LITTLE THINGS BY Charles Robert Morrison

Dr. John Todd said: "Education begins with life. The touch first ministers
to it; afterwards the sight, and then the hearing. This is our guide in
seeking to assist the progress of nature. We must begin with the present
and tangible things; we must then give absent things a visible form by
picture; and the picture which meets the eye may lead to the description
which finds its way to the mind only by the ear. Before we are aware, the
foundations of character are laid, and no subsequent instruction can
remove or destroy them."
The urgent necessity of this leading forth, this development of brain
power in order to measure up to the full requirement of nobility of
character--is seen and felt every day and everywhere. No man should
content himself with but meager attainment, when it is possible for
him to climb the mountainside of intellectual excellence, and view with
soul appreciation and satisfaction a wide world of beauty and activity.
The wealth of the ages is today laid at our feet. The problems with which
men have struggled, and which have hindered them in their progress,
have been, or are being, solved for us. These accumulated treasures are
present-day possessions, and for any man to die in poverty in the midst
of plenty, to remain ignorant when truth and teachers are all around
him, is a sad comment upon his ambition, or his lack of it.
Some men feel keenly the deprivation of early advantages, deplore
sadly the circumstances of boyhood that prevented study and the
helping hand of instructors. These men are all the more anxious that
their children should have that of which they were unfortunately
deprived, and from their view-point seek to prevent a repetition of
their experience by their children. The best facilities and the best
instructors are none too good for them.
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