The Unlettered Learned. 229 



your own, gathered wholly by your unaided 

 efforts : it makes one free ; for he who merely 

 echoes another's thoughts, or accepts the dictum 

 of another as to what is true and what is false, 

 is in a sense a slave. The authorities, as they 

 assert themselves to be, are ever tyrants ; our 

 manhood is in proportion to our independence 

 of any and all arbiters. The submissive man is 

 a mere machine. To shape our lives at the 

 direction of others that we may be wise and 

 saved, is to keep ourselves ignorant and un- 

 worthy of salvation. Knowledge direct from 

 Nature is a source of satisfaction as unfailing as 

 a great library is to a student of books. When 

 the uneducated man who lives in the open 

 country lays by his work for the day, he can 

 turn to himself for amusement, and often with 

 satisfaction equal to his who turns to the printed 

 thoughts of other people. 



I do not undervalue what the world calls 

 "education." Lacking it myself, I may be 

 calling down condemnation upon my head for 

 speaking of it as I do. I never had a teacher 

 who gave me the slightest encouragement, and 

 more than one was a brute in human form. I 



