SOCIAL RIDDLES—OR THE WANT OF "LIVING-" EDUCATION.

Southland Times, Volume I, Issue 42, 6 September 1864, Page 3

SOCIAL RIDDLES— OR THE WANT OF "LIVING-" EDUCATION.

A carefully-nurfcured, elegantly-dressei child is taken from the nursery.by its .pressing., request, -to look upon the little, grimy, red-lipped boy engaged in sweeping the drawing-room chimney. . ■ " Nurse," inquires the child, " why isn't that boy as clean as I am? \ Why does he sweep dirty chimneys ?" "My dear, " replies the nurse; rather- "shocked and bewildered by the question, "we are not all born alike. Providence has ordained that some people shali attend upon Some other people. Q-ive him a penny, and let ua go up stairs. " The child becomes a bright eyed open-hearted youth. He Bits in his father's library, looking out upon a spacious square, and learns a certain portion of the love . of antiquity every dav under the able guidance of a private tutor, Mr Horatius Flaccus, B. A. The boy's eye wanders restlessly from Euclid to the shouting dustmen who occasionally pass the window, or to the cat'smeatman and potboy holding a conversation at the .area railings. Each of these men isa problem to his young mind that ho cannot solve with a pencil, a ruler and a pair of compasses. ■ ■ ■■- \- " Tutor," inquires the 'youth, "why do men become dustmen ?" . "Why," responds Mr Flaccus, B.VAi— "Well, ah — this question is connected with— ah— another branch of study, called political .economy, supply and demand, wages and labor, and several other divisions of the same subject. We must not load the mind too much at one time. Otd on with the geometry." The boy passes through the hands of Mr Flaccus, B. A., and is declared ready to have the uuiversity stamp placed upon his knowledge. He goes out into the great world, without a guide to direct his steps, without a voice near, him to clear up his doubts and difficulties. He cannot understand the tailor who comes to measure him for clothes, nor the footman who condecends to wait upon him at table. His mind wanders backbeyond Mr Flaccus, B. A., to his nurse and the l>'ttle sweep, and wonders if one class is really pre-ordained to attend upon another. He looks at large orchestras, and is astonished to find that men are willing to be stationed at kettle-drums and cymbals,- to play upon trombones and serpents, instead of rushing to the first violins, or flutes, or clarionets. He observes men sitting on coach-boxes in the pouring rain, and driving other men who are snugly reclining in broughams. He observes men standing upon door-steps in ridiculous beadles' liveries ; men filling scavengers' carts with mud ; postmen delivering letters at every hour of the day? policemen parading the dull streets at every hour of the night ; and men engaged in printing signboards, instead of qualifying for the Royal Academy. This youth may grow up into manhood — may pass over the hill, and descend into the valley of old age and death, without becoming much wiser in his generation. He may have full faith in the teachings of his nurse, or he- may be satisfied with the empty phrases uttered by Mr Flaccus, B. A. The constant demands of his personal comfort will teach him to fear the extinction of the lower class of labourers without revealing to him the laws which regulate their supply and existence. Even if lie learns the operation of wages and selfinterest, and how a labourer will refuse to do that for a shilling which he will gladly undertake for two, he will seldom rise to that fuli height of knowledge which will teach him the true dignity of universal work. He may never see the harmony of that life around him, in which every man — footman, shoeblack, and dustman — accepts his allotted place, and in which all the mean aad repulsive details of labor are melted, purified and delighted, coming out perfect and beautiful in the universal mass. — Q-ood Words.