The pilot and transcript. [volume] (Baltimore, Md.) 1840-1841, 1841-01-23
PlLOT 4 TRANSCRIPT.
sATUKDAY EVENING. Jan. 29.
WINTER EVENINGS.

During the winter season, most of the youth
OF our land particularly those Of the country,
have the evening at their own disposal, to de-
vote to amusement, recreation, or whatever pur-
suit they choose. We speak now Of those who
are employed in some active or necessary pur-
suit during the day, and to whom evening brings
their only leisure; for the youth has not some
such employment, who does not seek it, is
not the one to be benefited by any thing that
may be said on the Improvement Of his leisure
hours. We therefore address our remarks to the
industrious youth of sur country, who trained
to useful and laudabl- purposes Such young
men will hail the long evenings of this season
with delight, and bless the glad hour which
they may devote uninterruptedly to the cultiva-
ton OF their minds.
Few young men at all aware of the amount
of valuable knowledge OF which they might be-
CONF the masters and poasessors, by a careful
and judicious improvement eli the leisure afford
ed by the evenings OF a single winter, and when
we add to this the acquisition often or fifteen
winters, the aggregate amount OF what youth
OF common capacity night attain would make
him learned man In any section OF the Union.
Many who rendered themselves eminent ami
useful in their day-the Franklns, the Sher-
mans, the Ri,tcnheuses, and the Bowditches of
our own co-1try--the Watts, the Fergusons,
and the Simpsons OF England-names conspicu-
Gus in the list of contributors and the beneiactors
of their species-made themselves what they
were by diligent use of less leisure time than
falls to the lot of fourhfths # the young men of
the United States. The greatest men of every age
have in general been self-taught and sell-made.
They have risen from obscurity, and struggled
with adverse circumstances dilIgent of
their time, (studying and laboring while others
slept or Played0 steady perseverance and an
indomitable energy give them their attachments
and their eminence. Cicero, by far the most
learned man OF all antiquity, as well as the great
est orator of Rome, lets us at once into the Sc
cret of all his vast and varied learning, when
he tells us that the time which others gave to
feasts and dice, and sports, he devoted to patient
study
1t matter not what may be young mans in
tended pursuit of life, he canrot choose any fer
which reading and study during his leisure
hours, will not the better qualify him. Ifhe is
to be farmer, let him read books and treatises
on agriculture; if he is to be a mechanic, let
him study the mathematics and works on me-
chanism, architecture, &C.; he is to be mer-
chant, let him become familiar with the princi-
pies Of political economy, the statistics OF trade
and the HISTORY of commercej and, finally, if he
is to be an American citizen, one OF the MILLIONS
to whom is TO be instructed the rich heritage of
civil and religious liberty bequeathed to US by
our fathers Let him study well the history, the
Constitution, and the institutions of the United
States, and let him contemplate frequently the
lives and character of those who wrou gnt out
and framed our liberties.
Nor is the knowledge to be thus acquired the
only inducement far young man to devote the
hours OF his leisure to reading and study. The
pleasure to be found in such pursuits is as much
superior to that transient and giddy excitement
attendant merely on the gayer amusements, as it
is purer, more elegant, and more refined. The
young man, too, who habituates his mind to
find pleasure and qualification in reading and
study, can never want for society; for he creates
around him society of which he can never be
deprived-a society which will never weary of
his presence, which has nothing cold or artificial
or falSe-a society composed of the very elite of
the earth-the master minds of all ages and all
countries. With them he can retire into mis-
library, to spend leisure hour, whenever OPP
portunity occurs, certain of finding them ever
ready to delight and instruct. Louisville Jose.-
nal.