are engaged in. Of course, at the present time, in a great
deal of the reading incumbent on you, you must be guided
by the books recommended by your Professors for assistance
towards the effect of their prelections. And then, when you
leave the University, and go into studies of your own, you
will find it very important that you have chosen a field, some
province specially suited to you, in which you can study and
work. The most unhappy of all men is the man who cannot
tell what he is going to do, who has got no work cut out for
him in the world, and does not go into it. For work is the
f "The Hero as Man of Letters," Edition de Luxe, Estes & Lauriat,
Vol. I., p. 383.
48 EDUCATION
grand cure of all the maladies and miseries that ever beset
mankind, honest work, which you intend getting done.
If, in any vacant vague time, you are in a strait as to
choice of reading, a very good indication for you, perhaps
the best you could get, is towards some book you have a
great curiosity about. You are then in the readiest and best
of all possible conditions to improve by that book. It is
analogous to what doctors tell us about the physical health
and appetites of the patient. You must learn, however, to
distinguish between false appetite and true. There is such
a thing as a false appetite, which will lead a man into vagaries
with regard to diet ; will tempt him to eat spicy things, which
he should not eat at all, nor would, but that the things are
toothsome, and that he is under a momentary baseness of
mind. A man ought to examine and find out what he really
and truly has an appetite for, what suits his constitution and
condition; and that, doctors tell him, is in general the very
thing he ought to have. And so with books. 8
To Carlyle the university is a collection of books.
The man who has read well has received a univer-
sity education, both as a means and as a result.
Of such culture and strength, speech has long
been regarded as the chief sign and symbol. In
"Latter-Day Pamphlets" and in the "Inaugural
Address" Carlyle praises silence. He believes that
the world and everybody in it talks too much. To
watch the tongue and to watch it unto curbing it is
"Inaugural Address," Edition de Luxe, Estes & Lauriat, Vol. XVI.,
p. 393.
ACCORDING TO CARLYLE 49
a duty. Wind, wind, wind, seems to be universal ;
it is to be made to vanish so far as can be. He even
advises that tongues be cut out for a whole gen-
eration in order that the world may learn wisdom !
The reason of all this is that speech is largely
vanity and emptiness. On the other hand speech
that is filled with wisdom is " noble and even
divine/' If Carlyle has been most vigilant in de-
nouncing talk that is foolish, he is equally enthusi-
astic in commending talk that is wise. Even in
the Latter-Day Pamphlet "Stump-Orator," he
says:
Considered as the last finish of education, or of human
culture, worth and acquirement, the art of speech is noble,
and even divine; it is like the kindling of a Heaven's light
to show us what a glorious world exists, and has perfected
itself, in a man. 9
And also in the same essay half -humorously he
adds:
Parliament, Church, Law: let the young vivid soul turn
whither he will for a career, he finds among variable condi-
tions one condition invariable, and extremely surprising, That
the proof of excellence is to be done by the tongue. For
heroism that will not speak, but only act, there is no account
kept: The English Nation does not need that silent kind,
"Latter-Day Pamphlets," Edition de Luxe, Bates & Lauriat, VoL
II., p. 426.
50 EDUCATION
then, but only the talking kind? Most astonishing. Of all
the organs a man has, there is none held in account, it would
appear, but the tongue he uses for talking. Premiership,
woolsack, mitre, and quasi-crown: all is attainable if you
can talk with due ability. Everywhere your proof-shot is
to be a well-fired volley of talk. Contrive to talk well, you
will get to Heaven, the modern Heaven of the English. 10
The result of all education and training is light,
light upon all of life's problems and on many of
life's mysteries.
Light is the one thing wanted for the world. Put wisdom
in the head of the world, the world will fight its battle vic-
toriously, and be the best world man can make it. 11
In a personal way the result of all this education
and training is, for the individual man, thinking.
The education of man unto wisdom is, as I have
already intimated, inseparable from training in
morals, and the chief excellence in morals, accord-
ing to the gospel of Carlyle, is sincerity. Sincerity
is the culmination of all the cardinal virtues. It is
comprehensive. Insincere speech is the index of
insincere action and of all possible evil activities.
A nimble tongue utters an octavo volume a day
and this volume is in large part designing balder-
19 Ibid., p. 431.
""Heroes and Hero- Worship, " Edition de Luxe, Estes & Lauriat,
Vol. I., p. 391.
ACCORDING TO CARLYLE 51
dash. The insincere man is a bad man, and the bad
man an insincere one. The great virtue is honesty,
and the great vice which Carlyle constantly damned
is hypocrisy.
Education is designed to promote sincerity and
honesty :
For no man, and for no body or biggest multitude of
men, has Nature favor, if they part company with her facts
and her. Excellent stump-orator; eloquent parliamentary
dead-dog, making motions, passing bills ; reported in the Morn-
ing Newspapers, and reputed the ' ' best speaker going ? ' ' From
the Universe of Fact he has turned himself away; he is
gone into partnership with the Universe of Phantasm; finds
it profitablest to deal in forged notes, while the foolish shop-
keepers will accept them. Nature for such a man, and for
Nations that follow such, has her patibulary forks, and prisons
of death everlasting: dost thou doubt it? Unhappy mortal,
Nature otherwise were herself a Chaos and no Cosmos. Na-
ture was not made by an Impostor ; not she, I think, rife as
they are! In fact, by money or otherwise, to the uttermost
fraction of a calculable and incalculable value, we have, each
one of us, to settle the exact balance in the above-said Sav-
ings-bank, or official register kept by Nature: Creditor by
the quantity of veracities we have done, Debtor by the quan-
tity of falsities and errors; there is not, by any conceivable
device, the faintest hope of escape from that issue for one
of us, nor for all of us. 12
""Latter-Day Pamphlets," Edition de Luxe, Estes & Lauriat, VoL
II., p. 449.
52 EDUCATION
The most commanding illustration of the effect
of training in sincerity to be found in Carlyle's
works is Frederick the Great.
It is an excellent symptom of his intellect, this of gravi-
tating irresistibly towards realities. Better symptom of its
quality (whatever quantity there be of it), human intellect
cannot show for itself. However it may go with Literature,
and satisfaction to readers of romantic appetites, this young
soul promises to become a successful Worker one day, and to
do something under the Sun. For work is of an extremely
unfictitious nature ; and no man can roof his house with clouds
and moonshine, so as to turn the rain from him. 18
The vital place of sincerity as a single virtue is
bespoken in Carlyle's praise of work. Diligence
and honesty are to him twin sisters ; each promotes
the welfare of the other. If one great idea be
more prominent than another in Carlyle, it is the
idea of the worthiness of work. In the essay on
1 i Chartism ' ' he says :
Work is the mission of man in this Earth. A day is ever
struggling forward, a day will arrive in some approximate
degree, when he who has no work to do, by whatever name
he may be named, will not find it good to show himself in
our quarter of the Solar System; but may go and look out
elsewhere, If there be any Idle Planet discoverable ? Let the
honest working man rejoice that such law, the first of Nature,
11 ' ' Frederick the Great, ' ' Edition de Luxe, Bates & Lauriat, Vol. V.,
p. 420.
ACCORDING TO CARLYLE 53
has been made good on him; and hope that, by and by, all
else will be made good. It is the beginning of all. 14
And also in the essay on "The Nigger Question" :
This is the everlasting duty of all men, black or white, who
are born into this world. To do competent work, to labor
honestly according to the ability given them ; for that and for
no other purpose was each one of us sent into this world;
and woe is to every man who, by friend or by foe, is pre-
vented from fulfilling this the end of his being. 18
In the essay "Past and Present" Carlyle de-
clares :
All work, even cotton-spinning, is noble; work is alone
noble: be that here said and asserted once more. And in
like manner, too, all dignity is painful; a life of ease is
not for any man, nor for any god. The life of all gods figures
itself to us as a Sublime Sadness, earnestness of Infinite
Battle against Infinite Labor. 16
And also in the same chapter he observes :
The only happiness a brave man ever troubled himself
with asking much about was, happiness enough to get his
work done. Not "I can't eat!" but "I can't work!" that
was the burden of all wise complaining among men. It is,
after all, the one unhappiness of a man. That he cannot
u " Chartism," Edition de Luxe, Estes & Lauriat, VoL XVI., p. 50.
u "The Nigger Question," Edition de Luxe, Estes & Lauriat, Ibid.,
p. 299.
""Past and Present," Edition de Luxe, Estes & Lauriat, VoL XII.,
p. 149.
54 EDUCATION
work ; that he cannot get his destiny as a man fulfilled. Be-
hold, the day is passing swiftly over, our life is passing swiftly
over ; and the night cometh, wherein no man can work. 17
Further he interprets :
The spoken Word, the written Poem, is said to be an epit-
ome of the man; how much more the done Work. What-
soever of morality and of intelligence ; what of patience, per-
severance, faithfulness, of method, insight, ingenuity, energy ;
in a word, whatsoever of Strength the man had in him will
lie written in the Work he does. To work : why, it is to try
himself against Nature, and her everlasting unerring Laws;
these will tell a true verdict as to the man. 18
In the chapter in "Past and Present" devoted to
labor, Carlyle proclaims again :
For there is a perennial nobleness, and even sacredness,
in Work. Were he never so benighted, forgetful of his high
calling, there is always hope in a man that actually and ear-
nestly works: in Idleness alone is there perpetual despair.
Work, never so mammonish, mean, is in communication with
Nature ; the real desire to get Work done will itself lead one
more and more to truth, to Nature's appointments and regu-
lations, which are truth.
The latest Gospel in this world is, Know thy work and
do it. "Know thyself:" long enough has that poor "self"
of thine tormented thee; thou wilt never get to "know" it,
I believe! Think it not thy business, this of knowing thy-
self; thou art an unknowable individual: know what thou
1T Ibid., p. 152.
18 Ibid., p. 154.
ACCORDING TO CARLYLE 55
canst work at; and work at it, like a Hercules! That will
be thy better plan.
It has been written, "an endless significance lies in Work;"
a man perfects himself by working. Foul jungles are cleared
away, fair seedfields rise instead, and stately cities; and
withal the man himseL first ceases to be a jungle and foul
unwholesome desert thereby. Consider how, even in the
meanest sorts of Labor, the whole soul of a man is com-
posed into a kind of real harmony, the instant he sets himself
to work! Doubt, Desire, Sorrow, Remorse, Indignation, De-
spair itself, all these like hell-dogs lie beleaguering the soul
of the poor day-worker, as of every man ; but he bends himself
with free valor against his task, and all these are stilled, all
these shrink murmuring far off into their caves. The man is
now a man. The blessed glow of labor in him, is it not as
purifying fire, wherein all poison is burnt up, and of sour
smoke itself there is made bright blessed flame ! 19
In the chapter in "Past and Present," already
referred to, he further says :
All true work is sacred ; in all true Work, were it but true
hand-labor, there is something of divineness. Labor, wide as
the Earth, has its summit in Heaven. Sweat of the brow;
and up from that to sweat of the brain, sweat of the heart;
which includes all Kepler calculations, Newton meditations,
all Sciences, all spoken Epics, all acted Heroisms, Martyrdoms,
up to that "Agony of bloody sweat," which all men have
called divine! O brother, if this is not "worship," then I
say, the more pity for worship; for this is the noblest thing
yet discovered under God's sky. Who art thou that com-
"" Labor," Edition de Luxe, Estes & Lauriat, Ibid., p. 190.
56 EDUCATION
plainest of thy life of toil? Complain not. Look up, my
wearied brother; see thy fellow Workmen there, in God's
Eternity ; surviving there, they alone surviving ; sacred Band
of the Immortals, celestial Body-guard of the Empire of
Mankind. 20
Such is the interpretation of work which this
great laborer gives. It is an interpretation re-
quired in our own age even more fundamentally
than in the times in which and of which he wrote.
For the college man of to-day is not laborious. Less
laborious he is than he was in the days of his
fathers. He works no more intensely in the hours
in which he does work, and the hours of his labor
are fewer. The gospel of indulgence abounds. The
by-products of the higher education have taken the
place of the direct. The student values less highly
the acquiring of mental power and more highly
the gaining of culture. The honors of the class-
room have become less precious than the honors
of the campus. The condition may be painted in
colors too dark or too bright; but that a change
has occurred is evident. The time has come indeed
to put the emphasis in our college courses upon
hard work ; and a preaching of the gospel of Car-
lyle is timely.
""Past and Present," Edition de Luxe, Estes & Lauriat, Ibid.,
p. 195.
ACCORDING TO CARLYLE 57
In Carlyle 's scheme of education, if it be a
scheme at all, religion, as in his scheme of life, fills
a large place. Carlyle 's religion is not that of the
kirk. It has no thirty-nine articles. Rather its
articles are only one, or an infinite number. It
has a catechism, a long one, so long as to represent
infinities and eternities. It has no forms neither
creed nor catechism. Its church is all out-of-doors.
Its services are the working of all the powers of
nature and of man. Its priest is the eternal and
universal force making not for evil nor for vileness
nor for damnation, but for righteousness, for sin-
cerity, and for salvation. Its altar is work, and its
book of common prayer the desire for truth and
for power. Its saints are the world's thinkers and
doers, potent through infinite space and eternal
time. They are indeed the elect, chosen by the
forces of divine movements and tendencies. Car-
lyle 's religion rests in the relation which man bears
to ultimate reality. Its scope is as much greater
than temporary concerns as eternity is longer than
time. It creates nations and individuals.
Carlyle tells the Edinburgh youth that
No nation which did not contemplate this wonderful uni-
verse with an awe-stricken and reverential belief that there
58 EDUCATION
was a great unknown, omnipotent, and all-wise and all-just Be-
ing, superintending all men in it, and all interests in it, no
nation ever came to very much, nor did any man either, who
forgot that. If a man did forget that, he forgot the most
important part of his mission in this world. 21
Carlyle is willing to grant to that form of religion
called Presbyterianism a large share in the develop-
ment of his native country.
Nobody who knows Scotland and Scott can doubt but Pres-
byterianism too had a vast share in the forming of him. A
country where the entire people is, or even once has been,
laid hold of, filled to the heart with an infinite religious idea,
has ' ' made a step from which it cannot retrograde. ' ' Thought,
conscience, the sense that man is denizen of a Universe, crea-
ture of an Eternity, has penetrated to the remotest cottage,
to the simplest heart. Beautiful and awful, the feeling of a
Heavenly Behest, of Duty god-commanded, over-canopies all
life. There is an inspiration in such a people; one may say
in a more special sense, "the inspiration of the Almighty giv-
eth them understanding. ' ' 22
There is also a specific element of religion, which
our great author commends. It is embodied in the
word reverence. He follows Goethe in giving a
high place in the building of character, to this in-
21 ' ' Inaugural Address, ' ' Edition de Luxe, Estes & Lauriat, Vol. XVI.,
p. 396.
""Essay on Scott," Edition de Luxe, Estes & Lauriat, Vol. XV.,
p. 419.
59
tellectual and moral virtue. Writing of Goethe's
works he says :
To enlighten this principle of reverence for the great, to
teach us reverence, and whom we are to revere and admire,
should ever be a chief aim of Education (indeed it is herein
that instruction properly both begins and ends) ; and in these
late ages, perhaps more than ever, so indispensable is now
our need of clear reverence, so inexpressibly poor our supply.
"Clear reverence!" it was once responded to a seeker of
light: "all want it, perhaps thou thyself." What wretched
idols, of Leeds cloth, stuffed out with bran of one kind or
other, do men either worship, or being tired of worshipping
(so expensively without fruit), rend in pieces and kick out
of doors, amid loud shouting and crowing, what they call
"tremendous cheers," as if the feat were miraculous! In
private life, as in public, delusion in this sort does its work;
the blind leading the blind, both fall into the ditch. 23
What method shall be adopted for the teaching
of this fundamental and all-embracing subject of
religion 1 What method shall be adopted for incor-
porating it as a part of education? That is not
the question. Rather the question is: What
method shall be adopted for teaching it as a basic
principle ? The problem was given up by Carlyle
as one he could not solve. The same confession has
been made by the wise and unwise since his day.
"Goethe's Works," Edition de Luxe, Estes & Lauriat, Ibid., p. 25.
60 EDUCATION
"With much negative declamation Carlyle says that
others must solve the problem out of their own
experience and wisdom. He believes that from the
life of the English people, dealing with this ques-
tion through the centuries, may come forth the
proper answer.
"And now how teach religion?" so asks the indignant
Ultra-radical, cited above; an Ultra-radical seemingly not
of the Benthamee species, with whom, though his dialect is
far different, there are sound Churchmen, we hope, who have
some fellow-feeling : ' ' How teach religion ? ' ' By plying with
liturgies, catechisms, credos ; droning thirty-nine or other ar-
ticles incessantly into the infant ear? Friends! In that
case, why not apply to Birmingham, and have Machines made,
and set up at all street-corners, in highways and by-ways, to
repeat and vociferate the same, not ceasing night or day?
The genius of Birmingham is adequate to that. Albertus
Magnus had a leather man that could articulate ; not to speak
of Martinus Scriblerus' Niirnberg man that could reason as
well as we know who! Depend upon it, Birmingham can
make machines to repeat liturgies and articles ; to do whatso-
ever feat is mechanical. And what were all schoolmasters,
nay all priests and churches, compared with this Birmingham
Iron Church! Votes of two millions in aid of the Church
were then something. You order, at so many pounds a head,
so many thousand iron parsons as your grant covers; and
fix them by satisfactory masonry in all quarters wheresoever
wanted, to preach there independent of the world. In loud
thoroughfares, still more in unawakened districts, troubled
with argumentative infidelity, you make the windpipes wider,
ACCORDING TO CARLYLE 61
strengthen the main steam-cylinder ; your parson preaches, to
the due pitch, while you give him coal; and fears no man
or thing. Here were a "Church-extension;" to which I, with
my last penny, did I believe in it, would subscribe."
Yet, as he intimates, the only way to teach reli-
gion is by experience, by acquaintance with the
thing itself become incarnate. The method of
teaching religion is not through religious persons.
Writing of Frederick the Great he says more fully
upon this point :
Piety to God, the nobleness that inspires a human soul to
struggle Heavenward, cannot be "taught" by the most ex-
quisite catechisms, or the most industrious preachings and
drillings. No; alas, no. Only by far other methods, chiefly
by silent continual Example, silently waiting for the favorable
mood and moment, and aided then by a kind of miracle, well
enough named "the grace of God," can that sacred con-
tagion pass from soul into soul. How much beyond whole
Libraries of orthodox Theology is, sometimes, the mute action,
the unconscious look of a father, of a mother, who had in
them "Devoutness, pious Nobleness!" In whom the young
soul, not unobservant, though not consciously observing, came
at length to recognise it ; to read it, in this irrefragable man-
ner: a seed planted thenceforth in the centre of his holiest
affections forevermore ! 25
" ' ' Chartism, ' ' Edition <le Luxe, Estes & Lauriat, Vol. XVI., p. 109.
"Frederick the Great," Edition de Luxe, Estes & Lauriat, VoL V.,
p. 414.
62 EDUCATION
But in the teaching of religion, it is fair to re-
mark in passing, a distinction is ever to be made
between religion as a life and religion as a system
of truth.
The measures and methods for securing the con-
summate and comprehensive result of a man, wise,
sincere, laborious and religious, are many and
diverse. Interpretations and intimations of these
ways are scattered up and down these thousands
of pages. Among the first of them all we find the
art of teaching itself. Teaching in its highest rela-
tionship is of greatest value in making the man.
In teaching, the teacher is of primary importance.
There are teachers, and there are teachers. In his
autobiographic essay Carlyle speaks of teachers
who are not indeed teachers.
My teachers were hide-bound Pedants, without knowl-
edge of man's nature, or of boy's; or of aught save
their lexicons and quarterly account-books. Innumerable
dead Vocables (no dead Language, for they themselves knew
no Language) they crammed into us, and called it fostering
the growth of mind. How can an inanimate, mechanical
Gerund-grinder, the like of whom will, in a subsequent cen-
tury, be manufactured, at Niirnberg out of wood and leather,
foster the growth of anything; much more of Mind, which
grows, not like a vegetable (by having its roots littered with
etymological compost), but like a spirit, by mysterious con-
ACCORDING TO CARLYLE 63
tact of Spirit; Thought kindling itself at the fire of living
Thought? How shall he give kindling, in whose own inward
man there is no live coal, but all is burnt out to a dead gram-
matical cinder? The Hinterschlag Professors knew syntax
enough ; and of the human soul thus much : that it had
a faculty called Memory, and could be acted on through the
muscular integument by appliance of birch-rods. 28
Yet there is another kind of teacher, of which
Diderot is the type. In his sketch of the great
Frenchman, Carlyle, speaking of Diderot's teach-
ing, says:
To decipher the talent of a young vague Capability, who
must one day be a man and a Reality; to take him by the
hand, and train him to a spiritual trade, and set him up in
it, with tools, shop and good-will, were doing him in most
cases an unspeakable service, on this one proviso, it is true,
that the trade be a just and honest one; in which proviso
surely there should lie no hindrance to such service, but
rather a help. 27
To secure the noblest results there must be in the
teacher at least two qualities beside the quality
of intelligence or the element of intellect. The first
is a sense of reality. The sense of reality is the
reagent of sincerity. This sense the teacher must
* ' ' Sartor Eesartus, ' ' Edition de Luxe, Estes & Lauriat, Vol. I., p. 81.
""Essay on Diderot," Edition de Luxe, Estes & Lauriat, Vol. XV.,
p. 93.
64 EDUCATION
possess. In writing of Frederick and of Ms educa-
tion, Carlyle says:
Fritz had one unspeakable advantage, rare among princes