THE EDUCATION OF AFTER-LIFE. 



259 



grasp of so many details ; while, on the other 

 hand, no one but a self-educated man, feeding his 

 mind here and there, without contradiction, with- 

 out submission, without the usual traditions of 

 common instruction, could have fallen into so 

 many paradoxes, so many negligences, so many 

 ignorances. It is enough to state this fact, in 

 order to put you on your guard against the dan- 

 gers of your position, and also to make you feel 

 its hopes and opportunities. Over the wide field 

 of science and knowledge it is yours to wander. 

 The facts which you acquire will probably take a 

 deeper hold on your minds from having been 

 sought out by yourselves ; but not the less should 

 you remember that there are qualifying and con- 

 trolling influences derived from the more regular 

 courses of study which are of lasting benefit, 

 and the absence of which you must take into ac- 

 count in judging of the more desultory and the 

 more independent researches which you have to 

 make. A deaf person may acquire, and often 

 has acquired, a treasure of knowledge and a vigor 

 of will by the exclusion of all that wear and tear, 

 of all that friction of outer things, which fill the 

 atmosphere of those who have the possession of 

 all their senses. But, nevertheless, a deaf per- 

 son, in order not to be misled into extravagant 

 estimates of his own judgment, or of the value 

 of his own pursuits, should always be remind- 

 ed that he has not the same means of correct- 

 ing and guarding his conclusions and opinions 

 as he would have if he were open to the insensi- 

 ble influence of " the fibres of conversation," as 

 they have been well called, which float about in 

 the general atmosphere, that for him has no ex- 

 istence. Self-education is open both to the ad- 

 vantages and disadvantages of deafness ; knowl- 

 edge is at some entrances quite shut out, while 

 such knowledge as gets in occupies the mind 

 more completely, but always needs to be remind- 

 ed that there is a surrounding vacuum. With 

 this general encouragement, and this general 

 warning, let us proceed. 



3. There are in connection with this institu- 

 tion two chief departments of human knowledge 

 open to those who educate themselves — Science 

 and Literature. Of Science, which provides for 

 the larger part of your instruction, I can unfor- 

 tunately say but little, for the simple reason that, 

 from my own ignorance, I have nothing to con- 

 tribute on the subject. Still, I cannot be insen- 

 sible to the immense enjoyment which every 

 branch of it must furnish to those with whom it 

 enters, not merely into the pleasures, but into 

 the actual work, of their daily life. It is hard, 



for example, to overstate the advantage which it 

 must be to those who are immersed in the busi- 

 ness and the commerce of a great town like this, 

 that, amid the fluctuations of speculation, and 

 the interminable discussions of labor and capital, 

 they should have fixed in their minds the solid 

 principles of political economy. It was with a 

 thrill of delight, quite apart from agreement or 

 disagreement, that I read not long ago of one of 

 our chief public men in Parliament taking his 

 stand aloof from his party, and despite his own 

 interests, in defense of the dry and arid sci- 

 ence of political economy, which he thought was 

 unduly depreciated among large classes of our 

 countrymen. Dry and arid it may be, but I can- 

 not doubt that it is, as it were, the backbone of 

 much of our social system, and it gives a back- 

 bone to all into whose minds it has thoroughly 

 entered. 



Then in geology, astronomy, chemistry, and 

 the natural sciences generally, what a large field 

 is open before you for your pleasure and profit ! 

 When Wordsworth said in his fine ode that there 

 had passed away " a glory and a freshness " from 

 the earth, he little thought that there was another 

 freshness and glory coming back, in the deeper 

 insight which science would give into the wonders 

 and the grandeur of Nature. I have heard people 

 say who have traveled with Sir Charles Lyell, 

 that to see him hanging out of the window of a 

 railway-carriage, to watch the geological forma- 

 tions as he passed through a railway-cutting, was 

 as if he saw the sides hung with beautiful pict- 

 ures. 



4. Then, when we come to literature, what a 

 world of ideas is opened by a public library, or 

 even a private library — by such libraries, great 

 or small, as have, by individual or corporate mu- 

 nificence, been opened in every quarter of Bris- 

 tol ! What a feast there is in a single good book ! 



We sometimes hardly appreciate sufficiently 

 the influence which literature exercises over large 

 phases of the world. By literature, I mean those 

 great works of history, poetry, fiction, or philoso- 

 phy, that rise above professional or commonplace 

 uses, and take possession of the mind of a whole 

 nation, or a whole age. It was pointed out to 

 me the other day how vast an effect had been 

 wrought by the famous Persian poet Ferdusi, in 

 welding together into one people the discordant 

 races of the Mussulman conquerors and the in- 

 digenous Persians, by his great poem on Persian 

 history, which he, belonging to the Mussulman 

 conquerors, wove out of the legendary lore of the 

 conquered race. But, indeed, it is not necessary 



