| Share page |
|
52 |
FIRESIDE EDUCATION. |
||
|
crafty priest, who seeks to exercise a harsher tyranny than that of kings, a tyranny over the mind, resists education, for it would show his superstitions to be the mere phantoms of a base juggler. And the politician, who " deems ignorance to be bliss," is obviously seduced into the notion that the mass of mankind are made to be slaves, merely by his wish to use them as such ; thus admitting that ignorance tends to rivet the chains of bondage, and knowledge to cut them asunder.
INFERENCES.
We have come then to this conclusion, that it is the law of man's nature that his physical, moral, and intellectual faculties must be unfolded by education; that man without education is a savage, but little elevated above the brutes that perish; while by means of education, he may be exalted to a rank but little lower than the angels. By proper treatment, the body may be trained to grace, activity, and endurance ; by instruction, the mind may be enriched with exhaustless stores of knowledge and wisdom ; by education, the evil passions may be laid to habitual repose; while the nobler and more generous qualities may be developed and |
|||