New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1892-01-25
Tile SMOOTHER PEBBLES."

There was a time when what We call "cult-
me.o or Learning" or ga liberal education
was not common. The "shccIekin' OF col
lego graduate was in way patent OF nobility
in something that set itself UP as an intellectual
aristocracv. Persons who could not translate
their diplomas or stumble through tho ''mlsa'
and "amoD Of their Latin lessons were looked
mn to in small communities as learned men.
Their observations in the social cllUle were wait
ed on with respect bordering on romance; their
remarks from the top of a cracl,er-barel in the
grocery-stuc were listened to in hush broken
only by the sizzling Of the stove when the
thoughtess farmland shifted his quid and dis
engaged himself from his nicotine and their set
speeches in town meeting when sprinkled with
latin phrases from the Appendix to Webster ;
| Unabridged, usually called the previous question
| on the whole matter and settled the debate.
| That was great period for cOege-bred' men
an intellectual period The village news
paper was a real oracle; the clergyman VINO pun
| the "odium theOogicum' into the sermon on
! the Mount was "A divine" the little lawyer VINO
practised "nSi pru,' and issued wrltN of q" SclIe
| facias' was a "itrSt," the doctor who wrote
prescriptions in characters which permitted the
| compromising apOthccary 70 stake the lives oil
| his patients upon alguesS was IN "emInent prac-
titioner,7 and the leiSuIcIy person who rode in a
gig and pronounced Psyche in two NyllableS was
a "scholar.' DR.. PangloSs sat at the top OF
that period It's elimination and friiton.
The period has passed There arc more col
lege graduates than formerly more of what may
be properly called educated men. 1t is not sale
for any one who has bon through college
and considers himself IAN educated man. to SIT
Oh crlcker-barre in a country grocery and
undertake 10 close an argument with "A Latin
quotation For not unlikely the expector'A,g
| farmland will either correct his pronunciation
or take exceptions 10 his Interpretation ana APP
| pllcation. Most people in middle life who have
| had their ewes about them have discovered the
fact that what i called " learning j, getting 10
be quite common that il does not come OF Il
diploma. and is 50 little exclusive, is ~ little oil
rho nature of monopoly, that almost everybody
has suattering Of it at least, and some people
carry about with them quite "a little stock OF it
| with apparent Inconsistencies. Win TINS
changed condition there has como widening APP
probation Of the fact that genuine scholarship
and sound learning are always modest ana sell
distrlIstful; never irritaut or offensive and sell
| dom dOgmatic. II was one OF the wlscNt OIL
| phllCSopherS and most learned OF men VINO >du :.
-. do not know what may appear 10 the world;
but 10 myself | seem 70 have been only like 4
how olayng on tho seashore and diyertng my
| self in now and then finding a smoother pebble
or a prettier she'll than ordinary whilst the great
ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me-"
II never occurred to Sir Isaac Newton that the
proper use OF the Smoother pebbles was TO
throw them at somebody's head.
| h il a cheerful thought, even for persons who
have diplomas and might naturally plume them
| selves on the exclusiveness of their possession
! and the patent Of intellectual nobility it stands
| for that all learning has become 30 easy of
attainment and 80 widely dihnScd that nobody
can safely indulge in Boosting about ii or assume
to be anybody in particular on account OF it.
| Still more comforting is the reflection that Sir
| Isaac NewtOns thought rules the thinking world;
| that the greatest of scholars is never so much
impressed with the extent Of his own learning
| az with the yaStness Of the ocean or truth on
whose shores he has been divertng himself.
| people who know the most nowadays have no
| need TO say 50. For the rest of us it will be
| enough if we undertake TO cheer and enliyen the
world with what little do know and with
pleasant telling of it. Better this than to know
more and make everybody unhappy by ftinging
the "smcother pebbles" we have accumulated at
their heads.
And this, it may be said, applies as well to
! learned newspapers Is to learned men.