Pursued beyond a certain point, education, established upon this basis, may not facilitate the acquisition of wealth; and if this were the highest pursuit to which it can be made subservient, effort, beyond that point, were useless. But if we regard the acquirement of money chiefly important as affording the essential means of gratifying the tastes, providing for the necessities, and facilitating the exercise of the moral instincts of our being, we return, at once, to our former position.
"He, therefore, who does what he can to unfold all his powers and capacities, especially his nobler ones, so as to become a well-proportioned, vigorous, excellent, happy being, practises self-culture."
Those of you who have enjoyed the advantages of a regular course of intellectual training, will need no suggestion of mine to aid you in mental discipline; but possibly a few hints on this point may not be wholly useless to others.
The general dissemination of literature, in forms so cheap as to be within the reach of all, renders reading a natural resource for purposes of amusement as well as instruction. But they who are still so young as to make the acquisition of knowledge the proper business of life, should never indulge themselves in reading for mere amusement. Never, therefore, permit yourselves to pass over words or allusions, with the meaning of which you are unacquainted, in works you are perusing. Go at once to the fountain-head—to a dictionary for unintelligible words, to an encyclopedia for general information, to a classical authority for mythological and other similar facts, etc., etc. You will not read as fast, by adopting this plan, but you will soon realize that you are, nevertheless, advancing much more rapidly, in the truest sense. When you have not works of reference at command, adopt the practice of making brief memoranda, as you go along, of such points as require elucidation, and avail yourself of the earliest opportunity of seeking a solution of your doubts. And do not, I beg of you, think this too laborious. The best minds have been trained by such a course. Depend upon it, genius is no equivalent for the advantage ultimately derived from patient perseverance in such a course. I remember well, that to the latest year of his life, my old friend, De Witt Clinton, one of the noblest specimens of the race it has been my fortune to know, would spring up, like a boy, despite his stiff knee, when any point of doubt arose, in conversation, upon literary or scientific subjects, and hasten to select a book containing the desired information, from a little cabinet adjoining his usual reception-room. His was a genuine love of learning for its own sake; and the toil and turmoil of political life never extinguished his early passion, nor deprived him of a taste for its indulgence.
Moralists have always questioned the wisdom of indulging a taste for fictitious literature, even when time has strengthened habit and principle into fixedness. The license of the age in which we live, renders futile the elaborate discussion of this question of ethics. But, while permitting yourselves the occasional perusal of works of poetry and fiction, do not so far indulge this taste as to stimulate a disrelish for more instructive reading. And, above all, do not permit yourselves to acquire an inclination for the unwholesome stimulus of licentiousness, in this respect. Every man of the world should know something of the belle-lettre literature of his own language, at least, and, as a rule, the more the better; but,
"Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise;"
and the vile translations from profligate foreign literature, which have, of late years, united with equally immoral productions in our own, to foster a corrupt popular taste, cannot be too carefully avoided by all who would escape moral contagion.
You will find the practice of noting fine passages, felicitous modes of expression, novel thoughts, etc., as they occur even in lighter literary productions, not unworthy of your attention. It will serve, collaterally, to assist in the formation of a pure style of conversation and composition, a consideration of no small importance for those whose future career will demand facility in this regard. Carlyle has somewhere remarked that, "our public men are all gone to tongue!" This peculiarity of the times, may, to some extent, have grown out of its new and peculiar social and political necessities. But, whether that be so, or not, since such is the actual state of things, let all new competitors for public distinction seek every means of securing ready success.
While I would not, without reservation, condemn the perusal of fictitious literature, I think you will need no elaborate argument to convince you of the superior importance of a thorough familiarity with History and general Science.
Let me, also, commend to your attention, well-chosen Biography, as affording peculiarly impressive incentives to individual effort, and, often, a considerable amount of collateral and incidental information. The Life of Johnson, by Boswell, for instance, which, as far as I know, still retains its long-accorded place at the very head of this class of composition (some critic has recorded his wonder that the best biography in our language should have been written by a fool!) contains a world of information, respecting the many celebrated contemporaries of that great man, the peculiarities of social life in England, at his day, and the general characteristics of elegant literature. So, of Lockhart's Life of Scott, and other records of literary life. The lives of such men as Shelley, and Coleridge, afford an impressive warning to the young—teaching, better than a professed homily, how little talents, unguided by steadfastness of purpose and principle, avail for usefulness and happiness. The examples of Lord Nelson,