A few men only are born to think. Their minds expand with education,
and their usefulness is commensurate with it. This few early evince a
proclivity so strong for certain avocations as to enable those who have
the direction of their future to educate them for this pursuit. This
proclivity frequently is so overpowering as to prompt the possessor,
when the early education has been neglected, to educate himself for
this especial idiosyncrasy. This was the case with Newton--with
Stevenson, the inventor of the locomotive-engine, who, at twenty years
of age, was ignorant even of his letters. Arkwright was a barber, and
almost entirely illiterate when he invented the spinning-jenny. Train,
the inventor of the railroad, was, at the time of its invention, a
coal-heaver, and entirely illiterate.
These cases are rare, however. The great mass of mankind are born to
manual labor, and only with capacities suited for it. To attempt to
cultivate such minds for eminent purposes would be folly. Even
supposing they could be educated--which is scarcely supposable, for it
would seem a contravention of Heaven's fiat--they could no more apply
this learning, which would simply be by rote, than they could go to the
moon.
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