There is no doubt that courage may in some measure be taught. We agree that the lower kinds of courage are matter of habit, therefore of teaching: and the same thing holds good to some extent of all courage. Courage is as contagious as fear. The saying is, that the brave are the sons and daughters of the brave; but we might as truly say that they must be brought up by the brave. The great novelist, when he wants a coward descended from a valorous race, does well to take him from his clan and bring him up in an unwarlike home. {126} Indeed, the heroic example of other days is in great part the source of courage of each generation; and men walk up composedly to the most perilous enterprises, beckoned onwards by the shades of the brave that were. In civil courage, moral courage, or courage shown in the minute circumstances of everyday life, the same law is true. Courage may be taught by precept, enforced by example, and is good to be taught to men, women, and children. EDUCATION TO HAPPINESS. It is a curious phenomenon in human affairs, that some of those matters in which education is most potent should have been amongst the least thought of as branches of it. What you teach a boy of Latin and Greek may be good; but these things are with him but a little time of each day in his after-life. What you teach him of direct moral precepts may be very good seed: it may grow up, especially if it have sufficient moisture from experience; but then, again, a man is, happily, not doing obvious right or wrong all day long. What you teach him of any bread-getting art may be of some import to him, as to the quantity and quality of bread he will get; but he is not always with his art. With himself he is always. How important, then, it is, whether you have given him a happy or a morbid turn of mind; whether the current of his life is a clear wholesome stream, or bitter as Marah. The education to happiness is a possible thing—not to a happiness supposed to rest upon enjoyments of any kind, but to one built upon content and resignation. This is the best part of philosophy. This enters into the “wisdom” spoken of in the Scriptures. Now it can be taught. The converse is taught every day and all day long.