constitute, among all who use them, secret freemasonries. They are as
if they belonged to one club.
There is also a negative value in these arts. Their chief use to the
youth, is, not amusement, but to be known for what they are, and not to
remain to him occasions of heart-burn. We are full of superstitions.
Each class fixes its eyes on the advantages it has not; the refined, on
rude strength; the democrat, on birth and breeding. One of the benefits
of a college education is, to show the boy its little avail. I knew a
leading man in a leading city, who, having set his heart on an education
at the university, and missed it, could never quite feel himself the
equal of his own brothers who had gone thither. His easy superiority to
multitudes of professional men could never quite countervail to him this
imaginary defect. Balls, riding, wine-parties, and billiards, pass to a
poor boy for something fine and romantic, which they are not; and a free
admission to them on an equal footing, if it were possible, only once or
twice, would be worth ten times its cost, by undeceiving him.
I am not much an advocate for travelling, and I observe that men run
away to other countries, because they are not good in their own, and run
back to their own, because they pass for nothing in the new places. For
the most part, only the light characters travel. Who are you that have
no task to keep you at home? I have been quoted as saying captious
things about travel; but I mean to do justice. I think, there is a
restlessness in our people, which argues want of character. All
educated Americans, first or last, go to Europe;—perhaps, because it is
their mental home, as the invalid habits of this country might suggest.
An eminent teacher of girls said, "the idea of a girl’s education, is,
whatever qualifies them for going to Europe." Can we never extract this
tape-worm of Europe from the brain of our countrymen? One sees very
well what their fate must be. He that does not fill a place at home,
cannot abroad. He only goes there to hide his insignificance in a
larger crowd. You do not think you will find anything there which you
have not seen at home? The stuff of all countries is just the same. Do
you suppose, there is any country where they do not scald milkpans, and
swaddle the infants, and burn the brushwood, and broil the fish? What is
true anywhere is true everywhere. And let him go where he will, he can
only find so much beauty or worth as he carries.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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