Some knowledge of modern languages, especially of the French, has now become an essential part of education. The value of this acquisition, even for home use, can scarcely be over-estimated, and without a familiarity with colloquial French, a man can hardly hope to pass muster abroad. I will, however, hazard the general observation that, as a rule, it is better to acquire a thorough knowledge of one language (and of French, pre-eminently, for practical availability) than a slight acquaintance with several. Few persons, comparatively, in our active, busy land, have leisure, at any period of life, for familiarizing themselves with the literature of more than one language, besides their own, and to possess the mere nomenclature of a foreign tongue is but to have the key to information. There is, of late, a fashion in this matter, which has little else to recommend it than that it is the fashion; and with persons of sense and intelligence there should be some more powerful and satisfactory motive for the devotion of any considerable portion of "Time, nature's stock."
Apropos of this, nothing is more likely to teach a true estimate of the value of time than that perfection of education pronounced by the philosopher of old to be the knowledge that we know nothing! In other words, they only, who in some sort discern, by the light of education, the vast field that lies unexplored before them, can have any adequate conception of the care and discrimination with which they should use that treasure of which alone it is 'a virtue to be covetous.'
Nothing, perhaps, more unmistakably indicates successful self-culture than the habitual exhibition of Tact. It may almost be called another sense, growing out of the proper training of the several faculties of body and mind. And though there is a vast natural difference between persons of similar outward circumstances, in this respect, much may be effected by attention and practice, in the acquisition of this invaluable possession. Like self-possession, tact is one of the essential, distinctive characteristics of good-breeding—the legitimate expression of natural refinement, quick perceptions and kindly sympathies. Cultivate it, then, my young friends, in common with every elegant embellishment of the true gentleman! Do not confound it with dissimulation or hypocrisy, nor yet regard it as the antagonist of truthfulness, self-respect and manly dignity. On the contrary, it is the best safeguard of courtesy, as well as of sensibility.
Among useful methods of self-discipline, let me instance the benefit resulting from the early adoption of a code of private morality, if you will permit me to coin a phrase, composed of rules and maxims adapted to your own personal needs and peculiarities of position and mental constitution. Washington, I remember, adopted this practice, and Mr. Sparks, or some one of his biographers, has preserved the record from oblivion. It is many years since I came across these rules, and I can no longer recall more than the fixed, though general, impression that they embodied much practical wisdom and clearly indicated the patient spirit of self-improvement for which the author was remarkable. I commend them to you as a model. Perhaps the immortal biographer who has now given the world a new life of his great namesake, will afford you the means of satisfying yourselves personally of the correctness of my impressions of them.
In preparing this code for yourselves, I can give you no better guide than that afforded by the truth expressively conveyed in the following lines:
"'Tis wisely great to talk with our past hours,
To ask them what report they bore to Heaven,
And how they might have borne more welcome news."
That is a very imperfect conception of education which limits its significance to knowledge gained from books. A profound acquaintance with literary lore is often associated with total ignorance of the actual world, of the laws that govern our moral and intellectual being, and with an incapacity to discern the Beautiful, the True, the Good. They only are educated, who have acquired that self-knowledge and self-discipline which inspire a disinterested love of our fellow-beings, a reverence for Truth—in the largest sense of the term—and the power of habitually exalting the higher faculties over the animal propensities of our nature.
It is only, therefore, when man unites moral discipline with intellectual culture, that he can be said to be truly educated; and the most ambitious student of books should always bear in mind the truth that the free play of the intellect is promoted by the development of moral perceptions, and that mental education, even, does not so much consist in loading the memory with facts, as in strengthening the capacity for independent action—for judging, comparing, reflecting.
"The connection between moral and intellectual culture is often overlooked," says a celebrated ethical writer, "and the former sacrificed to the latter. The exaltation of talent, as it is called, above virtue and religion, is the curse of the age.
Education is now chiefly a stimulus to learning, and thus may acquire power without the principles which alone make it a good. Talent is worshipped, but, if divorced from rectitude, it will prove more of a demon than a god."