o, that if a man be
found, he is sure to be in all respects fitted for the work to be done,
as the key is to the lock: and that every accident which happened in the
forging him, only adapted him more truly to the wards. It is pitiful to
hear historians beguiling themselves and their readers, by tracing in
the early history of great men the minor circumstances which fitted them
for the work they did, without ever taking notice of the other
circumstances which as assuredly unfitted them for it; so concluding
that miraculous interposition prepared them in all points for
everything, and that they did all that could have been desired or hoped
for from them; whereas the certainty of the matter is that, throughout
their lives, they were thwarted and corrupted by some things as
certainly as they were helped and disciplined by others; and that, in
the kindliest and most reverent view which can justly be taken of them,
they were but poor mistaken creatures, struggling with a world more
profoundly mistaken than they;--assuredly sinned against or sinning in
thousands of ways, and bringing out at last a maimed result--not what
they might or ought to have done, but all that could be done against the
world's resistance, and in spite of their own sorrowful falsehood to
themselves.

134. And this being so, it is the practical duty of a wise nation, first
to withdraw, as far as may be, its youth from destructive
influences;--then to try its material as far as possible, and to lose
the use of none that is good. I do not mean by "withdrawing from
destructive influences" the keeping of youths out of trials; but the
keeping them out of the way of things purely and absolutely mischievous.
I do not mean that we should shade our green corn in all heat, and
shelter it in all frost, but only that we should dyke out the inundation
from it, and drive the fowls away from it. Let your youth labour and
suffer; but do not let it starve, nor steal, nor blaspheme.

135. It is not, of course, in my power here to enter into details of
schemes of education; and it will be long before the results of
experiments now in progress will give data for the solution of the most
difficult questions connected with the subject, of which the principal
one is the mode in which the chance of advancement in life is to be
extended to all, and yet made compatible with contentment in the pursuit
of lower avocations by those whose abilities do not qualify them for the
hi