The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1900-12-08
Sc CONSCIOUSNESS.
THE ACTERISTIC IA ULT or
AMERICAN PEOPLE.

Hamilton w. Mabie Says Americans
Lack Repose of ActiOn-To Become
Forces Ia Nature.
An appreciative audience heard Ham
ilton w. Mabe Wednesday evening III
College street hall. Mr.. Mabie's subject
was Some Educational Hints from Ma
ture,' in which he lit off in an enter
esting and rather startling manner the
characteristic fault of American peo-
pie, namely. nervousness and lack on
repose in action. He says that the
madern method of education is "lndls-
criminate, omnivorous, unsatlaple'
does not mean education. or power, or
freedom" that there is a limit to the
power of assimilation, and the human
mind can take out of life only those
things which are vitality related TO IT,
He holds up Abraham Lincoln as the
type of the educated man. of few BOOKS
deeply read, grown and adjusted to the
life of his nation.
In contrasting the method of nature
to our intensely superficial American
life, Mr.. Mabie said eff nature has
one lesson which in this stimulating
American air we need more than any
other it is the lesson Of calmness ana
quietness OF soul We rush from one
kind of knowledge to another, eager,
breathless and excited, and forget that
culture is no. fruit to be plucked by
a swift hand, but a fertility that fol-
lows the falling of the rain into our
souls, and the slow and silent enrich
ment of the invisible soil.
1--WE often imagine ourselves intense
1y intellectual when we are only alb
normally nervous. In this country
nerves are constantly mistaken for
brains, and the restlessness of one is
confounded with the actions OF the
other. Nerves are Invaluable for emo
ton, but they are distinctively non-cre-
ative. No great thought was ever
borne of them and no great wit ever
found it's inspiration in them.
''And again, mastery comes only to
the man who keeps his soul in quiet
ness. The greater the activity and the
vaster the responsibilities, the deeper
the need of perfect poise. We must
have quiet and solitude in order to find
ourselves. No man can go home to
himself until he has gotten out Of the
crowd and the rush and the haste. We
cannot be fed either by nature or by
experience until we are open to receive.
A restless nature is not sensitive to
impressions. 1t is too much preocupied
and to much perturbed. 1t throws off
impressions. The greatest literary art
list we have yet produced on this CONT
nent spent nearly twelve years in en-
tire obscuritv.
Perhaps the greatest refreshment
which men at this end of the century
gain from nature flows from her I'M
consciousness. This is the antidote for
our feverish egotism-the egotism, not
of vanity, but of q constant measure
ment of everything by it's value to our
selves. There has, perhaps, never been
time in the history of the world when
men have been so keenly and so pain
fully conscious Of themselves as to-
day; never a time when they have found
it so difficult to look at things broadly
and effectively Literature, art and re-
ligion are full of the evidences of a
self-consciousness which limits the in
sight, blurs the vision and distorts the
view of life. In our agitations and few
ers of mood we go to nature and are
COINED out of all thought of ourselves.
I'm this country, especially self-con-
seriousness has become a kind of nation
al limitation. Our stimulating climate,
the discord between the essential ideal
ism of the American character and the
materialism of American pursuits. COM
bine to intensity our consciousness of
ourselves. Hence, our great practical
effectiveness, our measureless energy
and our comparative unproductiveness
on the side of fundamental thought
and wit Our natural life has immense
superficial range, but it lacks Depth
We over-value the intellect, and we
undervalue that which the intellect in
terprets and expresses-the deep, rich
life of our race.
Fundamental education does not
mean the training of the organs of ex-
preston, but the enrichment, the en-
1argement and deepening of that per-
sonality which is our only original
possession, the only creative power |
with which men are endowed No edu-
cation, however perfect in method and
skillful in device, is other than sl1per- |
fetal which does not reach, liberate
and inspire this hidden nature which is
the man himself