“Know thyself” was a wonderful maxim of the ancient philosopher, and it leads to knowledge. “Know thy powers” is a better maxim for practice, and it is a fault that men regard their limitations and not their capabilities. We look with contempt upon a lower stage of our own growth. Not for the world would we lose a little from our highest attainment. The view is relative, and we have but to advance our position and life is subject to new interpretation.
This is a period of the fading out of old ideals as they merge into higher ones not yet clearly defined. The reverence for nature, for its symbolism, the sanctions of religion, the transcendental belief, the poetic insight have somewhat fallen away, and the world is partly barren because not yet rehabilitated. Ideals are regarded as fit for schoolgirl essays, for weakly sentimentality, for dreamers, for those who do not understand the meaning of the new science and the new civilization. Ideals! The transcendent importance of ideals is just appearing. Not an invention could be made, not a temple could be built, not a scheme for the improvement of government and society could be constructed, not a poem or a painting could be executed, not an instance of progress could occur without ideals. The world may be conceived as an ideal, the development of all things is toward ideals. We are at a stage of that development; the progression is infinite, ever toward perfection, toward God, the Supreme Good. Lamartine said wisely: “The ideal is only truth at a distance.”
Do circumstances forbid the possibility of higher development? Then let the individual, in a chosen vocation, however humble, lose himself in obedience and devotion to it, and thus, as a hero, live to his own well-being and the welfare of others. Thereby he will find blessedness. Carlyle’s “Everlasting Yea” shows this passage: “The Situation that has not its Duty, its Ideal, was never yet occupied by man. Yes, here, in this poor, miserable, hampered, despicable actual, wherein thou even now standest, here or nowhere is thy Ideal; work it out therefrom; and working, believe, live, be free. Fool! the Ideal is in thyself, the impediment, too, is in thyself; thy Condition is but the stuff thou art to shape that same Ideal out of; what matters whether such stuff be of this sort or that, so the Form thou give it be heroic, be poetic? O thou that pinest in the imprisonment of the Actual and criest bitterly to the gods for a kingdom wherein to rule and create, know this of a truth: the thing thou seekest is already with thee, here or nowhere, couldst thou only see!”
Here is a striking story, related as true: A young man had met with misfortune, accident, and disease, and was suffering from a third paralytic stroke. He had lost the use of his voice, of his limbs, and of one arm. A friend visited him one day and asked how he was. He reached for his tablet and wrote: “All right, and bigger than anything that can happen to me.” By energy of will, by slowly increasing physical and mental exercise, he reconquered the use of his body and mind—gradually compelled the dormant nerve centres to awake and resume their functions. Later he wrote: “The great lesson it taught me is that man is meant to be, and ought to be, stronger and more than anything that can happen to him. Circumstances, fate, luck are all outside, and, if we cannot always change them, we can always beat them. If I couldn’t have what I wanted, I decided to want what I had, and that simple philosophy saved me.”
A healthy philosophy, speculative or common sense, a healthy ethics, theoretical or practical, are indispensable to youth. Away with unfree will, and pessimism, and pleasure philosophy, and the notion of a perfected world and a goal attained. Substitute therefor vigorous freedom, cheerful faith and hope, right and duty, and belief in development. Most of the great poets and artists, most of the successful business men have struggled with difficulties, and have wrought out of their conditions their success. Burns did not permit poverty, obscurity, lack of funds, lack of patronage, lack of time to destroy or weaken the impulse of his genius. Shakespeare (if this poet-king be not indeed dethroned by logic) with but imperfect implements of his craft wrought heroically, and realized the highest possibilities of literary creation. The biography of success is filled with the names of men in a sense self-made.
Education is the unfolding of our powers. There is the realm of knowledge: the relations of number and space, as revealed to a Laplace or a Newton; the discoveries and interpretations of science, as they appear to a Tyndall or a Spencer; history, in whose light alone we can fully interpret any subject of knowledge; literature, whose pages glow with the best thought and feeling of mankind; philosophy and religious truth, with their grasp of the meaning of life; art, that is a divine revelation in material form—all that has been realized in the consciousness of man. The race has taken ages to attain the present standard of civilization and enlightenment. The life of the individual attains it through education. With some distinction of native tendencies, education makes the difference between the Dahoman and the Bostonian. Tennyson, in his “Locksley Hall,” in a mood of disappointment and pessimism, would seek the land of palms, of savagery and ignorance, and abjure the “march of Mind” and “thoughts that shake mankind;” but a healthful reaction arouses again his better impulse, and he counts “the gray barbarian lower than the Christian child.”
Every young man who aims at medicine, theology, law, or teaching, who aims at the best development of his powers, needs all the education he can gain before he enters upon independent labor. All need a broad foundation of general knowledge upon which to rear the structure of special knowledge and skill. Our grandfathers got along with the grammar school, the academy, college, and apprentice system; we need the high school, the graduate school, and the professional school. Men go into the field of labor without map, implements, or skill, and then wonder why they do not succeed. The generation has advanced; more is known, more is demanded, and undeveloped thought and skill soon find their limitations in the practical world.
We are called upon not only to feel, but to act; not merely to know, but to impart. The inner life is to realize itself in the outer world of action. Ideals are to be followed closely by deeds. A mere recluse is not in harmony with the times.
There is a thought in the following passage from Goethe not inappropriate in this place:
“Wouldst thou win desires unbounded?