876 PROPOSED APPLICATIONS OF SMITHSON'S BEQUEST. 



hereafter recognize his way across the desert. Put into his 

 hands the Koran, which shall guide him to virtue. Let him 

 be taught the history and modes of life of the people among 

 whom he is to procure his gold dust and ivory — the language 

 of the men among whom he has to traffic. He will never 

 sell his commodities to dead Egyptians, or to Chinese poets, 

 or to extinct Sabeans. It is better that his mind should be 

 enlarged by commerce with the men of his day than warped 

 by a half-taught pedagogue. It is better he should speak 

 the language of men with whom he is to come in contact 

 than spend many years in acquiring what can never be used, 

 save among the tombs of the mummies. 



"And as to any refinement of mind that springs from the 

 use of these antiquated studies — though amongst us Ara- 

 bians such is said to be the case — yet in a long life I have 

 never seen it. But on the other hand, I have uniformly 

 observed that those men who had spent all their days in 

 these pursuits, and therefore had become possessed of all 

 the advantages proposed, if any such exist, were uniformly 

 men of indifferent taste and not calculated to bear the shocks 

 of active life." 



But among the company were many who followed only 

 prescriptive opinion; and Hassan, the merchant, was in- 

 duced that evening to hire a tutor for his son, who on the 

 morrow began the study of Egyptian literature. 



Thus, sir, the course of education aiiiong us has origin- 

 ated in a cramped view of mankind. There is too much 

 proneness among us to regard ourselves and the things just 

 around us as Universal Nature. It is a hard thing to cure 

 a man of vanity. You write to me, that the barometer in 

 your study rose yesterday in consequence of an easterly 

 wind; but it is far more probable that your barometer was 

 aftected by atmospheric changes that had occurred in the 

 remote regions of Central Africa, or even upon the steppes 

 of Tartary, than by the wind which whistled round your 

 dwelling. As in the physical, so also in the moral world, 

 we perpetually run into error for want of taking a general 

 view of things. Our whole course of study tends to this 

 result — instead of considering the world as an unity, we ex- 

 pand ourselves into the representatives of the world. We 

 look upon ourselves as the favorites of Heaven; and emu- 

 lating the example of the natives of Athens, regard all the 

 rest of mankind as barbarians. We forget that there are 

 millions besides us, partakers of the pleasures of human 

 happiness and the pangs of human agony — that in the eye 

 of Providence we are all on a common level, and one com- 



