Section 160. OPINIONS[1] AS TO ENGLISH EDUCATION. I.
Reading edition
Section 160. OPINIONS[1] AS TO ENGLISH EDUCATION. I.
This[2] energy of individual life and example acting throughout society constitute[3] the best practical education of Englishmen. Schools, academies, and colleges[4] give but the[5] merest beginning of culture in comparison with it (S. 4, N. 5). Far higher[6] and more practical is[7] the life-education daily given in our homes, in[8] the streets, behind (S. 3, N. 2) counters[9], in workshops, at the loom and behind the plough, in counting-houses and manufactories, and[10] in all the busy haunts of men. This is the education that[11] fits Englishmen for doing the work and acting the part of free men. This[12] is that final instruction as members of society, which Schiller designated “the education of the human race,” consisting[13] in action, conduct[14], self-culture, self-control—all[15] that tends to discipline a man truly, and fit him for the proper performance of the duties of life—a kind of education not to be learnt (S. 7, N. 3 B) from (aus) books. Lord Bacon observes that[16] “Studies teach not their own use, but that there is (S. 82, N. 7) a wisdom without them and above them, won (S. 7, N. 3 B, and S. 2, N. 1) by (durch) observation, a remark that holds[17] true of[18] actual life, as well as of[19] the cultivation of the intellect itself. For all observation serves[20] to illustrate and enforce the lesson, that a man perfects himself by work much more than by reading[21],—that[22] it is life[23] rather than literature[21], action[24] rather than study, and character[25] rather than biography[26], which[27] tend perpetually to renovate mankind.”