n, and too little of everything else. Business life follows so
closely upon home life and school life, that the lessons of the latter
fail to exert an immediate and controlling influence, and it is often
only in maturer years that the fruits of early training are seen. The
connection is such that the boy or youth becomes a devotee of business
before he is developed into complete manhood. This is movement, but not
true progress; activity, but not culture; appropriation and
accumulation, but not natural development. This peculiarity is less
prominent in England, and it is hardly known in the central states of
Europe. It is to some extent a national, and especially is it a New
England characteristic. It is a manifestation of the forward moving
spirit of our people, and it is also at once a promise and the security
for the ultimate supremacy of the American race and nation in the
affairs of the world. In Athens young men attained their majority when
they were sixteen; but they usually prosecuted their studies afterwards,
and Aristotle thought them unfit for marriage until they were
thirty-seven years of age. This rule was observed by Aristotle in his
own case; but we are unable to say whether the rule was made before or
after his marriage, which is a fact of much importance when we consider
the wisdom of the precept, and the real principles and philosophy of its
famous author. Moreover, regardless of one-half of creation, he has
neither stated the age at which females are marriageable, nor given us
that of his own wife. This neglect justly detracts from his authority;
and it will not be strange if young men and women view with distrust an
opinion that is so manifestly partial and one-sided. If schools make
merely learned people, in a narrow and technical sense, they are not
doing their whole work. Such learning makes an efficient population,
which is certainly desirable; but it ought also to be a well-educated
population in a broad, comprehensive, philosophic sense. By the force of
nature and the developing influences of society, including the church,
the school, and the home, we ought first to be educated men and women,
and then apply that education to the particular work we have in hand. By
learning, in this connection, I do not mean the learning of Agassiz as a
naturalist, the learning of Choate as a lawyer, or the learning of
Everett as an orator; but a more general and less minute culture, by
which men are prepared to fo