of the fourth, moulding. It is of no use to season the agate;
it is vain to try to polish the slate; but both are fitted, by the
qualities they possess, for services in which they may be honored.

Now the cry for the education of the lower classes, which is heard every
day more widely and loudly, is a wise and a sacred cry, provided it be
extended into one for the education of _all_ classes, with definite
respect to the work each man has to do, and the substance of which he is
made. But it is a foolish and vain cry, if it be understood, as in the
plurality of cases it is meant to be, for the expression of mere craving
after knowledge, irrespective of the simple purposes of the life that
now is, and blessings of that which is to come.

One great fallacy into which men are apt to fall when they are reasoning
on this subject is: that light, as such, is always good; and darkness,
as such, always evil. Far from it. Light untempered would be
annihilation. It is good to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow
of death; but, to those that faint in the wilderness, so also is the
shadow of the great rock in a weary land. If the sunshine is good, so
also the cloud of the latter rain. Light is only beautiful, only
available for life, when it is tempered with shadow; pure light is
fearful, and unendurable by humanity. And it is not less ridiculous to
say that the light, as such, is good in itself, than to say that the
darkness is good in itself. Both are rendered safe, healthy, and useful
by the other; the night by the day, the day by the night; and we could
just as easily live without the dawn as without the sunset, so long as
we are human. Of the celestial city we are told there shall be "no night
there," and then we shall know even as also we are known: but the night
and the mystery have both their service here; and our business is not to
strive to turn the night into day, but to be sure that we are as they
that watch for the morning.

Therefore, in the education either of lower or upper classes, it matters
not the least how much or how little they know, provided they know just
what will fit them to do their work, and to be happy in it. What the sum
or the nature of their knowledge ought to be at a given time or in a
given case, is a totally different question: the main thing to be
understood is, that a man is not educated, in any sense whatsoever,
because he can read Latin, or write English, or can behave well in a
drawin