could but see and his ears hear, would be revealed as the very heaven of
the infinite God,--must forever lack something of the freshness, of the
eager delight, with which a poetic mind contemplates the world and
follows whither the divine intimations point. This early intercourse
with Nature nourishes the soul, deepens the intellect, exalts the
imagination, and fills the memory with fair and noble forms and images
which abide with us, and as years pass on, gain in softness and purity
what they may lose in distinctness of outline and color. This is the
source of intellectual wealth, of tranquil moods, of patience in the
midst of opposition, of confidence in the fruitfulness of labor and the
transforming power of time. Here is given the material which must be
molded into form; the rude blocks which must be cut and dressed and
fitted together until they become a spiritual temple wherein the soul
may rest at one with God and Nature, and with its own thought and love.
To run, to jump, to ride, to swim, to skate, to sit in the shade of
trees by flowing water, to watch reapers at their work, to look on
orchards blossoming, to dream in the silence that lies amid the hills,
to feel the solemn loneliness of deep woods, to follow cattle as they
crop the sweet-scented clover,--to learn to know, as one knows a
mother's face, every change that comes over the heavens from the dewy
freshness of early dawn to the restful calm of evening, from the
overpowering mystery of the starlit sky to the tender human look with
which the moon smiles upon the earth,--all this is education of a higher
and altogether more real kind than it is possible to receive within the
walls of a school; and lacking this, nothing shall have power to develop
the faculties of the soul in symmetry and completeness. Hence a
philosopher has said there are ten thousand chances to one that genius,
talent, and virtue shall issue from a farmhouse rather than from a
palace. The daily intercourse with Nature in childhood and youth
intertwines with noble and enduring objects the passions which form the
mind and heart of man, whereas those who are shut out from such
communion are necessarily thrown into contact with what is mean and
vulgar; and since our early years, whatever our surroundings may have
been, seem to us sweet and fair because life itself is then a
clear-flowing fountain, they cannot help blending the memory of that
innocent and happy time with thoughts of base and