MANUAL INSTRUCTION. 335 



awaken interest sufficiently to enable children generally to continue 

 their education after leaving school. Yet, in addition to all other ad- 

 vantages, a wise education ought greatly to brighten life. Browning 

 speaks of the wild joy of living ; but that is not the sense in which 

 life is ordinarily spoken of by the poets. They generally allude to it 

 in a very different sense, as when Pope spoke of it as " life's poor 

 play," observing in another passage — 



"These build as fast as knowledge can destroy, 

 In folly's cup still laughs the bubble joy " ; 



while Lytton said — 



" With each year's decay, 

 Fades, year by year, the heart's young bloom away." 



A well-known hymn lays it down as an incontrovertible proposition — 



" Brief life is here our portion, 

 Brief sorrow, short-lived care." 



But this is to a great extent our own fault. Too often we fritter away 

 life, and La Bruyere truly observes that many men employ much of 

 their time in making the rest miserable. Few of us feel this as we 

 ought, some not at all. We see so clearly, feel so keenly, the misery 

 and wretchedness around us that we fail to realize the blessings lav- 

 ished upon us. Yet the path of life is paved with enjoyments. There 

 is room for all at the great table of Nature. She provides without 

 stint the main requisites of human happiness. To watch the corn 

 grow, or the blossoms set ; to draw hard breath over the plowshare ; 

 or to read, to think, to love, to hope, to pray — " these," said Ruskin, 

 " were the things that made men happy." 



Some years ago I paid a visit to the principal lake villages of Switz- 

 erland in company with a distinguished archaeologist, M. Morlot. To 

 my surprise I found that his w T hole income was one hundred pounds 

 sterling a year, part of which, moreover, he spent in making a small 

 museum. I asked him whether he contemplated accepting any post 

 or office, but he said certainly not. He valued his leisure and oppor- 

 tunities as priceless possessions far more than silver or gold, and would 

 not waste any of his time in making money. Just think of our advan- 

 tage here in London ! We have access to the whole literature of the 

 world ; we may see in our National Gallery the most beautiful pro- 

 ductions of former generations, and in the Royal Academy and other 

 galleries the works of the greatest living artists. Perhaps there is no 

 one who has ever found time to see the British Museum thoroughly. 

 Yet consider what it contains ; or, rather, what does it not contain ? 

 The most gigantic of living and extinct animals, the marvelous mon- 

 sters of geological ages, the most beautiful birds, and shells, and min- 

 erals, the most interesting antiquities, curious and fantastic specimens 

 illustrating different races of men ; exquisite gems, coins, glass, and 

 china ; the Elgin marbles, the remains of the mausoleum of the Temple 



