that it is, on the contrary, the
fatalest of all discerners and enforcers of distinctions; piercing,
even to the division of the joints and marrow, to find out wherein
your body and soul are less, or greater, than other bodies and souls,
and to sign deed of separation with unequivocal seal.

171. Education is, indeed, of all differences not divinely appointed,
an instant effacer and reconciler. Whatever is undivinely poor, it
will make rich; whatever is undivinely maimed, and halt, and blind, it
will make whole, and equal, and seeing. The blind and the lame are to
it as to David at the siege of the Tower of the Kings, "hated of
David's soul." But there are other divinely-appointed differences,
eternal as the ranks of the everlasting hills, and as the strength of
their ceaseless waters. And these, education does _not_ do away with;
but measures, manifests, and employs.

In the handful of shingle which you gather from the sea-beach, which
the indiscriminate sea, with equality of fraternal foam, has only
educated to be, every one, round, you will see little difference
between the noble and mean stones. But the jeweler's trenchant
education of them will tell you another story. Even the meanest will
be better for it, but the noblest so much better that you can class
the two together no more. The fair veins and colors are all clear now,
and so stern is nature's intent regarding this, that not only will the
polish show which is best, but the best will take most polish. You
shall not merely see they have more virtue than the others, but see
that more of virtue more clearly; and the less virtue there is, the
more dimly you shall see what there is of it.

172. And the law about education, which is sorrowfulest to vulgar
pride, is this--that all its gains are at compound interest; so that,
as our work proceeds, every hour throws us farther behind the greater
men with whom we began on equal terms. Two children go to school hand
in hand, and spell for half an hour over the same page. Through all
their lives, never shall they spell from the same page more. One is
presently a page ahead,--two pages, ten pages,--and evermore, though
each toils equally, the interval enlarges--at birth nothing, at death,
infinite.

173. And by this you may recognize true education from false. False
education is a delightful thing, and warms you, and makes you every
day think more of yourself. And true education is a deadly cold thing
with a Gorgon'