He
was ignorant of grammatical rules and definitions, yet his conversation
would have been accepted in good circles of New England society. This
man had his faults, but they were not grievous faults, nor did they in
any manner affect the qualities of which I have spoken.
This is what nature sometimes does; this is what we should always strive
to do, extending this symmetry, if possible, to the moral as well as to
the intellectual and physical organization. This man is ignorant of
science, of books, of the world of letters, and the world of art, yet we
respect him. Why? Because nature has chosen to illustrate in him her own
principles, power and beauty.
That we may draw out the qualities of the human mind as they exist, we
must first appreciate our influence upon childhood and youth. Our own
experience is the best evidence of what that influence is. All along our
lives the lessons of childhood return to us. The hills and valleys, the
lakes, rivers, and rivulets, of our early home, come not in clearer
visions before us than do the exhortations to industry, the incentives
to progress, the lessons of learning, and the principles of truth,
uttered and offered by the teachers of early years. In the same way the
lines of the poet, the reflections of the philosopher, the calm truths
of the historian, read once and often carelessly, and for many years
forgotten, return as voices of inspiration, and are evermore with us.
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