Carlyle regards men without education as mutilated beings.
and with great force insists that to deprive men and women of the blessings of
education is as bad as it would be to deprive them of eves or hands. An
uneducated man may a indeed well be compared to a blind man. The blind man has
a very imperfect idea of the world in which he lives, as compared with those
who have the USC of their eyes, and the uneducated labor under a similar
inferiority of mental vision. While the uneducated man has his mind confined to
the allow circle of such unintelligent labor as he is capable of performing. The
educated man can look far back into the past and forward into the future. His
mind is full of great events that happened long ago. About which history gives
him information. And from his know ledge of the past he is able to form conjectures
about the social and political condition to which the world is progressing the
uneducated man sees in the heavenly bodies, that illumine the sky by night. Nothing
but innumerable specks of light, some more and some less bright.
Any one who has learnt
astronomy divides them into fixed Stars and planets, and form in his mind a
conception of the planets of the solar system rolling round the sun, and of
countless other greater suns than ours, each of which may have its own
planetary system. Occupying the more
distant realms of boundless space. By help of the telescope he can map out the
seas and mountains of the moon and of the nearer planets. And the spectroscope
tells him the elements of which the stars are composed. The botanist finds the
plants at his feet and the trees above his head full of interest. The
entomologist, zoologist and geologist enrich the stores of their minds by the
study of insects, animals, and fossils. Indeed there is not one of the long
list of’ modern sciences that does not open the eyes of the mind to orders
undreamt of by the uneducated man.
Those who have no taste
for science can enrich their minds with the literary wealth of ancient and
modern times. And learn the thoughts of the greatest intellects of the world on
all manner of subjects. If it is a pleasure to converse with the ordinary men we
meet in everyday life, how much ‘greater is the privilege of reading in books
the no Nest thoughts of such great writers as Plato. Milton. And Shakespeare.
These writers of world -wide fame. Who are not of an age but for all time, are
the delight of all students of literature. And stand apart on the highest
pinnacle of glory. But below the very highest literary rank there is in every
language a large number of’ excellent writers, whose works are specially
adapted to various readers of every age and of every temperament,. So that. Whatever
our intellectual tastes in be, we are sure to find satisfaction fur them in the
wide and varied field of literature.
Thus it is that
education, besides being of practical assistance to us in the struggle of life,
enlarges and ennobles the mind and enables us to live as beings endowed with
human intellects ought to live.