Life Without and Life Within; or, Reviews, Narratives, Essays, and Poems.Fuller, Margaret
History
Life Without and Life Within; or, Reviews, Narratives, Essays, and Poems.
Fuller, Margaret
Essays; Literature -- History and criticism; Poetry
I have seen a boy scarce older, brought up for some time with the sons
of laborers, who, so soon as he found himself possessed of superior
advantages, thought not of surpassing others, but of excelling, and then
imparting--and he was able to do it. If the other boys had less leisure,
and could pay for less instruction, they did not suffer for it. He could
not be happy unless they also could enjoy Milton, and pass from nature
to natural philosophy. He performed, though in a childish way, and in no
Grecian garb, the part of Apollo amid the herdsmen of Admetus.
The cause of education would be indefinitely furthered, if, in addition
to formal means, there were but this principle awakened in the hearts of
the young, that what they have they must bestow. All are not natural
instructors, but a large proportion are; and those who do possess such a
talent are the best possible teachers to those a little younger than
themselves. Many have more patience with the difficulties they have
lately left behind, and enjoy their power of assisting more than those
farther removed in age and knowledge do.
Then the intercourse may be far more congenial and profitable than where
the teacher receives for hire all sorts of pupils, as they are sent him
by their guardians. Here he need only choose those who have a
predisposition for what he is best able to teach. And, as I would have
the so-called higher instruction as much diffused in this way as the
lower, there would be a chance of awakening all the power that now lies
latent.
If a girl, for instance, who has only a passable talent for music, but
who, from the advantage of social position, has been able to gain
thorough instruction, felt it her duty to teach whomsoever she knew that
had such a talent, without money to cultivate it, the good is obvious.
Those who are learning receive an immediate benefit by an effort to
rearrange and interpret what they learn; so the use of this justice
would be twofold.
Some efforts are made here and there; nay, sometimes there are those who
can say they have returned usury for every gift of fate. And, would
others make the same experiments, they might find Utopia not so far off
as the children of this world, wise in securing their own selfish ease,
would persuade us it must always be.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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