PART II.
In our last paper on this subject we reduced the word “culture” to its simple and original meaning, and used the familiar illustration of a plot of garden ground, showing that weeds would spring up if cultivation were neglected; that things useful and beautiful alike flourish in the ideal garden; that the quality of the soil and other conditions should be taken into account by the wise cultivator; and that, culture being a process as well as a result, a little work in that direction is better than none at all. We might follow the simile further; but we are now met by a difficulty, and can imagine some critic expostulating, “Your illustration of the garden is all very well, but it breaks down at the most important point. The ground cannot cultivate itself, and needs an experienced gardener. If let alone, it becomes, as you have said, a tangle of weeds and deserves Hamlet’s words—
“‘Fie on’t! Ah fie! ’tis an unweeded garden
That grows to seed.’
“So our mental faculties, our whole nature, are like a garden susceptible of being properly cultivated; but when there is no gardener, no intelligence from without to direct the process, what is to be done?”
The simile, it is true, does break down, as similes are apt to do if pushed too far. And, dear reader, we freely confess that in the term “self-culture” all the difficulty is expressed. It is a hard matter to be dependent upon one’s unaided efforts in this matter. We may even go further and confess that nothing can quite make up for the contact with people of culture, the student life in the atmosphere of a college, the marvellous, enchanting process of education received when one is old enough to appreciate it.
We cannot perhaps wonder if those who know the stimulus of University life at its keenest, the delight of interchange of thought, the unspeakable associations
“Of that sweet city with her dreaming spires,”
look with serenest pity on any attempt at “culture” outside that and kindred regions.