LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 513 



THOUGHT CULTURE. 



BY MRS. T. C. ANTHONY. 



Read at the Albion Institute, February 20, 1889. 



* * * * How are we, whose lives are crowded so full of duties, to get 

 time for thought and mental improvement ? 



In the first place, it seems to me that the question involves an erroneous 

 idea, viz.: The notion that thought culture, the true student-life, is of neces- 

 sitysomething separate and apart from the ordinary duties and industries of 

 life, and by nature incompatible with them. 



I think a moment's reflection will remind us that the great students and 

 thinkers of the world have not arisen among people of elegant leisure. 

 The sparkling wit and wisdom of Dr. Holmes has found time to record itself 

 undimmed by the prosaic routine of a professor of anatomy and physiology 

 in Harvard College, while more than one authoress of repute has performed 

 her literary work literally amid the hurries and worries of domestic labor. 

 Marion Harland says, in the current issue of the North American Review: 

 " Among the best-ordered households in this and other lands are those of 

 literary women. I believe the exceptions to the rule to be extremely rare, 

 notwithstanding popular prejudice on this head. The drill of studious 

 application to a given subject, of logical thought, and methodical division 

 of time, tells in this as in every department of labor." 



The problem is not how to do away with the necessity of labor, but how 

 to so lighten and vivify labor by the power of thought, that the two shall 

 work hand in hand together, and physical and mental faculties be evenly 

 balanced. So work becomes not a curse but a blessing, although it is as true 

 as ever, that " all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy." 



It is not enough to be industrious; so are the ants. For rational beings 

 it needs that the object of industry be a good and useful one. The desire to 

 acquire riches, as a means and not as an end, is undeniably a good one, and 

 the only question arising is whether it can be done without the sacrifice of 

 something else of greater value. Now, there are two ways of becoming rich ; 

 one, the usual method, by conforming to the conventional laws of society 

 and amassing sufficient money to enable us to purchase all the comforts of 

 which men think they have need; the other, a simple and more expeditious 

 process, by limiting our desires to the things that are really necessary. Said 

 Socrates: "How many things there are that I do not desire." In the 

 language of one who was in an eminent degree the apostle of plain living 

 and high thinking, Henry David Thoreau, " A man is rich in proportion to 

 the number of things which he can afford to let alone." Thoreau demon- 

 strated by actual experiment that by working about six weeks in the year he 

 could meet all the expenses of living in that simple way, which was his life- 

 long protest against the luxury and extravagance of the age. The kev-note 

 of his life, as of his book, " Walden," is expressed in Goldsmith's words: 

 " Man wants but little here below," with the difference that Thoreau did 

 not merely talk of Arcadian simplicity in the manner that was so common 

 with literary men a century ago, but carried his theories into practical effect. 



In 1845 he built a hut for himself on the shores of Lake Walden, where he 

 lived two years in seclusion, or as he himself expressed it, in " that glorious 



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