These results are not to be condemned, nor are
the processes by which they are secured to be neglected. But our schools
ought to do something always and for every one, for the full development
of a character that is essential to artisans, merchants, lawyers, or
farmers. Learning should not be prized merely as an aid to the daily
work of life,--though this it properly is and ever ought to be,--but for
its expansive power in the mind and soul, by which we attain to a more
perfect knowledge of things human and divine. There are many persons who
accomplish satisfactorily the tasks assigned them, but who do not always
comprehend the processes of life, in its political, social, literary,
scientific and industrial relations, by which the affairs of the world
are guided.
Something of this is due, speaking of America, and especially of New
England, to the universal desire to be engaged in active business. Young
men destined for the farm or the shop, the counting-house or the store,
leave home and school so early that their apprenticeship is ended long
before their majority commences; and they are thus prepared to enter
early and vigorously upon the business of life. This course has its
advantages, and it is also attended by many evils. Our youth have but
little opportunity for observation, and a great deal of time for
experience. They fall into mistakes that should have been observed, and
consequently shunned.
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