls his mind by cigarette smoking. He spends his money at the pool table, theater, or dance, and as he grows old, and the harness of perpetual service galls him, he grumbles at his lack of luck, his limited opportunity.
The number of perpetual clerks is constantly being recruited by those who did not think it worth while as boys to learn to write a good hand or to master the fundamental branches of knowledge requisite in a business career. The ignorance common among young men and young women, in factories, stores, and offices, everywhere, in fact, in this land of opportunity, where youth should be well educated, is a pitiable thing in American life. On every hand we see men and women of ability occupying inferior positions because they did not think it worth while in youth to develop their powers and to concentrate their attention on the acquisition of sufficient knowledge.
Thousands of men and women find themselves held back, handicapped for life because of the seeming trifles which they did not think it worth while to pay attention to in their early days.
Many a girl of good natural ability spends her most productive years as a cheap clerk, or in a mediocre position because she never thought it worth while to develop her mental faculties or to take advantage of opportunities within reach to fit herself for a superior position.
Thousands of girls unexpectedly thrown on their own resources have been held down all their lives because of neglected tasks in youth, which at the time were dismissed with a careless "I don't think it worth while."
They did not think it would pay to go to the bottom of any study at school, to learn to keep accounts accurately, or fit themselves to do anything in such a way as to be able to make a living by it. They expected to marry, and never prepared for being dependent on themselves,--a contingency against which marriage, in many instances, is no safeguard.
The trouble with most youths is that they are not willing to fling the whole weight of their being into their location. They want short hours, little work and a lot of play. They think more of leisure and pleasure than of discipline and training in their great life specialty.
Many a clerk envies his employer and wishes that he could go into business for himself, be an employer too but it is too much work to make the effort to rise above a clerks.h.i.+p. He likes to take life easy; and he wonders idly whether, after all, it is worth while to strain and strive and struggle and study to prepare oneself for the sake of getting up a little higher and making a little more money.
The trouble with a great many people is that they are not willing to make present sacrifices for future gain. They prefer to have a good time as they go along, rather than spend time in self-improvement.
They have a sort of vague wish to do something great, but few have that intensity of longing which impels them to make the sacrifice of the present for the future. Few are willing to work underground for years laying a foundation for the life monument. They yearn for greatness, but their yearning is not the kind which is willing to pay any price in endeavor or make any sacrifice for its object.
So the majority slide along in mediocrity all their lives. They have ability for something higher up, but they have not the energy and determination to prepare for it. They do not care to make necessary effort. They prefer to take life easier and lower down rather than to struggle for something higher. They do not play the game for all they are worth.
If a man or woman has but the disposition for self-improvement and advancement he will find opportunity to rise or "what he can not find create." Here is an example from the everyday life going on around us and in which we are all taking part.
A young Irishman who had reached the age of nineteen or twenty without learning to read or write, and who left home because of the intemperance that prevailed there, learned to read a little by studying billboards, and eventually got a position as steward aboard a man-of-war. He chose that occupation and got leave to serve at the captain's table because of a great desire to learn. He kept a little tablet in his coat-pocket, and whenever he heard a new word wrote it down. One day an officer saw him writing and immediately suspected him of being a spy. When he and the other officers learned what the tablet was used for, the young man was given more opportunities to learn, and these led in time to promotion, until, finally, the sometime steward won a prominent position in the navy. Success as a naval officer prepared the way for success in other fields.
Self-help has accomplished about all the great things of the world.
How many young men falter, faint, and dally with their purpose, because they have no capital to start with, and wait and wait for some good luck to give them a lift! But success is the child of drudgery and perseverance. It can not be coaxed or bribed; pay the price and it is yours.
One of the sad things about the neglected opportunities for self-improvement is that it puts people of great natural ability at a disadvantage among those who are their mental inferiors.
I know a member of one of our city legislatures, a splendid fellow, immensely popular, who has a great, generous heart and broad sympathies, but who can not open his mouth without so murdering the English language that it is really painful to listen to him.
There are a great many similar examples in Was.h.i.+ngton of men who have been elected to important positions because of their great natural ability and fine characters, but who are constantly mortified and embarra.s.sed by their ignorance and lack of early training.
One of the most humiliating experiences that can ever come to a human being is to be conscious of possessing more than ordinary ability, and yet be tied to an inferior position because of lack of early and intelligent training commensurate with his ability. To be conscious that one has ability to realize eighty or ninety per cent of his possibilities, if he had only had the proper education and training, but because of this lack to be unable to bring out more than twenty-five per cent of it on account of ignorance, is humiliating and embarra.s.sing. In other words, to go through life conscious that you are making a botch of your capabilities just because of lack of training, is a most depressing thing.
Nothing else outside of sin causes more sorrow than that which comes from not having prepared for the highest career possible to one. There are no bitterer regrets than those which come from being obliged to let opportunities pa.s.s by for which one never prepared himself.
I know a pitiable case of a born naturalist whose ambition was so suppressed, and whose education so neglected in youth, that later when he came to know more about natural history than almost any man of his day, he could not write a grammatical sentence, and could never make his ideas live in words, perpetuate them in books, because of his ignorance of even the rudiments of an education. His early vocabulary was so narrow and pinched, and his knowledge of his language so limited that he always seemed to be painfully struggling for words to express his thought.
Think of the suffering of this splendid man, who was conscious of possessing colossal scientific knowledge, and yet was absolutely unable to express himself grammatically!
How often stenographers are mortified by the use of some unfamiliar word or term, or quotation, because of the shallowness of their preparation!
It is not enough to be able to take dictation when ordinary letters are given, not enough to do the ordinary routine of office work. The ambitious stenographer must be prepared for the unusual demand, must have good reserves of knowledge to draw from in case of emergency.
But, if she is constantly slipping up upon her grammar, or is all at sea the moment she steps out of her ordinary routine, her employer knows that her preparation is shallow, that her education is very limited, and her prospects will be limited also.
A young lady writes me that she is so handicapped by the lack of an early education that she fairly dreads to write a letter to anyone of education or culture for fear of making ignorant mistakes in grammar and spelling. Her letter indicates that she has a great deal of natural ability. Yet she is much limited and always placed at a disadvantage because of this lack of an early education. It is difficult to conceive of a greater misfortune than always to be embarra.s.sed and handicapped just because of the neglect of those early years.