St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1899-11-22
Go to Europe While Young.

The recent death of Grant Allen calls
attention anew to his last published
book, 1.-THE European Tour" Its first
chapter, urging the educational value oil
travel in Europe, is especially addressed
to fathers and to young men of college
age. These are some of his arguments
Born and bred on the American cont.
nent, | came to Europe as very young
man; l have lived here now for over
thirty years, and have slowly learned
how to appreciate its educational advan-
tages. Allowing that America is the
best country in which to be born, still
maintain that Europe is the best country
in which to get years education.
do not mean year spent at school
or college. do not even mean year of
strenuous and conscientious sight seeing,
undertaken solely with an eye to edifca-
ton. | mean year of travel, enjoyment,
observation, year of free use Of lungs
and limbs, a year of pleasant tour
ing through beautiful country and beau
tiful cities. The best learning of all is
the learning we acquire without ever
knowing it. Mugging up a subject,
examining for an examination-these are
the ways to undermine and destroy our
interest in knowledge. Going about the
world to amuse ourselves, with our ewes
open-that is the way to preserve and
enlarge it.
For everything depends upon the en-
Joyment we receive. Nothing makes i'm.
pressions so vivid as pleasure. Just as it
IS better exercise to play base ball, cricket,
foot ball, lawn tennis, to row, to ride, to
swim, to climb mountains than to drill
in prison yard or to walk up and down
measured mile in Central Park, so it is
better education to visit the Louvre,
Notre Dame, Venice, Munich, Athens
than to grub up Greek roots with die
tionary and grammar. Let the other
education come afterwards, if you like,
but gain first living interest in the Ian
guages, the literatures, the history of
Europe by delightful tours through the
lands that produced them.
History seems to be real! That is the
true secret of the great good of travel
Till you go to see the tombs of Charles
the Bold and Mary of Burgundy at
Bruges you have probably never troubled
your head tor one moment about the
existence and fate of the Burgundian
duchy. But as soon as you have seen
those exquisite monuments you cannot
help reading about them, and when you
go on to Dion you put two and two
together, or when yousee the Burgundian
statues in the Renaissance sculpture gal
lery at the Louvre you build up your
knowledge, piecing this and that, till,
little by little, without an effort on your
part. you find that what was once a
vast, unconscious blank has filled itself
up everywhere with facts and instances.
You begin to understand and know your
Burgundy; it has wrought itself into
your brain by many twining strands,
which cannot ever again be lightly un-
twisted.
1t is to the young man. therefore, and to
the young mans father that | specially
address myselfin this chapter. Iwant him
to consider whether year i'll Europe is
not better spent than year (shall we
say y at Cornell or rinceton. Let him
do the one, oy all means, but let him not
leave the other undone. To have seen
Europe is great gain, and, whatever
comes. it cannot be taken away from
him. He may fail in business but he has
the memory of the Grand Canal and the
Doges' Palace; he may get incrusted in
clogging wealth and overwhelmed with
affairs, but he has beheld the great Van
Eyck at Client and gazed in the face of
the Sistine Madonna at Dresden; be may
gain the whole world and lose his own
soul-his higher nature-on the Stock
Exchange, but he will be haunted still by
Donatelo's st. George and redeemed at
times by the floating form of Michael
Angeles David. So once more say it,
Young man, go to Europel"