The daily Gate City. [volume] (Keokuk, Iowa) 1855-1916, 1868-03-22
KEoKUR IOWA;
MORNING, MARCH q.


c. G. NoURsE Chairman.
sELF-mADE MEN AND HORACE
GREKLEY.
In the 6rst place, men are born not made,
much less self-made. They haze the heredi-
tary taints or no>tsints of their ancestors
whose responsibility does not cease with birth,
but continues more or less grave through
childhood, adolescence and perhaps some-
Ehat dilatory manhood.
If man is made, it is certainly by the God
OF us all, and of the same Indifferent kind of
material. Alexander and the Kings jester
we're fashioned from the same clay. After
this it is all helping process rendered by hu-
man hands II is doubtful il man has single
instinct to stand his friend from his birth
He must be coddled upward BY parents-more
or less a6ieetionate, who impart to thei. off
spring painfully the family stock Of knowl-
edge or experience The human creature is
no. like whelp Uttered upon the hills, but
housed, cabined, cribbed, confined through
oil his earlier years. he is dependent upon
others from his cradle to the grave. Men
whose lives are worth anything are continn-
onsly learners-alternately Taught and teach
ing others. Self-taught men. Pshaw !
Had our 81. &. (who has talked for SO many
years, and over 30 much territory upon this
topic) bean turned out to grass, on some pref
ty island, when but five years Of age, I've will
give him that advantage, although some say
that more is learned in those first years Of
life than in all the after period what a pitt
full sho of philosophy or rhetoric he would
have been at the close of fly years! He
would. notwithstanding his natural parts, at
fifty five years of age, be now running about
inpuribus natralbas. We hardly believe
he would have arrived at breech-clouts or
any other mentonable or unmentonable con-
venience Of apparel.
1t is curious subject Of speculation bow
much another Mr.. aud Mrs. Noah would be
able to transmit to their children OF the ac-
cumulated wisdom or practical knowledge Of
the present age, were the race swept sudden
~ from the face of earth by another food.
We doubt they would be mnch more than
wise enough to plant vineyard, even if they
should know better than to get drunk, after
so signal success in agriculture.
Every tub may stand on its own bottom,
according to the proverb, but man can hardly
do SO, notwithstanding the concei, SO many
possess of so doing. The keystone of evils
Kation is the domestic, social, and national
inter.dependence of man upon man.
W. must perforce depend upon the expe-
rience of the past. We have the help of the
million eyes that have looked ont so search
ingly and thoughfully into the world about
them for these thousand years; have all those
sure the present age has the vantage ground OF
all the past. We must labor assiduously TO
master all that our ancestors have tobequealh
to us in every art of life. 1t is certainly true
in such practical matters as shoe making and
hlacksmithing, and all other crafts that On
apprenticeship must be served, the common
est things must be taught how mneh mere
must this be so in the loftier guilds of scholar
ship, science and literature.
II has OF late become somewhat fashiona
BILE, among a certain class OF superficial
thinkers, to decry scholastic institutions II
there are two thousand scholars in New York
city who cannot earn their bread, it certainly
is grea. shame. Many good things are jas'
now below par in New York, intending the
promises to pay OF the FIRST and best nation
atty on earth.
But if any one seeks scholarship or literary
distinction, for the sake Of the money there
in, he ia unfit to possess either. 1t carries
with it its own exceeding great reward.
What contrast there is between P. 7. Bar
mum, with his great museum of curiosities
and patient, unwesried student and
naturalist, who spends long life impoyer
ishing himself and family in his zeal for sci
ence, like the late DR.. Gould, Of Boston.
Whose labors are worth the most to the
world, those Of Louis Agassiz or The great
American Snowman
We think we would rather take stock 10 the
scholars, after all. We are always suspicious
Of those Bownderbys in scieece and litera,
tnre as of wealth, who are perpetually insin.
uating or Boosting of their own responsible
ity for their quasi elevation above the erdi
nary level Of humanity. They turn ,heii
back on their own mothers, who have shaved
for them and given them far mort
help thaa they are ready to admit
They cream over swiftly the pans SO deftl,
ret away in the dairies of thought by careful
and tender hands. We shrewdly suspec,
that they mistake other substances which
mantle the surface Of liquids for the real
cream which they are so ready to plunder-
the green scum on stagnan. pool, or the
mould which gathers over some forgotten bowl
Of pottage in the dripping, unlighted celia,
of ignorance and superstition. 1t is some
times complained that learned men are i'm
practical in their views, or are not nimbl,
enough to keep nr with the times-that thes
are hard to stir from their positions We
have often thought, however. that thew ars
like the great snow-ha,ls which boys accu,nu
lated in their school play ground, very diff
cult to set in motion, but, when fairly turn
ed, do wonders, aud are welcomed by q e.ea,
shout of joy and pride, and which will, in
deed, pick up more in serni-rsvolution than
The smaller and more active fry can in going
three times round the Yard.
We have been tempted to these remarke
~ the iact, that for some dozen years or
more man Of much popular regulations :, ,
philosopher has been saying to ,hepeople il
nearly every sixeable town IN the countrv.
Parents, if your boy has genius, keen him
At the pillow or the anvil-in the shop or :,
the counter; he world will finally find him
out, and buy him sthis real worth. Do no,
send him out to nurse upon the xithered
bosoms of our scholastic institutions.
Seil taught men, like shakespear, Burns.
rfankln and Horace Greeley, stood ! :
no need Of such help Two Of the .hoy.
men confessed their need Of that which .
g., dscf1s, and shakespear would b.vs a..
40 had Id 1eff helrssnd h;r, S