The True Citizen: How to Become One. William Alexander Smith
in the scale than any life of impulse, passion, or even opinion, is the life regulated by principle. The end of life is something more than pleasure. Man is not a piece of vitalized sponge, to absorb all into himself. The essentials of happiness are something to love, something to hope for, something to do—affection, aspiration, action.
We must also educate our dispositions. Some one has said: "Disposition is a lens through which men and things are seen. A fiery temper, like a red glass, gives to all objects a lurid glare; a melancholic temper, like a blue lens, imparts its own hue; through the green spectacles of jealousy every one else becomes an object of distrust and dislike; and he who looks through the black glass of malice, finds others wearing the aspect of his own malevolence. Only the cheerful and charitable soul sees through a clear and colorless medium, whose transparency shows the world as it is."
Disposition has also its concave and convex lenses, which magnify some things and minify others. The self-satisfied man sees every one's faults in giant proportions; and every one's virtues, but his own, dwarfed into insignificance. To the fretful man others seem fretful; to the envious man, envious; and so with the well-disposed, gentle, and generous; sunshine prevails over shadows. The world is different to different observers, largely because they have different media through which they look at it.
Cheerful tempers manufacture solace and joy out of very unpromising material. They are the magic alchemists who extract sweet essences out of bitter herbs, like the old colored woman in the smoky hut, who was "glad of anything to make a smoke with," and, though she had but two teeth, thanked God they were "opposite each other!"
Goodness outranks even uprightness, because the good man aims to do good to others. Uprightness is the beauty of integrity; goodness is the loveliness of benevolence. The good man visits the hut of misery, the hovel of poverty, leaving in a gentle and delicate way, a few comforts for the table or wardrobe, dainties for the fevered palate of the sick, or such other helps as the case may call for, as far as his means and circumstances will allow.
A true education should cover all these points, and many others also; but it must never be allowed to destroy the pupil's individuality. It must teach that a person can be himself, and study all the models he pleases. Webster studied the orations of Cicero so thoroughly that he could repeat most of them by heart; but they did not destroy or compromise his individuality, because he did not try to be Cicero. It has been said that Michael Angelo, who was the most original of ancient or modern artists, was more familiar with the model statues and paintings of the world than any other man. He studied the excellences of all the great works of art, not to copy or imitate them, but to develop his powers. "As the food he consumed became bone and muscle by assimilation; so, by mental assimilation, the knowledge he acquired by art-models entered into the very composition of his mind."
The more thoroughly a man's nature is developed under the influences of a good education, the more justly does he claim the liberty of thought and action, and a suitable field whereon to think and act. The materials of useful and honorable life—of life aiming at great and noble ends—are within him. He feels it, he knows it to be so; and a denial uttered by ten thousand voices would not check the ardor of his pursuit, or induce him to surrender one atom of his claim. His claim involves a right. He is as conscious of it as of his existence. His mind has acquired the power of observing, reasoning, reflecting, judging, and acting; and he feels that, like a pendulum, the action of his mind is capable of giving activity, force, and value, to a large body of well-compacted machinery, of which he is a part.
It is the mind that acts as the universal pendulum; and if its liberty of action be circumscribed, and its vibrations consequently fall short of the mark, then its power will be crippled, and the life, as a whole will be imperfect and incomplete.
II.
OBSERVATION.
MEMORY GEMS.
We get out of Nature what we carry to her.—Katherine Hagar
Fools learn nothing from wise men, but wise men learn much from fools.
—Lavater
The non-observant man goes through the forest and sees no firewood.
—Russian Proverb
Some men will learn more in a country stage-ride than others in a tour
of Europe.—Dr. Johnson
The world is full of thoughts, and you will find them strewed
everywhere in your path.—Elihu Burritt
All conscious life begins in observation. We say of a baby, "See how he notices!" By this statement we really call attention to the fact that the child is beginning to be interested in things separate from and outside of himself. Up to this time he has seen but not observed, for to observe is to "see with attention"; to "notice with care"; to see with the mind as well as with the eye. There are many persons who see almost everything but observe almost nothing. They are forever fluttering over the surface of things, but put forth no real effort to secure and preserve the ideas they ought to gather from the scenes through which they pass.
Every boy and girl in the land, possessing a good pair of eyes, has the means for acquiring a vast store of knowledge. As the child, long before he can talk, obtains a pretty good idea of the little world that lies within his vision; so may all bright, active boys and girls obtain, by correct habits of observation, a knowledge that will the better fit them for the active duties of manhood and womanhood.
The active, observing eye is the sign of intelligence; while the vacant, listless stare of indifference betokens an empty brain. The eyes are placed in an elevated position that they may better observe all that comes within their range. These highways to the soul should always stand wide open, ready to carry inward all such impressions as will add to our knowledge.
No object the eye ever beholds, no sound, however slight, caught by the ear, or anything once passing the turnstile of any of the senses, is ever again let go. The eye is a perpetual camera, imprinting upon the sensitive mental plates, and packing away in the brain for future use, every face, every plant and flower, every scene upon the street, in fact, everything which comes within its range. It should, therefore, be easy to discern that since mere seeing may create false impressions in the mind, and that only by careful observation can we gather for future use such impressions as are thoroughly reliable, we cannot well overestimate the importance of its cultivation.
It is beyond question that childhood and early youth are the most favorable periods for the cultivation of this faculty. Not only is the mind then more free from care, and, therefore, more at leisure to observe, but it is also more easy to interest one's self in the common things, which, while they lie nearest to us, make up by far the greater portion of our lives. Experience also proves that a person is not a good observer at the age of twenty, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred he will never become one. "The student," says Hugh Miller, "should learn to make a right use of his eyes; the commonest things are worth looking at; even the stones and weeds, and the most familiar animals. Then in early manhood he is prepared to study men and things in a way to make success easy and sure."
Houdin, the magician, spent a month in cultivating the observing powers of his son. Together they walked rapidly past the window of a large toy store. Then each would write down the things that he had seen. The boy soon became so expert that one glance at a show window would enable him to write down the names of forty different objects. The boy could easily outdo his father.
The power of observation in the American Indian would put many an educated white man to shame. Returning home, an Indian discovered that his venison, which had been hanging up to dry, had been stolen. After careful observation he started to track the thief through the woods. Meeting a man on the route, he asked him if he had seen a little, old, white man, with a short gun, and with a small bob-tailed dog. The man told him he had met such a man, but was surprised to find that the Indian had not even seen the one