Buchanan County bulletin and guardian., 1867-09-27

The great secret Of life il to be alive. In>
tensity Of living gives intensity Of enjoy.
ment or misery. Our enjoyment or misery
is about as We make it. Enjoyment springs
from usefulness. If We look only to our.
selves, our theatre for enjoyment must be
very contracted. Enlarge our sphere-work
tor others, for their elevation and happiness,
as well US our own, and enjoyment may be
made ilimitable Let US not ask alone !.
how much this is going to benefit me, but
what is to be the aggregate benefit. Let
US act in this spirit, and we shall encourage
all worthy public enterprises; but let us re-
main passive spectators OF the worlds pro,
gress, or only selfshly resolve that we will
not wake up save to keep ourselves from be-
ing consumed, and We shall justly be classed
with the unthinking herd, chewing their cud
in stolid content. When individuals are
alive, communities are alive. Each should
therefore study to keep awake. Among the
vital activities for public progress and public
happiness, are lecture courses as now thor,
oughly established throughout the country.
They arc as positive institutions as the pull
pit or the press. We cannot afford to do
without them. The course carried through
so successfully last year in this city, would
seem to augur success for another winter
The Lyceum has, as has already been an
nounced, applied for a number Of distin>
guished lecturers, with every prospect Of
securing their services. The FIRST lecture Of
the course VIII be given BY DR.. J. G. Holland
Timothy Titcomb), of the Springfield Re-
publican, on Wednesday evening, Oe, 2oth.
II is expected that Anna E. Dickinson and
John B. Cough will lecture during the sea-
son. Full information Is to the course,
season tickets, ETC., will be given within two
weeks.
We give below an extract from Thoreau,
as peculiarly applicable to this subject. 1t
is from the chapter on reading, in Walden,
and has Concord in mind.
I'VE boast that we belong TO the nine
teenth century and are making the most
rapid strides Of any nation. But consider
how little this village does for its own cul-
ture. do not wish to fatter my townsmen,
nor to be Hattered by them, for that will not
advance either Of US. We need to be pro-
voked d,-goaded like oxen, as We are, into .
;rot. We have comparatively decent sys-
TEN of common schools, schools for infants
only I; but excepting the half starved Lyceum
in the winter, and latterly the puny begins
ming Of q library suggested by the State, no
school for ourselves. We spend more on
almost any article of bodily aiiment or all
ment than on our mental aliment. 1t is
time we had uncommon sch, OILS, that We did
not leave off our education when we begin
to be men and women. 1t is time that vii
lagos we're universities, and their elder in
habi,ants the fellows Of universities, with
lesure-if they are indeed so well off-to
pursue liberal studies the rest Of their lives.
Shall the world be confined to one Paris or
one Oxford forever? Cannot students be
boarded here and get a liberal education
under the skies of Concord? Can we not
hire some Abelard to lecture to us? Alas |!
what with faddering the cattle and tending
the store, we are kept from school too long,
and our education is sadly neglected. In
this country, the village should in some re-
spects take the place of the nobleman of
Europe. 1t should be the patron Of the
fine arts. 1t is rich enough. 1t wants only
the magnanimi,y and refinement. It can
spend money enough on such things as far
mers and traders value, but it is thought
| Utopian to propose spending money for
things which more intelligent men know to
be Of far more worth. This town has spent
seventeen thousand on a town-house. thank
fortune or politics, but probably it will not
spend SO much on living vit, the true meat
to put into that shell, in q hundred years.
The one hundred and twenty-five dollars
annually subscribed for Lyceum in the
winter is better spent than any other equal
sum raised in the town."