Chapter 42 reading - 4

Not all books are as dumb as their readers.Possibly, there are many words that are just aimed at our situation. If we really listen to and understand these words, they will be more beneficial to our life than dawn or spring, and they may give us a new look.How many a man begins a new era of his life after reading a book!A book that explains our miracles and inspires new ones exists for us.What we cannot say at the present time may have been said elsewhere.The same questions that trouble us, puzzle us, and confuse us have happened to all wise minds; not a single question has been missed, and each wise man has answered them, according to his own ability, with his own words and his own life. .Again, with wisdom we will appreciate the nature of generosity.In the outskirts of Concord, there was a lonely hired man on a farm, who had had a second birth, a special religious experience, and believed himself to have passed into silent solemnity and exclusion in connection with his convictions. He may feel that our words are wrong; but thousands of years ago, Zoroaster.Went through the same course, had the same experience; for he was wise, knowing it was universal, treated his neighbours accordingly, and is even said to have invented and instituted a system of worshiping gods. .Let him, then, humbly communicate with the spirit of Zoroaster, and with the spirit of Jesus Christ under the free influence of all the sages, and "let our Church" go away.

We boast that we belong to the nineteenth century and that we make the biggest and fastest strides of any nation.But think of the town, how little it has contributed to its own culture.I don't want to flatter my fellow citizens, and I don't want them to flatter me, because then no progress is made.It should be stimulated like an old cow—to drive before it can run.We have a fairly decent system of ordinary schools, but only for ordinary babies; apart from a half-starved grammar-school in winter, and lately a crude library by government decree, but no own college.We spend a lot of money on diseases of the body and little on diseases of the mind, and the time has come when we should have extraordinary schools.We should not let boys and girls grow up without education.When the time comes, each village will be a university, and the elderly residents will be postgraduates—if they

If they live comfortably,—they should have leisure to devote the rest of their years to free study.Is the world always limited to one Paris or one Oxford?Can't students board here and get a liberal arts education under the Concord skies?Can't we get an Abelard to lecture us?What a pity!Because we were so busy raising cattle and opening shops, we hadn't been to school for a long time, and our education was woefully barren.In this land our towns should in some respects take the place of the European nobility.It should be the protector of fine art.It is very rich.It just lacks size and grace.It pays for causes that are valued by farmers and businessmen, but considers it a utopian dream when asked to undertake causes that the intelligentsia knows are far more worthy.Thanks to wealth and politics, the city spent 17,000 yuan to build the city government, but maybe it won't be in the shell for the wisdom of life in a hundred years

The real meat for this much money.The one hundred and twenty-five dollars a year raised for the grammar school for the winter were better spent than any endowment of the same amount in the city.We live in the nineteenth century, why can't we enjoy the benefits of the nineteenth century?Why must life be so narrow?If we want to read newspapers, why don't we skip the chatter in Boston and order the best newspaper in the world at once?Don't suck soft food from "neutral" newspapers, or eat delicate "olive branches" in New England.Let all learned associations come to us to report, and we want to see if they understand something.Why let Harper's Brothers Books and Ritting Publishing choose the books for us?Just like a nobleman with taste and taste, he must gather around him some things that are helpful to his cultivation-genius-learning-wit-books-painting-sculpture-music-philosophical tools, etc. ;let the towns and villages do likewise,—don't just hire a teacher, a priest, and a sexton, think that running a parish library and electing three municipal councilors is enough, because our pioneering ancestors only Such a small business, but also survived the severe winter on the desolate rock.Collective behavior is in the spirit of our institution: I do believe that our environment will be more developed and our abilities greater than those of the nobles.New England can afford the wise men of the world, to educate herself, to feed and lodge them here, and to keep us from the rustic life.This is the extraordinary school we need.We don't want nobility, but let us have noble villages.If it were necessary, we would rather build one less bridge and take more steps, but let us erect at least one round arch over the dark "abyss of ignorance" that surrounds us.