On Education (Wen)

Of all the elements in success none is more vital than education, the cultivation of intellectual power. It is not genius but education that makes the difference between the master and the slave. Genius is but the half of a man; education is the driving wheel, the master-key of all difficulties in every profession. An uneducated man, no matter what his natural gift, is invariably pushed aside in the race of life by the man of education. It is always he, who possesses a cultured mind and whose genius has been cultivated to perfection by education that makes a figure, or achieves any rare success, in the world. Sir Isaac Newton had been in his school days considered the least clever boy of his class. Yet, owing to his laborious and patient pursuit of knowledge, his mental powers were so profoundly developed that he achieved the noble reputation of being the greatest scientist whom the world has ever see, while his fellow scholars, whose understandings appear to have been quicker than his, lived to be obscure men.

Wealth, which is held in so high esteem by the majority of mankind, is valueless when compared with education. It is really a fact that to wealth man sometimes owe their independence. but the independence derived from mere wealth can never last long. Under the appearance of aiding it weakens its possessors and keeps them in perpetual slavery and degradation. The rich man, if uneducated, may be a rich libertine: the richer he is, the more means he has to glorify his vicious appetite. When his wealth is exhausted he will try to unscrupulous ways to regain it, and consequently brings himself to crime and to ruin. The independence derived from education is of a quite different nature. Knowledge, once acquired, remains the head for ever. Those who dedicate themselves to it always live a virtuous life; for their character is elevated and their mind enlightened.

In many respects the importance of education is decernable. Throughout the world whatever advance has been made in freedom, in the arts of life, has been in proportion to the grade of education. The lowliest and most fertile provinces of Asia have, on account of the ignorance of the people, sunk in poverty and in political servitude, while the countries in Europe, where compulsory education prevails, though once proverbial for sterility and barbarism, have been turned by skill and industry into gardens and can boast of a long list of heroes and statesmen, philosophers and poets. Whoever, knowing what England and Persia naturally are and what, two thousands years before, they actually were, shall now compare the island in the Atlantic with the country between the Caspian Sea and the Persian Gulf, will be able to form some judgement as to the influence of culture. The inertness of our country, and the ascendancy of the United States, once under the English yoke, to a position such as no nation so newly founded has ever reached, teach the same lesson.

It is thus obvious that the competition between nations is mainly a competition of intelligence, and that a country must make perfect provision for the education of her people or be prepared to fall behind in political industrial and moral progress.