Self Help; with Illustrations of Conduct and PerseveranceSmiles, Samuel
Philosophy
Self Help; with Illustrations of Conduct and Perseverance
Smiles, Samuel
Conduct of life
The best teachers have been the readiest to recognize the importance of
self-culture, and of stimulating the student to acquire knowledge by the
active exercise of his own faculties. They have relied more upon
_training_ than upon telling, and sought to make their pupils themselves
active parties to the work in which they were engaged; thus making
teaching something far higher than the mere passive reception of the
scraps and details of knowledge. This was the spirit in which the great
Dr. Arnold worked; he strove to teach his pupils to rely upon themselves,
and develop their powers by their own active efforts, himself merely
guiding, directing, stimulating, and encouraging them. “I would far
rather,” he said, “send a boy to Van Diemen’s Land, where he must work
for his bread, than send him to Oxford to live in luxury, without any
desire in his mind to avail himself of his advantages.” “If there be one
thing on earth,” he observed on another occasion, “which is truly
admirable, it is to see God’s wisdom blessing an inferiority of natural
powers, when they have been honestly, truly, and zealously cultivated.”
Speaking of a pupil of this character, he said, “I would stand to that
man hat in hand.” Once at Laleham, when teaching a rather dull boy,
Arnold spoke somewhat sharply to him, on which the pupil looked up in his
face and said, “Why do you speak angrily, sir? _indeed_, I am doing the
best I can.” Years afterwards, Arnold used to tell the story to his
children, and added, “I never felt so much in my life—that look and that
speech I have never forgotten.”
From the numerous instances already cited of men of humble station who
have risen to distinction in science and literature, it will be obvious
that labour is by no means incompatible with the highest intellectual
culture. Work in moderation is healthy, as well as agreeable to the
human constitution. Work educates the body, as study educates the mind;
and that is the best state of society in which there is some work for
every man’s leisure, and some leisure for every man’s work. Even the
leisure classes are in a measure compelled to work, sometimes as a relief
from _ennui_, but in most cases to gratify an instinct which they cannot
resist. Some go foxhunting in the English counties, others
grouse-shooting on the Scotch hills, while many wander away every summer
to climb mountains in Switzerland. Hence the boating, running,
cricketing, and athletic sports of the public schools, in which our young
men at the same time so healthfully cultivate their strength both of mind
and body. It is said that the Duke of Wellington, when once looking on
at the boys engaged in their sports in the play-ground at Eton, where he
had spent many of his own younger days, made the remark, “It was there
that the battle of Waterloo was won!”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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