Education and the Higher Life | Page 8

science, and works in Nature as in the soul of
man, for the good of those who love him. Let us know the right
moment, and let us know that it comes for those alone who are
prepared.
CHAPTER II.
EXERCISE OF MIND.
O heavens! how awful is the might of souls And what they do within
themselves while yet The yoke of earth is new to them, the world
Nothing but a wild field where they were sown.
WORDSWORTH.

Learning is acquaintance with what others have felt, thought, and done;
knowledge is the result of what we ourselves have felt, thought, and
done. Hence a man knows best what he has taught himself; what
personal contact with God, with man, and with Nature has made his
own. The important thing, then, is not so much to know the thoughts
and loves of others, as to be able ourselves to think truly, and to love
nobly. The aim should be to rouse, strengthen, and illumine the mind
rather than to store it with learning; and the great educational problem
has been, and is, how to give to the soul purity of intention, to the
conscience steadfastness, and to the mind force, pliability, and
openness to light; or in other words, how to bring philosophy and
religion to the aid of the will so that the better self shall prevail and
each generation introduce its successor to a higher plane of life.
To this end the efforts of all teachers have, with more or less
consciousness, tended; and in this direction too, along winding ways
and with periods of arrest or partial return, the race of man has for ages
been moving; and he who aspires to gain a place in the van of the

mighty army on its heavenward march,--
"And draw new furrows 'neath the healthy morn And plant the great
Hereafter in this Now,"--
may be rash, but his spirit is not ignoble. To him it may not be given
"to fan and winnow from the coming step of Time the chaff of custom;"
but if he persevere he may confidently hope that his thought and love
shall at length rise to fairer and more enduring worlds. He weds himself
to things of light, seeks aids to true life within, learns to live with the
noble dead, and with the great souls of the present who have uttered the
truth whereby they live, in a way more intimate and higher than that
granted to those who are with them day by day; for minds are not
separated by time and space, but by quality of thought. But to be able to
love this life, and with all one's heart to seek this close communion
with God, with noble souls, and with Nature is not easy, and it may be
that it is impossible for those who are not drawn to it by irresistible
instincts. For the intellect, at least, attractions are proportional to
destiny; and the art of intellectual life is not most surely learned by
those whom circumstances favor, but by those whom will impels
onward to exercise of mind; whom neither daily wants, nor animal
appetites, nor hope of gain, nor low ambition, nor sneers of worldlings,
nor prayers of friends, nor aught else can turn from the pursuit of
wisdom; who, with ceaseless labor and with patient thought, eat their
way in silence, like caterpillars, to the light, become their own
companions, walk uplifted by their own thoughts, and by slow and
imperceptible processes are transformed and grow to be the
embodiment of the truth and beauty which they see and love.
The overmastering love of mental exercise, of the good of the intellect,
is probably never found in formal and prosaic minds; or if so, its first
awakening is in the early years when to think is to feel, when the soul,
fresh from God, comes trailing clouds of glory, and the sun and moon
and stars, and the hills and flowing waters seem but made to crown
with joy hearts that love. It is in these dewy dawns that the image of
beauty is imprinted on the soul and the sense of mystery awakens. We
move about and become a part of all we see, grow akin to stones and

leaves and birds, and to all young and happy things. We lose ourselves
in life which is poured round us like an unending sea; are natural,
healthful, alive to all we see and touch; have no misgivings, but walk as
though the eternal God held us by the hand. These are the fair spring
days when we suck honey that shall nourish us in the winters of which
we do not dream; when sunsets interfuse themselves with all our being
until we are dyed