THE VALUE OF ACCOMPLISHMENTS. 497 



this originality must appear as recreation after the necessary mechani- 

 cal work of the day is done. The obstacles tending to check inde- 

 pendent action are innumerable, and sometimes absolutely insurmount- 

 able. A person may be deficient mentally owing to qualities inherited 

 from a long line of stupid ancestors who manifested what Dickens 

 calls " faint gleams of intelligence." In fact, objective events or ob- 

 jects that sweep into personal relation with us from out of vast extents 

 of time and space are more modifiable by us than the almost unalter- 

 able conditions arising from hereditary qualities. The lack of power 

 in a given direction may be practically beyond remedy, because very 

 often there is not time in the life of one person for a form of force to 

 reach anything more than primary stages of development. In special 

 classes such limitation can recede greatly only in the course of gen- 

 erations in descendants who finally realize the ideal of Jean Paul 

 Richter the happy condition of liberty when sport is of service to 

 the race. 



Accomplishments are usually considered sources of amusement, al- 

 though they must be paid for with a varying proportion of exertion 

 not particularly pleasurable. In those forms of recreation in which 

 we are mere passive spectators often necessary as a relief from toil 

 there is an inevitable payment of either money, time, or labor. 

 But, where the labor and sport are one, there is obviously a double 

 reward. 



It may be noticed, as a further extension of this truth, that the 

 active or positive amusements are superior to the passive, for the rea- 

 son that the passive do not stimulate the mind to conscious activity. 

 There may be a high form of amusement as well as valuable mental 

 discipline in the production of ingenious designs such as articles for 

 decoration, various products of carpentry-work, mechanical devices, 

 chemical experiments, and so on. It is important to remember that 

 some who have thus followed a liking for scientific or other knowledge 

 have been stimulated to undertake tremendous feats of perseverance, 

 whereby their names have lived for centuries. 



The language learned and the skill acquired in painting or music 

 seem trivial, but they establish an original habit of thought which 

 incites others by force of example. Accomplishments indicate energy 

 of character, for their pleasurable effect is largely due to a sense of 

 power from having triumphed over obstacles. 



In a world in which we are environed by dangers and mischances, 

 every form of perseverance is honorable because it is either directly 

 or indirectly helpful. The advances in enlightenment have come, not 

 from those who are mechanical and passive, but from those of original 

 force, who had ingenuity and other allied qualities by which practical 

 effects are produced. 

 VOL. XVIII. 32 



