Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. I.djvu/265

Rh earthly sun of grace. It is a Jacob's ladder to heaven, and every fresh step must be taken with labor and combat, until the crimson of its morning ascends. Civil liberty is, at the same time, an education for freedom; ought, at least, to be so. If the Canton Vaud, if the free life of Geneva, be still in its minority, it does not follow that they are always to remain so.

The aspiring life, in precisely these Cantons, is a pledge, that even here the good will overcome the evil; because, that which essentially grows, and is in the increase, especially in the Canton Vaud, is education, educational institutions of all kinds, and for all classes. Private schools and public lectures, especially calculated for the culture of the young, are continually on the increase. A great many excellent books are in circulation, whilst their low price renders them accessible to all parts of the country, and steamboats and railways make them so likewise.

I visited various of the higher schools for girls, and found everywhere much that was excellent in their arrangement, as well as in individual portions of the instruction given. That which, however, I lack in every case, and, indeed, which I have never yet found anywhere, is a clearly comprehended, and, for the pupils, a clearly expressed comprehension of the object of all education,—a view of life and instruction, which shows the latter as merely a means for the former, and which elevates life itself, from its local, circumscribed sphere, to a means towards the kingdom of God. That which I lack here, as everywhere, is a view of the individual relationship to society, which sanctifies every individual gift to its service,