——"Every one may glory in his industry!" This is a true word from the
lips of a truly industrious man, who was also one of the most modest.
But Lessing did not, however, mean by them to charter Pharisaical
pedantry. The necessity sometimes of giving one's self to an excess of
work injurious to the health, generally arises from the fact that he has
not at other times made use of the requisite attention to the necessary
industry, and then attempts suddenly and as by a forced march to storm
his way to his end. The result of such over-exertion is naturally entire
prostration. The pupil is therefore to be accustomed to a generally
uniform industry, which may extend itself at regular intervals without
his thereby overstraining himself. What is really gained by a young man
who has hitherto neglected time and opportunity, and who, when
examination presses, overworks himself, perhaps standing the test with
honor, and then must rest for months afterwards from the over-effort? On
all such occasions attention is not objective and dispassionate, but
rather becomes, through anxiety to pass the examination, restless and
corrupted by egotism; and the usual evil result of such compulsory
industry is the ephemeral character of the knowledge thus gained.
"Lightly come, lightly go," says the proverb.——
——A special worth is always attached to study far into the night. The
student's "midnight lamp" always claims for itself a certain veneration.
But this is vanity. In the first place, it is injurious to contradict
Nature by working through the night, which she has ordained for sleep;
secondly, the question is not as to the number of hours spent in work
and their position in the twenty-four, but as to the quality of the
work. With regard to the value of my work, it is of no moment whatsoever
whether I have done it in the morning or in the evening, or how long I
have labored, and it is of no consequence to any one except to my own
very unimportant self. Finally, the question presents itself whether
these gentlemen who boast so much of their midnight work do not sleep in
the daytime!——
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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