The Columbia herald. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 1850-1873, 1872-10-11

We hear . good deal In our dav nboua
self-educafed men, just - r 1heRu
were educated men Of any otheR surt.
Now the truth b that every man and
every woman who II educated ct a1l, =
ers and schools and colleges an uni-
versities are all very excelleus ming
In their way, but not one nor all Of
them can by any possibility educats .
man. They can aid him greatly, no
doubt, and facilitate the work OF self
education, but that work IL one man
himself must do, from beginning to
end, II it is to be none at all.
The real difference between people
who are commonly said to be selfedu-
Gated, and those whose educations
have been gotten in the regular way, is
that the former have done without as
sistance, that which the latter have
been aided in doing.
That the schools greatly facilitate the
work Is unquestionably true, but where
these are beyond reach there is no rea-
son whatever why the work may not
be done quite as well and quite a. thor
oughly without them. twill be some
what more difficult, that is all.
There are two opposite errors com
monty made on this subject. The hrst
is that the people whose education has
been secured outside of the schools are
necessarily less perfectly cultured than
those whose advantages have been bet
ter. That this is an error Is sufficiently
seen in the career of one Of our leading
magazine editors, who quilted school
at ten years Of age, and yet has made
Of himself, while yet young man,
polished writer, both prose and poetry,
an accomplished scholar in all that u
highest and best In scholarship, . keen
and judicious critic, and as an editor car
tainly without superior in this coun-
try. He has not only made himself .
successful mamie has placed himself
in the foremost rank in the very fields
of labor where ripe scholarship and
thorough culture are most ESSENTIALLY
necessary. In other words, he has edu-
Gated himself out Of school almost ~
perfectly as he could have done 1t IN
the regular way.
There are many other men who have
done the same thing, and while they
have doubtless found the task more
difficult at times than it would have
ed it nevertheless. The foot-farer nnds
his journey slower and more wearisome
than that of the traveller by raj, but
there is no reason why he may nos
reach his journeys end for all that.
The second error is that at wnich
josh Billings hints at when he says
that "Self-made men are apt to De
little too proud of the job" Certainly,
their admirers nearly always fall into
this error, and the mistake is serious
one. Inasmuch as all educated men
are self-educated, the performances OF
the one who has cultured himself out
of school is not so marvellous after all
He has done nothing that anybody else
of good ordinary capacity might not
have done, and his work has Lot been
very much more difficult than 1t
would have been in school, while In
most cases it has not been quite so per-
fectly performed.
The proper view of the matter ap-
pears to be this If we are to be edu-
Gated at all, we must educate ourselves,
and we can do this more easily, and
in most cases more perfectly. Where
fore we should, by all means, embrace
every opportunity to secure regular in
struction. But we may educate our
selves out of school, and if we Were de
MED the advantages of systematic
training, we have no reason to des-
pair. To abandon the work OF self
cultivation because of this want, is
simply a cowardly giving up Of good,
because it is one which can be secured
only by hard work.
Our advice to every young man and
woman is, get an education in the reg
ular way if you can, but get an educa-
ton at any rate and if you get 1T
without the advantages of the schools,
never allow yourself to be so weak as
to imagine that you have hereby shown
yourself prodigy of genius or indus
try.-Hedrh and Home.