Education and the Higher Life

by John Lancaster Spalding

Why is this glorious creature to be found
One only in ten thousand? what one is,
Why may not millions be? what bars are thrown
By Nature in the way of such a hope?

Wordsworth.

He teaches to good purpose who inspires the love of excellence, and who sends his pupils forth from the school's narrow walls with such desire for self-improvement that the whole world becomes to them a God-appointed university. And why shall not every youth hope to enter the narrow circle of those for whom to live, is to think, who behold "the bright countenance of truth in the quiet and still air of delightful studies." An enlightened mind is like a fair and pleasant friend who comes to cheer us in every hour of loneliness and gloom; it is like noble birth which admits to all best company; it is like wealth which surrounds us with whatever is rarest and most precious; it is like virtue which lives in an atmosphere of light and serenity, and is itself enough for itself. Whatever our labors, our cares, our disappointments, a free and open mind, by holding us in communion with the highest and the fairest, will fill the soul with strength and joy. The artist, day by day, year in and year out, hangs over his work, and finds enough delight in the beauty he creates; and shall not the friend of the soul be glad in striving ceaselessly to make his knowledge and his love less unlike the knowledge and the love of God? Seldom is opportunity of victory offered to great captains, the orator rarely finds fit theme and audience, hardly shall the hero meet with occasions worthy of the sacrifice of life; but he who labors to shape his mind to the heavenly forms of truth and beauty beholds them ever present and appealing. Life without thought and love is worthless; and to the best men and women belong only those who cultivate with earnestness and perseverance their spiritual faculties, who strive daily to know more, to love more, to be more beautiful. They are the chosen ones, and all others, even though they sit on thrones, are but the crowd.

Without a free and open mind there is no high and glad human life. You may as well point to the savage drowsing in his tent, or to cattle knee-deep in clover, and bid me think them high, as to ask me to admire where I can behold neither intelligence nor love. All that we possess is qualified by what we are. Gold makes not the miser rich, nor its lack a true man poor; and he who has gained insight into the fair truth that he is a part of all he sees and loves, is richer than kings, and lives like a god in his universe. Possibilities for us are measured by the kind of work in which we put our hearts. If a man's thoughts are wholly busy with carpentering do not expect him to become anything else than a carpenter; but if his aim is to build up his own being, to make his mind luminous, his heart tender and pure, his will steadfast, who but God shall fix a limit beyond which he may not hope to go. Education, indeed, cannot confer organic power; but it alone gives us the faculty to perceive how infinitely wonderful and fair are man's endowments, how boundless his inheritance, how full of deathless hope is that to which he may aspire. Religion, philosophy, poetry, science,—all bring us into the presence of an ideal of ceaseless growth toward an all-perfect Infinite, dimly discerned and unapproachable, but which fascinates the soul and haunts the imagination with its deep mystery, until what we long for becomes more real than all that we possess, and yearning is our highest happiness. Ah! who would throw a veil over the vision on which young eyes rest when young hearts feel that ideal things alone are real? Who would rob them of this divine principle of progress which makes growth the best of life?

"Many are our joys
In youth; but oh, what happiness to live
When every hour brings palpable access
Of knowledge, when all knowledge is delight!"

In all ages, we know those made wise by experience, which teaches us to expect little, whether of ourselves or others, have made the thoughts and hopes of youth a jest, even as men have made religion a jest, having nothing to offer us in compensation for its loss, but witticisms and despair. This is the fatal fault of life, that when we have obtained what is good,—as wealth, position, wife, and friends,—we lose all hope of the best, and with our mockery discourage those who have ideal aims; who, remembering how the soul felt in life's dawn, retain a sense of God's presence in the world, to whom with growing faculties they aspire, feeling that whatsoever point they reach, they still have something to pursue. This is the principle of the diviner mind in all high and heroic natures; this is the spring-head of deeds that make laws, of "thoughts that enrich the blood of the world;" this is the power which gives to resolve the force of destiny, and clothes the soul with the heavenliest strength and beauty when it stands single and alone, of men abandoned and almost of God.

There is little danger that too many shall ever hearken to the invitation from the fair worlds to which all souls belong, and where alone they can be luminous and free. For centuries, now, what innumerable voices have pleaded with men to make themselves worthy of heaven; while they have moved on heedless of the heaven that lies about us here, placing their hopes and aims in material and perishable elements, athirst neither for truth, nor beauty, nor aught that is divinely good! They sleep, they wake, they eat, they drink; they tread the beaten path with ceaseless iteration, and so they die. If one come appealing for culture of intellect, not because they who know, are stronger than the ignorant and make them their servants, but because an open, free, and flexible mind is good and fair, better than birth, position, and wealth, they turn away as though he trifled with their common-sense. Life, they say, is not for knowledge, but knowledge for life; and they neither truly know, nor live. And if here and there some nobler soul stand forth, he degrades himself to an aspirant to fame, forgetting truth and love.

Enough there are on earth who reap and sow,
Enough who give their lives to common gain,
Enough who toil with spade and axe and plane,
Enough who sail the seas where rude winds blow;
Enough who make their life unmeaning show,
Enough who plead in courts, who physic pain;
Enough who follow in the lover's train,
And taste of wedded hearts the bliss and woe.

A few at least may love the poet's song,
May walk with him, their visionary guide,
Far from the crowd, nor do the world a wrong;
Or on his wings through deep blue skies may glide
And float, by light transfused, like clouds along
Above the earth and over oceans wide.

With unresting, wearing thought and labor we are striving to make earth more habitable. We drag forth from its inner parts whatever treasures are hidden there; with steam's mighty force we mold brute matter into every fair and serviceable form; we build great cities, we spread the fabric of our trade; the engine's iron heart goes throbbing through tunneled mountains and over storm-swept seas to bear us and our wealth to all regions of the globe; we talk to one another from city to city, and from continent to continent along ocean's oozy depths the lightning flashes our words, spreading beneath our eyes each morning the whole world's gossip,—but in the midst of this miraculous transformation, we ourselves remain small, hard, and narrow, without great thoughts or great loves or immortal hopes. We are a crowd where the highest and the best lose individuality, and are swept along as though democracy were a tyranny of the average man under which superiority of whatever kind is criminal. Our population increases, our cities grow, our roads are lengthened, our machinery is made more perfect, the number of our schools is multiplied, our newspapers are read in ever-widening circles, the spirit of humanity and of freedom breathes through our life; but the individual remains common-place and uninteresting. He lacks intelligence, has no perception of what is excellent, no faith in ideals, no reverence for genius, no belief in any highest sort of man who has not shown his worth in winning wealth, position, or notoriety. We have a thousand poets and no poetry, a thousand orators and no eloquence, a thousand philosophers and no philosophy. Every city points to its successful men who have millions, but are themselves poor and unintelligent; to its writers who, having sold their talent to newspapers and magazines, sink to the level of those they address, dealing only with what is of momentary interest, or if the question be deep, they move on the surface, lest the many-eyed crowd lose sight of them. The preacher gets an audience and pay on condition that he stoop to the gossip which centres around new theories, startling events, and mechanical schemes for the improvement of the country. If to get money be the end of writing and preaching, then must we seek to please the multitude who are willing to pay those who entertain and amuse them. Will not our friends, even, conceive a mean opinion of our ability, if we fail to gain public recognition?