The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1871-07-22


less passage to the whirling spheres beyond
the air-currents of earth, and revels annie
Asteroidal sublimities, playing as famil
iarly with blazing stars as Prof. Porte
does with the knotty problems of Euclid
But, to tho cultured faith of a soul manu-
mitted from the CALLING thraldom of sin
the loftiest gem in the glittering caronal o
the sky pales its Intellectual fires before thu
radiant prospects that open right between
the sublime anthems of the sons of God
on the illimitable and immortal side of the
blue emphyrean. Thus we have the stepping
stones, from the first lessons in physical edu
cation up to the spiritual commencement
exercises on the golden peaks of immor
ta'ity. The mighty sweep of a finished
education stretches from the song of the
morning stars to the coming chronicles O
a subsequent eternity, taking in the pomI
and pageantry of all corruptible things
walking intimately through the gorgeou!
garniture of science and exploring the
wrought wonders of the Heavenly Jerusa
lem.
A man may be wise, clever, good, skill.
full, cunning, pleasing, brave, noble, up
right, and Jealous, and yet not educated in
the full sense. There is repletion of edu-
cation that comes from sturdy purpose to
carefully know and faithfully do ones duty
in every emergency that cannot be initiated
by the spurious forms of worldly wisdom
impaired by narrow-guage curriculum, as
baseless in theory as it is fruitless in prac-
tice, the cryptology of whose titles is inca
pable of reasonable or intelligent interpre-
tation. Horace puts it in this manner,
"Wise without rules, and without learning
learn'd.''
The germ of education is heaven planted,
and only needs to have the soil prepared
with all its receptive and formulating
forces, to bring forth fruit in augmented
folds. Wheat-grains were hidden two
thousand years in the Egyptian Pyramids,
and yet grew and bare fruit when dropped
into the adaptable earth. The vital growth
principle cannot die-its power can only be
destroyed by humiliation. Though the
metempsychosis may be so intangible and
fanciful as to defy philosophical tracing,
its bursting seeds will nevertheless break
the incrusted surface of things in the ire
pressible search for sunlight. There will
be an inevitable noxious growth, if the soil
is not artificially cleared up, sweetened,
improved and titled by the most approved
methods, and wholesome seed implanted.
Thistles, briars, and weeds grow naturally
and constantly, and are only repressed by
incessant care and toll. If we want crops
of wheat and corn we must plant seeds
from which such nourishing bread-stuffiS
will grow. No man gathers figs from this
ties, or grapes from thorns. Delaware
peaches do not grow on Usage hedges, nor
do your immense berry crops cluster on
the bitter hog-weed that infests the wide
wastes of unimproved lands. Each seed
produces fruit after its kind. Profanity,
vulgarity, selfishness, gluttony, intempcr-
ance, adultery, deception, falsehood, dis
honesty, theft, murder, are all and each
the direct outgrowth of appropriate germs.
Such crops can be avoided only by extract
ing the vicious roots, repellng the foul
germinal grains, and filling the places with
slips and sprouts that will certainly yield
such fruit as we desire to cultivate. We
look for the fruit of happiness, but not
from the plants of virtue. We should
learn, with Pope,
THAT virtue only makes our bliss below"
A delusive impression prevails in some
directions that merely to pass college hon
ors is the sunsnaum bonum of duty's demand
in the line of education. This is false,
though there are many fools that never
find it out, as in the case of the one who
entering the front was Immediately kicked
out the back door, and whose boast ever
after was that he had gone through col
lege. Is it not pity all the blockheads
could not graduate in like appropriate
and summary manner? This is one of the
deep ruts of medieval doctrine that would
twist the wheels off Il chariot of fire to
get out of it by square pulling. 1t is forced
to burn its angular course into new tracks,
on the level planes of broader culture, if
it would ever thunder along the highway
of success.
An inwrought comprehension of the
courses of study must be fairly frescoed on
the soul of the student, in his passage
through the halls of learning, ere he can
hope to be essentially benefited by what he
memories. He only really learns what he
profitably appropriates, as Milton suggests,
"With plain heroic magnitude of mind
Here he simply lays the foundation for edu-
cation. We remember that the single differ
ence between the two builders in the Cos
pei parable, was in the foundation on which
they respectively built. We have every
reason to believe their houses were made
of the same material, erected at the same
time, by the same architect, and that they
were in all respects precisely alike, except
only that one was built on sand, and fell to
pieces when the storm beat upon it; while
the other was erected on solid rock, and
stood securely though exposed to the iden-
teal furious tempest of wind, rain and
flood. A good foundation is just as essen
tial to character building rs in the creation
of a dwelling house. This building process
is universal in all departments of the mate
rial world. The structure which is crum-
bling INTO ruin supplies fresh material for
other combinations and organisms; and
thus building in all visible forms of matter
is perpetually progressing. In the develop
ment of personal life and character all
realms of nature present their contribu-
lions, and man is amenable to them ALL
Individual completion is absolutely de,
manded. We may not confine our opera,
lions to the rooms of the ground floor
An ample parlor and tinely-appointed kitch-
ell are not convenient or comfortable apart,
ments for sleeping chambers. Mere exter-
nal adornment, whether of money, talent,
or blood, is among the most ignoble OF
human aspirations. All available appli,
ances, and even our bodily forms are tc