The mere passing through an academy or
college, is not education. The enjoyment of the largest educational
advantages by no means infers the possession of a mind and heart
thoroughly educated; since there is an inner work to be performed by the
subject of those advantages before he can lay claim to the possession of
a well-disciplined and richly-stored intellect and affections. The
phrase, "self-made men" is often so used as to convey the idea that the
persons who have enjoyed the advantages of a liberal education, are
rather made by their instructors. The supposition is in part unjust.
The outward means of education stimulate the mind, and thus assist the
process of development; but it is absolutely essential to all growth in
mental or moral excellence, that the person himself should be enlisted
vigorously in the work. He must work as earnestly as the man destitute
of his faculties. The difference between the two consists not in the
fact that one walks and the other rides, but that the one is obliged to
take a longer road to reach the same point. Teachers, books, recitations
and lectures facilitate our course, direct us how most advantageously to
study, point out the shortest path to the end we seek, and tend to rouse
the soul to the putting forth of its powers; but neither of these can
take the place of, or forestall intense personal application.
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