Self Help by Samuel Smiles (best romantic novels in english TXT) 📕

the mode in which he had conducted his studies, and thus explained

the secret of his success. “I resolved,” said he, “when beginning

to read law, to make everything I acquired perfectly my own, and

never to go to a second thing till I had entirely accomplished the

first. Many of my competitors read as much in a day as I read in a

week; but, at the end of twelve months, my knowledge was as fresh

as the day it was acquired, while theirs had glided away from

recollection.”

It is not the quantity of study that one gets through, or the

amount of reading, that makes a wise man; but the appositeness of

the study to the purpose for which it is pursued; the concentration

of the mind for the time being on the subject under consideration;

and the habitual discipline by which the whole system of mental

application is regulated. Abernethy was even of opinion that there

was a point of saturation in his own mind, and that if he took into

it something more than it could hold, it only had the effect of

pushing something else out. Speaking of the study of medicine, he

said, “If a man has a clear idea of what he desires to do, he will

seldom fail in selecting the proper means of accomplishing it.”

The most profitable study is that which is conducted with a

definite aim and object. By thoroughly mastering any given branch

of knowledge we render it more available for use at any moment.

Hence it is not enough merely to have books, or to know where to

read for information as we want it. Practical wisdom, for the

purposes of life, must be carried about with us, and be ready for

use at call. It is not sufficient that we have a fund laid up at

home, but not a farthing in the pocket: we must carry about with

us a store of the current coin of knowledge ready for exchange on

all occasions, else we are comparatively helpless when the

opportunity for using it occurs.

Decision and promptitude are as requisite in self-culture as in

business. The growth of these qualities may be encouraged by

accustoming young people to rely upon their own resources, leaving

them to enjoy as much freedom of action in early life as is

practicable. Too much guidance and restraint hinder the formation

of habits of self-help. They are like bladders tied under the arms

of one who has not taught himself to swim. Want of confidence is

perhaps a greater obstacle to improvement than is generally

imagined. It has been said that half the failures in life arise

from pulling in one’s horse while he is leaping. Dr. Johnson was

accustomed to attribute his success to confidence in his own

powers. True modesty is quite compatible with a due estimate of

one’s own merits, and does not demand the abnegation of all merit.

Though there are those who deceive themselves by putting a false

figure before their ciphers, the want of confidence, the want of

faith in one’s self, and consequently the want of promptitude in

action, is a defect of character which is found to stand very much

in the way of individual progress; and the reason why so little is

done, is generally because so little is attempted.

There is usually no want of desire on the part of most persons to

arrive at the results of self-culture, but there is a great

aversion to pay the inevitable price for it, of hard work. Dr.

Johnson held that “impatience of study was the mental disease of

the present generation;” and the remark is still applicable. We

may not believe that there is a royal road to learning, but we seem

to believe very firmly in a “popular” one. In education, we invent

labour-saving processes, seek short cuts to science, learn French

and Latin “in twelve lessons,” or “without a master.” We resemble

the lady of fashion, who engaged a master to teach her on condition

that he did not plague her with verbs and participles. We get our

smattering of science in the same way; we learn chemistry by

listening to a short course of lectures enlivened by experiments,

and when we have inhaled laughing gas, seen green water turned to

red, and phosphorus burnt in oxygen, we have got our smattering, of

which the most that can be said is, that though it may be better

than nothing, it is yet good for nothing. Thus we often imagine we

are being educated while we are only being amused.

The facility with which young people are thus induced to acquire

knowledge, without study and labour, is not education. It occupies

but does not enrich the mind. It imparts a stimulus for the time,

and produces a sort of intellectual keenness and cleverness; but,

without an implanted purpose and a higher object than mere

pleasure, it will bring with it no solid advantage. In such cases

knowledge produces but a passing impression; a sensation, but no

more; it is, in fact, the merest epicurism of intelligence—

sensuous, but certainly not intellectual. Thus the best qualities

of many minds, those which are evoked by vigorous effort and

independent action, sleep a deep sleep, and are often never called

to life, except by the rough awakening of sudden calamity or

suffering, which, in such cases, comes as a blessing, if it serves

to rouse up a courageous spirit that, but for it, would have slept

on.

Accustomed to acquire information under the guise of amusement,

young people will soon reject that which is presented to them under

the aspect of study and labour. Learning their knowledge and

science in sport, they will be too apt to make sport of both; while

the habit of intellectual dissipation, thus engendered, cannot

fail, in course of time, to produce a thoroughly emasculating

effect both upon their mind and character. “Multifarious reading,”

said Robertson of Brighton, “weakens the mind like smoking, and is

an excuse for its lying dormant. It is the idlest of all

idlenesses, and leaves more of impotency than any other.”

The evil is a growing one, and operates in various ways. Its least

mischief is shallowness; its greatest, the aversion to steady

labour which it induces, and the low and feeble tone of mind which

it encourages. If we would be really wise, we must diligently

apply ourselves, and confront the same continuous application which

our forefathers did; for labour is still, and ever will be, the

inevitable price set upon everything which is valuable. We must be

satisfied to work with a purpose, and wait the results with

patience. All progress, of the best kind, is slow; but to him who

works faithfully and zealously the reward will, doubtless, be

vouchsafed in good time. The spirit of industry, embodied in a

man’s daily life, will gradually lead him to exercise his powers on

objects outside himself, of greater dignity and more extended

usefulness. And still we must labour on; for the work of self-culture is never finished. “To be employed,” said the poet Gray,

“is to be happy.” “It is better to wear out than rust out,” said

Bishop Cumberland. “Have we not all eternity to rest in?”

exclaimed Arnauld. “Repos ailleurs” was the motto of Marnix de St.

Aldegonde, the energetic and ever-working friend of William the

Silent.

It is the use we make of the powers entrusted to us, which

constitutes our only just claim to respect. He who employs his one

talent aright is as much to be honoured as he to whom ten talents

have been given. There is really no more personal merit attaching

to the possession of superior intellectual powers than there is in

the succession to a large estate. How are those powers used—how

is that estate employed? The mind may accumulate large stores of

knowledge without any useful purpose; but the knowledge must be

allied to goodness and wisdom, and embodied in upright character,

else it is naught. Pestalozzi even held intellectual training by

itself to be pernicious; insisting that the roots of all knowledge

must strike and feed in the soil of the rightly-governed will. The

acquisition of knowledge may, it is true, protect a man against the

meaner felonies of life; but not in any degree against its selfish

vices, unless fortified by sound principles and habits. Hence do

we find in daily life so many instances of men who are well-informed in intellect, but utterly deformed in character; filled

with the learning of the schools, yet possessing little practical

wisdom, and offering examples for warning rather than imitation.

An often quoted expression at this day is that “Knowledge is

power;” but so also are fanaticism, despotism, and ambition.

Knowledge of itself, unless wisely directed, might merely make bad

men more dangerous, and the society in which it was regarded as the

highest good, little better than a pandemonium.

It is possible that at this day we may even exaggerate the

importance of literary culture. We are apt to imagine that because

we possess many libraries, institutes, and museums, we are making

great progress. But such facilities may as often be a hindrance as

a help to individual self-culture of the highest kind. The

possession of a library, or the free use of it, no more constitutes

learning, than the possession of wealth constitutes generosity.

Though we undoubtedly possess great facilities it is nevertheless

true, as of old, that wisdom and understanding can only become the

possession of individual men by travelling the old road of

observation, attention, perseverance, and industry. The possession

of the mere materials of knowledge is something very different from

wisdom and understanding, which are reached through a higher kind

of discipline than that of reading,—which is often but a mere

passive reception of other men’s thoughts; there being little or no

active effort of mind in the transaction. Then how much of our

reading is but the indulgence of a sort of intellectual dram-drinking, imparting a grateful excitement for the moment, without

the slightest effect in improving and enriching the mind or

building up the character. Thus many indulge themselves in the

conceit that they are cultivating their minds, when they are only

employed in the humbler occupation of killing time, of which

perhaps the best that can be said is that it keeps them from doing

worse things.

It is also to be borne in mind that the experience gathered from

books, though often valuable, is but of the nature of LEARNING;

whereas the experience gained from actual life is of the nature of

WISDOM; and a small store of the latter is worth vastly more than

any stock of the former. Lord Bolingbroke truly said that

“Whatever study tends neither directly nor indirectly to make us

better men and citizens, is at best but a specious and ingenious

sort of idleness, and the knowledge we acquire by it, only a

creditable kind of ignorance—nothing more.”

Useful and instructive though good reading may be, it is yet only

one mode of cultivating the mind; and is much less influential than

practical experience and good example in the formation of

character. There were wise, valiant, and true-hearted men bred in

England, long before the existence of a reading public. Magna

Charta was secured by men who signed the deed with their marks.

Though altogether unskilled in the art of deciphering the literary

signs by which principles were denominated upon paper, they yet

understood and appreciated, and boldly contended for, the things

themselves. Thus the foundations of English liberty were laid by

men, who, though illiterate, were nevertheless of the very highest

stamp of character. And it must be admitted that the chief object

of culture is, not merely to fill the mind with other men’s