Marshall County Republican. (Plymouth, Ind.) 1856-1878, 1873-08-21
EDUCATIONAL COLUMN.
READING.


could catch few lines for cheer and
thought from a book or news paper I;
could forget the carking cares, the gap
ing wants, the sliDgs and arrows of out
rageous fortune, in reading; could live
for title the ideal life, and be trans
ported into and taste the flavor of other
and more favored spheres of being. And
how do these people employ their idle
time. Does the give and take gossip sat
isiy the craving for something new and
different? Does time ever hang heavy. on
their hands when the days work is done
bitter for Pat. to work On the railroad,
and there are no paths to dig, no wood To
saw, does wild hunger ever beset him
to read and fill the gap with precious
material? Or is it that. never having
known thai blessing, he is spared the long
ing? We are apt to think, perhaps, that
the number of filliterate is small III this
enlightened age and country and we
say with pride that no child need grow
up unlettered, that our common schools
have clipped the wings of ignorance.
Yet those to whom reading is dead
letters warm in the streets of our towns and
cities, and multitudes of them toll in our
mills, farms and kitchens. 1t is not a
pleasant rehe ;tion to lover of books, to
one who loves to loiter in this world of
fancy and fiction, TO follow the fairy
tales of science" the "long results of
time,' which the panorama of geology
reveals, the sublinlities of science, the
procession OF kings and martyrs adorns
the historic page, which seems TO flash
with bayonet points-to such Il reader is
it not pleasant reflection that all this is
a feast from which multitudes of their
fellow men are shut out as etfectually as
if an angel with flaming sword stood in
the way. These have never hung breath
less over Napoleon's triumphs and de-
feats, nor watched the Crusaders vanish
into the twilight fairy land of the East,
nor iclI thei: heart beat with stout Cor
tez," when he stood silent upon peak
in Darien" They have never lost their
way III the enchanted garden Of Ariosto,
nor sounded the depths with Dante, nor
SCARED with the sweet singer of Israel.
They have never been transported with
the Prophets and the Revelator into that
peare neither lived nor wrote They
have never reached hand to Christian
across the slough of despond; it is pos
sible that they never have heard of the
Arabian Nights exhaling an 0dor of
frankincense and myrrh. All the pleas
ant paths of literature are untrodden by
their feet; its wide prospects allure them
not; IFS mountain tops are hidden IN per-
petual fogs and clouds. We Go not dis
pute bit that there are other sources than
books from which one may learn; the
fiction of daily life teaches something to
the saddest clod; the baskers in the
street, the clashing of temperamen's in a
household, the haggling in the market
place, speak 10 the humblest and most
uninstructed intellect; but this. special
branch of education and amusement is
beyond their reach. Year after year the
sap circulates, the foliage thickens, the
fruit ripens, while only some chance
winnfall accrues to their share; only
when the words of the wise have become
commonplace of every day talk. belong
to the atmosphere of the time, do the
great unlettered inherit them
Perhaps from being long accustomed
to the high privilege of reading ourselves
it has escaped US that there is tax up
on luxuries; that VIC owe duty TO the
less favored among us; that knowlege is
not something exclusively our own,
something to be boarded like gold, some
thing te be spent for our own glory, to
circulate among the select few, to be-
queath to our heirs, but must be passed
on from mind to mind, increasing as it
goes. Nothing of it is to be kept in re-
serve, or squandered for private enjoy
ment or profit. When we have clothed
the naked, fed the hungry, and sheltered
the houseless, do we not flatter ourselves
that we have satisfied the demands of
charity? But the vacant uniformed
mind suffers more than flesh and blood,
works more mischief than the hungry
stomach. How much that is mischiev
Gus in any community may be attributed
to ignorance achieving its blind reyenges.
we should not exercise after long alb
stinence from food, nor Immediately after
a meal unless the meal or the exercise be