The triumphs of mind, unaided by education, sometimes are
astonishing,--in the case of General Jackson, perhaps, not more so than
in many others. The great Warwick of England, the putter-up and the
puller-down of kings, did not know his letters; Marshal Soult, the
greatest of Napoleon's marshals, could not write a correct sentence in
French; and Stevenson, the greatest engineer the world ever saw--the
inventor of the locomotive engine--did not know his letters at
twenty-one years of age, and was always illiterate. It is a question
whether such minds would have been greatly aided by education, or
whether they might not have been greatly injured by it--nature seeming
to have formed all minds with particular proclivities. These are more
marked in the stronger intellects. They direct to the pursuit in life
for which nature has designed the individual: should this idiosyncrasy
receive the proper education from infancy, doubtless it would be aided
to the more rapid and more certain accomplishment of the designs of
nature. To discover this in the child, requires that it should be
strongly developed, and a close and intelligent observation on the part
of the parent or guardian who may have the direction of the child's
education.
Pages:
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317