One of the reasons of the latter phenomenon consists in the torpedo effect of what we may call, under the circumstances^ the difference of ranks. The schoolmaster is a despot to his scholar; for every man is a despot, who delivers his judgment from the single impulse of his own will. The boy answers his questioner, as Dolon answers Ulysses in the Iliad, at the point of the sword. It is to a cer- tain degree the same thing, when the boy is ques- tioned merely by his senior. He fears he knows not what, — 3. reprimand, a look of lofty contempt, a gesture of summary disdain. He does not think it worth his while under these circumstances, to ^^gird tip the loins of his mind." He cannot return a free and intrepid answer but to the person whom he re- gards as his equal. There is nothing that has so disqualifying an effect upon him who is to answer, as the consideration that he who questions is uni- versally acknowledged to be a being of a higher spiherey or, as between the boy and the man, that he is the superior in conventional and corporal strength.
Nor is it simple terror that restrains the boy -firom answering his senior with the same freedom and spirit^ as he would answer his equal. He U.} OF THE DISTRIBUTION OF TALENTSv 19 does not think it worth his while to enter the lists^ He despairs of doing the thing in the way that shall gain approbation^ and therefore will not try. He is like a boxer, who, though skilful, will not fight with one hand tied behind him. He would return you the answer, if it occurred without his giviug himsetf trouble; but he will not rouse his soul, and task his strength to give it. He is careless; and prefersf trusting to whatever construction you may put upon him, and whatever treatment you may think proper to bestow upon him. It is the most difficult thing in the world, for the schoohnaster to inspire into his pupil th^ desire to do his best.
Among full-grown men the case is different^ The schoolboy, whether under his domestic roof, or in the gymnasium, is in a situation similar to that of the Christian slaves in Algiers, as described by Cervantes in his History of the Captive. " They were shut up togethel- in a species of bagnioy from whence they were brought out from time to time to perform certain tasks in common: they might also engage in prsuiks, and get into scrapes, as they pleased; but the master wonld hang up one^ impale another, and cut off the ears of st third, for little occasion, or even wholly without it." Such indeed is the condition of the child almost from the how of birth. The severities practised upon him are not so great as those resorted to by the proprietor of slUf^es in Algiers; but they are equally arbitrary itnd without appeal. He is free to a certain extent^ c 2 20 OF THE DISTRIBUTION OF TALENTS, [ESSAY even as the captives described by Cervantes; but his freedom is upon sufferance, and is brought to an end at any time at the pleasure of his seniors. The child therefore feels his way, and ascertains by repeated experiments how far he may proceed with impunity. He is like the slaves of the Romans on the days of the Saturnalia. He may do what he pleases, and command tasks to his masters; but with this difference — ^the Roman slave knew when the days of his licence would be over, and comport- ed himself accordingly; but the child cannot fore- see at any moment when the bell will be struck, and the scene reversed. It is commonly enough inci- dent to this situation, that the being who is at the mercy of another, will practise, what Tacitus calls, a ^^ vernacular urbanity," make his bold jests, and give utterance to his saucy innuendoes, with as much freedom as the best; but he will do it with a wary eye, not knowing how soon he may feel his chain plucked, and himself compulsorily reduced Into the established order. His more usual refuge therefore is, to do nothing, and to wrap himself up in that neutrality towards his seniors, that may best protect him from their reprimand and their despotism.
The condition of the full-grown man is different from that of the child; and he conducts himself accordingly. He is always to a certain degree under the control of the political society of which he is a member. He is also exposed to the chance of per- sonal insult and injury from tho9e who are stronger: 11.] OF THE DISTRIBUTION OF TALENTS. 21 than he^ or who may render their strength more considerable by combination and numbers. The political institutions which control him in certain respects^ protect him also to a given degree from the robber and assassin^ or from the man who^ were it not for penalties and statutes, would perpetrate against him all the mischiefs which malignity might suggest. Civil policy however subjects him to a variety of evils, which wealth or corruption are ac- customed to inflict under the forms of justice; at the same time that it can never wholly defend him from those violences to which he would be every moment exposed in what is called the state of nature.
The full-grown man in the mean time is well pleased when he escapes from the ergastulum where he had previously dwelt, and in which he had expe* rienced corporal infliction and corporal restraint. At first, in the newness of his freedom, he breaks out into idle sallies and escapes, and is like the full- fed steed that manifests his wantonness in «a thou- sand antics and ruades. But this is a temporary extravagance. He presently becomes as wise and calculating, as the schoolboy was before him.
The human being then, that has attained a certain stature, watches and poises his situation, and con- siders what he may do with impunity. He ventures at first with no small difiidence, and pretends to be twice as assured as he really is. He accumulates experiment after experiment, till they amount to a 22 OF THE DISTRIBUTION OF TALENTS. [ES$At considerable volume. It is not till he has passed successive lustres, that he attains that firm step, and temperate and settled accent, which characterise the man complete. He then no longer doubts, but is ranged on the full level of the ripened members of the community.
There is therefore little room for wonder, if we find the same individual, whom we once knew a sheepish and irresolute schoolboy, that hung his head, that replied with inarticulated monotony, and stammered out his meaning, metamorphosed into a thoroughly manly character, who may itake his place on the bench with senators, and deliver a grave and matured opinion as well as the best. It appears then that the trial and review of full-grown men is not altogether so disadvantageous to the reckoning of our common nature, as that of boys at school.
It is not however, that ^e fuU-grown man is not liable to be checked, reprimanded and rebuked, even as the schoolboy is. He has his wife to read him lectures, and rap his knuckles; he has his master, his landlord, or the mayor of his village, to tell him of his duty in an imperious style, and in measured sentences; if he is a member of a legislature, even there he receives his lessons, and is told, either in phrases of well-conceived irony, or by the exhibition of facts and reasonings which take him by surprise, that he is not altogether the person he deemed him- self to be. But he does not mind it. Like lago in 11.] OF THE DISTRIBUTION OF TALENTSL 33^ the play^ he ^^ knows his price, and^ by the faith of man^ that he is worth no worse a place" than that which he occupies. He finds out the value of the check he receives^ and lets it ^^pass by him like the idle wind'' — a, mastery^ which the schoolboy^ however he may affect it, never thoroughly at- tains to.
But it unfortunately happens, that, before he has arrived at that degree of independence, the fate of the individual is too often decided for even How are the majority of men trampled in the mire, made " hewers of wood, and drawers of water," long, very, long, before there was an opportunity of ascertain- ing what it was of which they were capable! Thus almost every one is put in the place which by na- ture he was least fit for: and, while perhaps a suf- ficient quantity of talent is extant in each successive generation, yet, for want of each man's being duly estimated, and assigned his appropriate duty, the very reverse may appear to be the case. By the time that they have attained to that sober self-con- fidence that might enable them to assert themselves, they are already chained to a fate, or thrust down to a condition, from which no internal energies they possess can ever empower them to escape.
24 OF THE DISTRIBUTION Of TALENTS. [ESSAY SECTION 11.
EQUALITY OF MAN WITH MAN. — TALENTS EXTENSIVELY DISTRIBUTED. — ^WAY IN WHICH THIS DISTRIBUTION IS COUNTERACTED. — ^THE APTITUDE OF CHILDREN FOR ..DIFFERENT PURSUITS SHOULD BE EARLY SOUGHT OUT. — HINTS FOR A BETTER SYSTEM OF EDUCATION. — AMBI- TION AN UNIVERSAL PRINCIPLE.
The reflections thus put down^ may assist us in answering the question as to the way in which ta- lents are distributed among men by the hand of nature.
All things upon the earth and under the earthy and especially all organised bodies of the animal or vegetable kingdom^ fall into classes. It is by this means^ that the child no sooner learns the terms^ man^ horse, tree, flower, than, if an object of any of these kinds which he has never seen before, is ex- hibited to him, he pronounces without hesitation. This is a man, a horse, a tree, a flower.
All organised bodies of the animal or vegetable kingdom are cast in a mould of given dimension and feature belonging to a certain number of indi- viduals, though distinguished by inexhaustible va- rieties. It is by means of those features that the class of each individual is determined.
To confine ourselves to man.
All men, the monster and the lusus naturae ex- cepted, have a certain form, a certain complement of limbs, a certain internal structure, and organs of JI.] OF THE DISTRIBUTION OF TALENTS. 25 sense — ^may we not add further^, certain powers of intellect?
Hence it seems to follow^ that man is more like end more equal to man^ deformities of body and abortions of intellect excepted^ than the disdain- ful and fastidious censors of our common nature are willing to admit. ^^ I am inclined to believe, that, putting idiots and extraordinary cases out of the question, every hu- ^ man creature is endowed with talents, which, if rightly directed, would shew him to be apt, adroit,: inteUigent and acute, in the walk for which his organisation especially fitted him. V But the practices and modes of civilised life prompt us to take the inexhaustible varieties of man, as he is given into our guardianship by the bountiful hand of nature, and train him in one uniform exercise, as the raw recruit is treated when he is brought under the direction of his drill-seijeant.
The son of the nobleman, of the country-gentle- ■■ man, and of those parents who from vanity or what- ever other motive are desirous that their offspring should be devoted to some Uberal profession, is in nearly all instances sent to the grammar-school. It is in this scene principally, that the judgment is formed that not above one boy in a hundred pos- sesses an acute understanding, or will be able to strike into a path of intellect that shall be truly hia own.
I do not object to this destination, if temperately 26 OF TH£ DISTRIBUTION OF TALENTS. [essAT pursued. It is fit that as many children as possible should have their chance of figuring in future life in what are called the higher departments of intel- lect. A certain familiar acquaintance with lan<- guage and the shades of language as a lesson^ will be beneficial to all. The youth who has expended only six months in acquiring the rudiments of the Latin tongue, will probably be more or less the bet- ter for it in all his future life.
But seven years are usually spent at the grammar- school by those who are sent to it. I do not in many cases object to this^ The learned languages are assuredly of slow acquisition. In the education of those who are destined to what are called the higher departments of intellect, a long period may advantageously be spent in the study of words, while the progress they make in theory and dogma- tical knowledge is too generally a store of learning laid up, to be unlearned again when they reach the period of real investigation and independent judg- ment. There is small danger of this in the acquis sition of words.
But this method, indiscriminately pursued as it is How, is productive of the worst consequences. Very soon a judgment may be formed by the impartial observer, whether the pupil is at home in the study of the learned languages, and is likely to make an adequate progress. But parents are not impartial. There are also two reasons why the schoolmaster is j|ot the proper person to pronounce: first, because...j1 II.] OF THE DISTRIBUTION OF TALBNTS. 2t if he pronounces in the negative^he will have reason to fear that the parent will be offended; and se«- condly^ because he does not like to lose his scho- lar. But the very moment that it can be ascer* tained/that the pupil is not at home in the study of the learned languages^ and is unlikely to make an adequate progress^ at that moment he should be taken from it.
The most palpable deficiency that is to be found in relation to the education of children^ is a sound judgment to be formed as to the vocation or employ* ment in which each is most fitted to excel. As^ ac- cording to the institutions of Lycurgus^ as soon as a boy was bom^ he was visited by the elders of the ward^ who were to decide whether he was to be reared, and would be made an efficient member of the commonwealth, so it were to be desired that, as early as a clear discrimination on the subject might he practicable, a competent decision should be given as to the future occupation and destiny of a child.
But this is a question attended with no common degree of difficulty. To the resolving such a quea^ tion with sufficient evidence, a very considerable series of observations would become necessary. The child should be introduced into a variety of scenes, and a magazine, so to speak, of those things about which human industry and skill may be em- ployed, should be successively set before him. The censor who is to decide on the result of the whole.
iftS or THE DISTRIBUTION OF TALENTS. [ESSAY should be a person of great sagacity, and capable of pronouncing upon a given amount of the most imperfect and incidental indications. He should be clear-sighted, and vigilant to observe the invo- luntary turns of an eye, expressions of a lip, and demonstrations of a limb.
The declarations of the child himself are often of very small use in the case. He may be directed by an impulse, which occurs in the morning, and vanishes in the evening. His preferences change as rapidly as the shapes we sometimes observe in the evening clouds, and are governed by whim or fantasy, and not by any of those indications which are parcel of his individual constitution. He desires in many instances to be devoted to a particular oc- cupation, because his playfellow has been assigned to it before him.
The parent is not qualified to judge in this fun- damental question, because he is under the domi- nion of partiality, and wishes that his child may become a lord chancellor, an archbishop, or any thing else, the possessor of which condition shall be enabled to make a splendid figure in the world. He is not qualified, because he is an interested party, and, either from an exaggerated estimate of his child's merits, or from a selfish shrinking from the cost it might require to mature them, is anxious to arrive at a conclusion not founded upon the in- trinsic claims of the case to be considered. Even supposing it to be sufficiently ascertained ,11.] OF THE DISTRIBUTION OF TALEKTIS. 129 in what calling it is that the child will be most beneficially engaged^ a thousand extrinsical circum« stances will often prevent that from being the call* ing chosen. Nature distributes her gifts without any reference to the distinctions of artificial society. The genius that demanded the most careful and assiduous cultivation^ that it might hereafter form the boast and ornament of the worlds will be reared amidst the chill blasts of poverty; while he wha was best adapted to make an exemplary carpenter or artisan^ by being the son of a nobleman i% thrown a thousand fathoms wide of his true desti* nation.
Human creatures are bom into the world with various dispositions. According to the memorable saying of Themistocles^ One man can play upon a psaltery or harp, and another can by political skill and ingenuity convert a town of small account^ weak and insignificant, into a city noble^ magnifi* cent and great.
It is comparatively a Tery little way that we can penetrate into the mysteries of nature.
Music seems to be one of the faculties most clearly defined in early youth. The child who has received that destination ft'om the hands of nature^ will even in infancy manifest a singular delight in musical sounds, and will in no long time imitate snatches of a tune. The present professor of music ill the university of Oxford contrived for himself^ I believe at three years old, a way for playing on an 80 OF Tȣ DISTRIBUTION OF TALENTS. [ESSAY instrument^ the piano forte^ unprompted by any of the persons about him. This is called having an ear.
Instances nearly as precocious are related of per- sons^ who afterwards distinguished themselves in the art of painting.
These two kinds of original destination appear to be placed beyond the reach of controversy.
Horace says, The poet is bom a poet, and cannot be made so by the ingenuity of art: and this seems to be true. He sees the objects about him with an eye peculiarly his own; the sounds that reach his ear, produce an effect upon him, and 4eave a me- mory behind, different from that which is experi- enced by his fellows^ His perceptions have a sin- gular vividness.
The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling.
Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven; And his imagination bodies forth The forms of things unknown.
It.ts not probable that any trainings of art can give these endowments to him who has not received them from the gift of nature.
The subtle network of the brain, or whatever else it is, that makes a man more fit for, and more qualified to succeed in, one occupation than an- other,, can scarcdy be followed up and detected either in the living subject or the dead one. But, as in the infinite variety of human beings no two faces are so aUke that they cannot be distinguished.
II.] or THE DISTRIBUTION OF TALENTS. 31 nor even two leaves plucked from the same tree*, so it may reasonably be presumed, that there are varieties in the senses, the organs, and the internal structure of the human species, however delicate, and to the touch of the bystander evanescent, which may give to each individual a predisposition to rise to a supreme degree of excellence in some certain art or attainment, over a million of competitors.
It has been said that all these distinctions and anticipations are idle, because man is bom without innate ideas. Whatever is the incomprehensible and inexplicable power, which we call nature, to which he iiiin4ebted for his formation, it is ground- less to suppose, that that power is cognisant of, and guides itself in its operations by, the infinite divisibleness of human pursuits in civilised society. A child is not designed by his original formation to be a manufacturer of shoes, for he may be bom among a people by whom shoes are not worn, and still less is he destined by his structure to be a metaphysician, an astronomer, or a lawyer, a rope- dancer, a fortune-teller, or a juggler.
It is true that we cannot suppose nature to be guided in her operations by the infinite divisible- ness of human pursuits in civilised society. But it is not the less true that one man is by his structure best fitted to excel in some one in particular of these multifarious pursuits, however fortuitously his individual structure and that pursuit may ^ be * Papers between Clarke and Leibnitz^ p. 95.
1 32 OF THE DISTRIBUTION OF TALENTS. [ESSAY brought into contact. Thus a certain calmness and 3teadiness of purpose, much flexibility^ and a very accurate proportion of the various limbs of the body^ are of great advantage in rope-dancing; while lightness of the fingers, and a readiness to direct our thoughts to the rapid execution of a pur- pose, joined with a steadiness of countenance adapt* ed to what is figuratively called throwing dust in the eyes of the bystander, are of the utmost im- portance to the juggler: and so of the rest.
It is as much the temper of the individual, as any particular subtlety of organ or capacity, that pre- pares him to excel in one pursuit rather than a thousand others. And he must have been a very inattentive observer of the indications of temper in an infant in the first months of his existence, who does not confess that there are various peculiarities in that respect which the child brings into the world with him.
There is excellent sense in the fable of Achilles in the island of Scyros. He was placed there by his mother in female attire among the daughters of Lycomedes, that he might not be seduced to engage in the Trojan war. Ulysses was commis- sioned to discover him, and, while he exhibited jewels and various woman's ornaments to the princesses, contrived to mix with his stores a suit of armour, the sight of which immediately awakened the spirit of the hero.
Every one has probably within him a string more II.] OF THE DISTRIBUTION OF TALENTS. 33 susceptible than the rest^ that demands only a kin- dred impression to be made^ to call forth its latent character. Like the war-horse described in the Book of Job: " He paweth in the valley, and re- joiceth in his strength; he goeth qn to meet the armed men; he smelleth the battle afar oflF, the thunder of the captains^ and the shouting."
Nothing can be more unlike than the same man to himself, when he is touched^ and not touched^ upon the master-string That makes most harmony or discord to him.
It is like the case of Manlius Torquatus in Livy, who by his father was banished among his hinds for his clownish demeanour and untractableness to every species of instruction that was offered him, but who, understanding that his parent was crimi- nally arraigned for barbarous treatment of him, first resolutely resorted to the accuser, compelling him upon pain of death to withdraw his accusation, and subsequently, haying surmounted this first step to- wards an energetic carriage and demeanour^ proved one of the most illustrious characters that the Ro- man republic had to boast.
Those children whose parents have no intention of training them to the highest departments of in- tellect, and have therefore no thought of bestowing on them a classical education, nevertheless for the most part send them to a school where they are to be taught arithmetic, and the principles of English D 34 OF THE DISTRIBUTION OF TALENTS. [esSAY grammar. I should say in this case^ as I said be- fore on the subject of classical education^ that a certain initiation in these departments of know- ledge^ even if they are pursued a very little way, will probably be beneficial to all.
But it wiU often be found, in these schools for more ordinary education, as in the school for clas- sical instruction, that the majority of the pupils will be seen to be unpromising, and, what is usually called, dull. The mistake is, that the persons by whom this is perceived, are disposed to set aside these pupils as blockheads, and unsusceptible of any species of ingenuity.
It is unreasonable that we should draw such a conclusion.
In the first place, as has been already observed, it is the most difficult thing in the world for the schoolmaster to inspire into his pupil the desire to do his best. An overwhelming majority of lads at school are in their secret hearts rebels to the dis- cipline under which they are placed. The instruc- tor draws one way, and the pupil another. The object of the latter is to find out how he may escape censure and punishment with the smallest expence of scholastic application. He looks at the task that is set him, without the most distant de- sire of Improvement, but with alienated and averted eye. And, where this is the case, the wonder is not that he does not make a brilliant figure. It is ra- ther an evidence of the slavish and subservient spi- II.] OF TH£ DISTRIBUTION OF TALENTS. 35 rit incident to the majority of haman beings^ that he learns any thing. Certainly the schoolmaster, who judges of the powers of his papil's mind by the progress he makes in what he would most gladly be excused from learning, must be expected perpetually to fall into the most egregious mistakes. The true test of the capacity of the individual, is where the desire to succeed, and accomplish some* thing effective, is already awakened in the youthful mind. Whoever has found out what it is in which he is qualified to excel, from that moment becomes a new creature. The general torpor and sleep of the soul, which: is incident to the vast multitude of the human species, is departed fromhim. We begin, from the hour in which our limbs are enabled to exert themselves freely, with a puerile love of sport. Amusement is the order of the day. But no one was €Ver -so fond of play, that he had not also his serious moments. Every human creature perhaps is sensible to the stimulus of ambition. He is delighted with the thought that he also shall be somebody, and not a mere undistinguished pawn, destined to fill up a square in the chess-board of human society. - He wishes to be thought some- thing of, and to be gazed upon. Nor is it merely the wish to be admired that excites him: he acts, that he may be satisfied with himself. Self-respect is a sentiment dear to every heart. The emotion can with difficulty be done justice to, that a man feels, who is conscious that he is breathing his true d2 36 OF THE DISTRIBUTION OF TALENTS. [ESSAY element, that every stroke that he strikes will have the effect he designs, that he has an object before him, and every moment approaches nearer to that object. Before, he was wrapped in an opake cloud, saw nothing distinctly, and struck this way and that at hazard like a blind man. But now the sun of understanding has risen upon him; and every step that he takes, he advances with an assured and un- doubting confidence.
It is an admirable remark, that the book which we read at the very time that we feel a desire to read it, affords us ten times the improvement, that we should have derived from it when it was taken up by us as a task. It is just so with the man who chooses his occupation, and feels assured that that about which he is occupied is his true and native field. Compare this person with the boy that stu- dies the classics, or arithmetic, or any thing else, with a secret disinclination, and, as Shakespear ex- presses it, " creeps like snail, unwillingly, to school." They do not seem as if they belonged to the same species.
The result of these observations certainly strongly tends to support the proposition laid down early in the present Essay, that, putting idiots and extra- ordinary cases out of the question, every human creature is endowed with talents, which, if rightly directed, wQuld shew him to be apt, adroit, intelligent and acute, in the walk for which his organisation especially fitted him.
II.] OF THE DISTRIBUTION OF TALENTS. 3?
SECTION III.
£NCOURAGING VIEW OF OUR COMMON NATURE. — POWER OF SOUND EXPOSITION AFFORDED TO ALL. — DOCTRINE OF THIS ESSAY AND THE HYPOTHESIS OF HELVETIUS COMPARED. — THE WILLING AND UNWILLING PUPIL CONTRASTED. — MISCHIEVOUS TENDENCY OF THE USUAL MODES OF EDUCATION.
What a beautiful and encouraging view is thus af- forded US of our common nature! It is not true^ as certain disdainful and fastidious censurers of their fellow-men would persuade us to believe^ that a thousand seeds are sown in the wide field of hu- manity, for no other purpose than that half-a-do- zen may grow up into something magnificent and splendid, and that the rest, though not absolutely extinguished in the outset, are merely sufiered to live that they may furnish manure and nourishment to their betters. On the contrary, each man, ac- cording to this hypothesis, has a sphere in which he may shine, and may contemplate the exercise of his own powers with a well-grounded satisfaction. He produces something as perfect in its kind, as that which is effected under another form by the more brilliant and illustrious of his species. He stands forward with a serene confidence in the ranks of his fellow--creatures, and says, ^^ I also have my place in society, that I fill in a manner with which I have a right to be satisfied.^ He vests a certain portion of ingenuity in the work he turns out. He incorporates his mind with the labour of his hands; 38 OF, THE JPISTKIBUTION OF TALENTS. [esSAY and a competent observer will find character and individuality in it.
/' He has therefore nothing of the sheepishness of the ordinary schoolboy^ the tasks imposed upon who^l by his instructor are foreign to the true bent of his mind^ and who stands cowed before his se- niorSy shrinking under the judgment they may pass upon him, and the oppression they may exercise towards him. He is probably competent to talk in a nlanner that may afford instruction to men in other respects wise and accomplished, and is no less clear and well-digested in his discourse respecting the subjects to which his study and labour have been applied, than they are on the questions that have exercised the powers of analysis with which they are endowed. Like Elihu in the Book of Job^ he says, ^^ I am young, and you are old; I said therefore. Days, shall speak,, and multitude of years shall teach wisdom. Butthere is a spirit in man; and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth him un- deratanding. Great, men ar^ not always wise; nei- ther do the aged understand judgment, Hearken therefore to me; and I also wiU sbQw my opinion." What however in l^e last instance |s affirmed, is not always realised in the experiment. The hum- blest mechanic, who works con amore, and feels that he discharges his office creditably, has a sober satisfaction in the retrospect, and is able to express himself perspicuously and well on the subject that has occupied bis industry. He has a just confidence II.] OF THE DISTRIBUTION OF TALENTS. 39 in himself. If the occasion arises^ on which he should speak on the subject of what he does^ and the methods he adopts for effecting it, he will un- doubtedly acquit himself to the satisfaction of those who hear him. He knows that the explanations he can afford will be sound and masculine, and will stand the test of a rigid examination.
But, in proportion as he feels the ground on which he stands, and his own power to make it good, he will not fail to retire from an audience that is not willing to be informed by him. He will often appear in the presence of those, whom the established arrangements of society call his superiors, who are more copiously endowed with the treasures of language, and who, confident perhaps in the ad- vantage of opulence, and what is called, however they may have received it, a liberal education, regard with disdain his artless and unomamented explanations.. He did not, it may be, expect this. And, having experienced several times such unme* rited treatment, he is not willing again to encounter it. He knew the worth of what he had to offer. And, finding others indisposed to listen to his sug- gestions, he contentedly confines them within the circle of his own thoughts.