The Caledonian

Miscellaneous.

COUNSELS

TO

THE YOUNG.

BY HORACE

GREELEY.

Three millions of youth, between the ages of six and twenty-one, are now rapidly coming forward, to take rank as the future husbands and fathers, legislators and divines, instructors and governors, politicians and voters, capitalists and laborers, artisans and cultivators, of this vast country, whose destinies are yet so faintly imagined, much less developed.

Not one is so humble that he will not certainly exert influence—it may be an immense and imperishable influence, on the happiness and elevation of his country and his race. The humblest cottage maiden, now toiling thankfully as the household servant (some proud family by whom she is regarded as nobody, may yet be the mother of a future President—or, nobler still, of some unaspiring but God-directed man, who as a teacher of righteousness, an alleviator of human suffering, a successful reprover of wrong, sensuality or selfishness, may leave his impress on the annals of the world as a lover and servant of his race. Nearly all our now eminent men, politically—Jackson, Clay, etc. were not merely of poor and humble parentage, but left orphans in early life, and thus deprived of the support and counsel which seems most eminently necessary to success in the world's rugged ways.

In the higher walks of genuine usefulness, the proportion of those enjoying no advantages of family influence or hereditary wealth, who attain the loftiest eminence, is very great. Call to mind the first twenty names that occur to you of men distinguished for ability, energy, philanthropy, or lofty achievement, and generally three-fourths of them will be those of men born in obscurity and dependence.

All Literature is full of anecdotes illustrative of these encouraging truths: a single fact now occurs to me which I have never seen recorded: I have often worshipped in a Baptist meeting house in Vermont, wherein at its construction some thirty years since a studious and exemplary young man was for some time employed as a carpenter, who afterward qualified himself and entered upon the responsibilities of the Christian Ministry. That young man was Jared Sparks, since Editor of the 'North American Review,' of Washington's voluminous Writings, &c. and now recognized as one of the foremost scholars, historians and critics in America.

I propose here to set forth a few important maxims for the guidance and encouragement of those youth who will hearken to me—maxims based on my own immature experience and observation, but which are doubtless in substance been propounded and enforced by elder and wiser men long ago and often.

All, as they do not yet appear to have exerted their full and proper effect on the ripening intellect of the country—as thousands on thousands are toilsomely, painfully struggling forward in the race for position and knowledge, in palpable defiance of their scope and spirit—I will hope that their presentation at this time cannot be without some effect on at least a few expanding minds. They are as follows:

1. Avoid the common error of esteeming a college education necessary to usefulness or eminence in life. Such an education may be desirable and beneficial—to many it doubtless is so. But Greek and Latin are not real knowledge; they are only means of acquiring such knowledge; there have been great and wise, and surpassingly useful men who knew no language but their mother tongue. Beside, in our day the treasures of ancient and contemporary foreign Literature are brought home to every man's door by translations, which embody the substance if they do not exhibit all the beauties of the originals. If your circumstances in life enable you to enjoy the advantages of a college education, do not neglect them—above all, do not misimprove them. But if your lot be different, waste no time in idle repining, in humiliating beggary.

The stern, self respecting independence of your own soul is worth whole shelves of classics. All men cannot and need not be college-bred—not even those who are born to instruct and improve their kind.

You can never be justly deemed ignorant, nor your acquirements contemptible, if you fully improve the opportunities which are fairly offered you.

II. Avoid likewise the kindred and equally pernicious error that you must have a profession—must be Clergyman, Lawyer, Doctor, or something of the sort—in order to be influential, useful, respected, to state the case in its best aspect, that you may lead an intellectual life. Nothing of the kind is necessary—very far from it. If your tendencies are intellectual—if you love Knowledge, Wisdom, Virtue for their own sakes—you will grow in them whether you

Nay, it may be doubted whether the Farmer or Mechanic who devotes his leisure hours to intellectual pursuits from a pure love of them has not some advantages therein over the professional man. He comes to his book at evening with his head clear and his mental appetite sharpened by the manual labors taxing lightly the spirit or brain while the lawyer who has been running over dry books for precedents

is best suited or adapted to some new modification of disease, or preparing his next sermon, may approach evening volumes with faculties jaded and appetite palled.

They do not spend uselessly in sleep, or in play, or in frivolous employments, more time than would be required to render them at thirty well versed in historical, Philosophical, Ethical, as well as Physical Sciences, &c.

III. Neither is an advantageous location essential to the prosecution of ennobling studies, or to an intellectual life. On this point misapprehension is very prevalent and very pernicious. A youth born in some rural or but thinly settled district, where books are few and unfit and the means of intellectual culture apparently scanty, feels within him the stirrings of a spirit of inquiry, a craving to acquire and to know—aspirations for an intellectual condition above the dead level around him. At once he jumps to the conclusion that a change of place is necessary to the satisfaction of his desires—that he must resort, if not to the university or the seminary, at least to the City or the Village. He fancies he must alter his whole manner of life—that a persistence in manual labor is unsuited to, if not absolutely inconsistent with the aspirations awakened within him—that he must become, if not an author, a professor, a lawyer, at least a merchant or follower of some calling unlike that of his fathers.

Wrapped in this delusion, he betakes himself to the City's dusty ways, where sooner or later the nature and extent of his mistake breaks upon him. If he finds satisfactory employment and is prospered in the way of life which he prefers, the cares and demands of business almost constrain him to relinquish those pursuits for which he abandoned his more quiet and natural life. If he is less fortunate, anxieties for the morrow, a constant and difficult struggle for the means of creditable subsistence, and to avoid becoming a burden or a detriment to others who have trusted or endeavored to sustain him, these crowd out of being the thought or the hope of mental culture and advancement. Nay, more, and worse—in the tumultuous strife of money-getting, whether successful or otherwise, the very desire of intellectual elevation is too often stifled or greatly enfeebled, and that death of the soul ensues in which satisfaction of the physical appetites becomes the aim of life—the man is sunk in the capitalist or trader, and the gathering of shining dust made the great end of his being.

But what shall the youth do who finds his means of intellectual culture inadequate to his wants? I hesitate not to say that he should create more and better just where he is. Not that I would have him reject any real opportunity or proffer of increased facilities which may open before him. I will not say that he should not accept a university education, the means of studying or a profession, if such should come fairly in his way, and be seconded by his own inclination. But I do insist that nothing of this sort is essential to the great end he has or should have in view—namely, Self-Culture. To this end it is only needful that he should put forth fully the powers within him and rightly mould the circumstances by which he is surrounded. Are the books within reach few and faulty? Let him purchase a few of the very best, and study them intently and thoroughly. He who is truly acquainted with the writings of a very few of the world's masterpieces can never after be deemed ignorant or undeveloped. To know intimately the Bible and Shakespeare, with the elements of History and the Physical Sciences is to have imbibed the substance of all human knowledge. That knowledge may be presented in a thousand varied, graceful and attractive forms, and the variations may be highly agreeable and useful—nay, they are so. But, though they may improve, refine and fertilize, (so to speak,) they do not make the Man. If he has the elements within him, no future hour of solitude can be lonely, or tiresome, or profitless. The mild moon and the calm high stars are companionship and instruction, eloquent, of deep significance, and more impressive than the profoundest volumes.

But grant that greater or more varied means of culture than the individual's narrow facilities can supply are desirable, has he not still modes of procuring them? Is he a solitary, and our goodly land his Isle of Juan Fernandez? —Are there not others all around him if not already of kindred tastes and aspirations, at least in whom kindred aspirations may be awakened? May he not gather around him in the rudest township or vicinage some dozen or more of young men in whom the celestial spark, if not already glowing, may be kindled to warmth and radiance? And by the union of those, may not all their mutual wants be abundantly supplied?

And herein is found one of the prevailing advantages of the course I would commend. The awakened youth who has withdrawn to the seminary or the city may have secured his own advancement; but he who has remained constant to his childhood's home, its duties and associates, will probably have attracted others to enter with him on the true pathway of life. The good thus accomplished, Time may not measure.

Doubtless many a Village Lyceum, many a Township Library, owes its existence to the impulse given by some poor and humble youth inspired by the love of Knowledge and of Wisdom.

V. The great central truth which I would impress on the minds of my readers is this premising a genuine energy and singleness of purpose—the circumstances are nothing, the Man is all. We may be the slaves or toys of circumstance if we will; most men perhaps are so; and to these all circumstances are alike evil—that is, rendered so, if not by rugged Difficulty, then by soft Temptation. But what man who truly ruleth his own spirit, and such there is even among us—readily defies all material influences or bends them to his will. Be hopeful, be confident, then, O friend! if thou hast achieved this great conquest, and believe that all else should follow in due season.