Middletown transcript., 1883-03-02

tion will be most profitable that best
succeeds in causing itself to be assimi-
lated in the mind of the governed, as a
part of that mind, and not as a foreign
addition.
Whether the reader, thus helped by
wise counselors, be young or old, he
should soon become familiar with the
advantage of making his reading part
of his daily life. Miss Edith Simcox,
one of the wisest of living English
women, thus presses this point "No
part of a child's school knowledge can
be safely allowed to remain long de-
tached from its daily life. The history
and geography of lesson books must
join on to that of the newspapers; it is
almost worse to know the name and
date of writer OF hero, without an
independent familiarity with the nature
of his books or actions, than to be
frankly ignorant of all at once and in
every branch of science it is admitted
that a knowledge of definitions and for
mul@ is useless apart from experiment
tai acquaintance with the actual bodies
described. Aninaccurateg general knowl-
edge, that would not stand the test of
examination, may even in some cases
have more educational value than a few
correct and barren facts and our edu-
cational results will not be thoroughly
satisfactory if detailed information is
impaired faster than circumstantial i'm
presSi0ns about it's color and bearing"
Mr.. Ruskin, too, has recently spoken
of the duty of frightening the begin
nings of education, and of the evils of
cramming, against which, happily, the
tide of the best contemporary thought
is now setting strongly y,-never to ebb,
let us hope. Make your children" i"
he says, "happy in their youth let
distinction come to them, if it will,
after well spent and well-remembered
years but let them now break and eat
the bread of Heaven with gladness and
singleness of heart, and send portions
to them for whom nothing is prepared
and so Heaven send you it's grace, be-
fore meat, and after it." Of the ne
cessity of making attractive the begin
nings of reading, Edward Everett Hale
says: SIN the first place, we must
make this business agreeable. Which
ever avenue we take into the maze
must be one of the pleasant avenues, or
else, in world which the good God has
made very beautiful, the young people
will go a-skating, or a-fshing, or a-swim-
ming, or a-voyaging, and not a-reading,
and no blame to them." How much
can be done by others in making the
literary path pleasant, is known to the
full by those whose first steps were
guided therein by wise father, OF
mother, OF teacher, or friend. How
strongly the lack of the helpful hand is
felt, none who have missed it will need
to be told
But those who must be their own
helpers need not be one whit discour-
aged. The history of the world is full
of bright examples Of the value of self
training, as shown by the subsequent
success won as readers, and writer's,
and workers in every department of
life, by those who apparently lacked
both books to read and time to read
them, or even the candle wherewith to
light the printed page. 1t would be
easy to fill this whole series of chapters
with accounts of the way in which the
reading habit has been acquired and
followed in the face of every obstacle.
But single bit of personal reminis-
cence may be taken as the type of
thousands not only because of it's
touching beauty and its telling force,
but because it is the latest to be told.
Tomorrow some other man of emil
nence will add no less strong testimony
to the possibility of self-education. 1t
is the story told by Robert Collyer, who
worked his way from the anvil in a
little English town, up to command
ing position among American preachers
and writers. "Do you want to know"
he asked, how manage to talk to you
in this simple Saxon? 1 will tell you.
L read Bunyan, Crusoe, and Goldsmith
when l was boy, morning, noon, and
night. All the rest was task work
these were my delight, with the stories
in the Bible, and with Shakespeare,
when at last the mighty master came
within our DOORS The rest were as
SIENNA to me. These were like a well /
of pure water, and this is the first step |
1 seem to have taken of my own free
will toward the pulpit. +. I took {
to these as took to milk, and, without !
the least idea what was doing, got the
taste for simple words into the very
fiber of my nature. There was day
school for me until I was eight years {
old, and then had to turn in and work {
thirteen hours a day.
From the days when we used to spell {
out Crusoe and old Bunyan there had +
grown up in me devouring hunger to ]
read books. It made small matter |
what they were, so they were books. I
Half a volume of an old encyclopedia I
came along-the first had ever seen. &
How many times went through that I
cannot even guess. remember that '
[ read some old reports of the Mis- Il
sionary Society with the greatest de- 0
light. There were chapters in them L
about China and Labrador. Yet I 0
3hink it is in reading, as it is in eating, d
when the first hunger is over you begin e
% be little critical, and will by no I
means take to garbage if you are of d t
wholesome nature. And I remember S
his because it touches this beautiful t