Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 30.djvu/351

Rh awaken interest sufficiently to enable children generally to continue their education after leaving school. Yet, in addition to all other advantages, a wise education ought greatly to brighten life. Browning speaks of the wild joy of living; but that is not the sense in which life is ordinarily spoken of by the poets. They generally allude to it in a very different sense, as when Pope spoke of it as "life's poor play," observing in another passage—

while Lytton said—

A well-known hymn lays it down as an incontrovertible proposition—

But this is to a great extent our own fault. Too often we fritter away life, and La Bruyère truly observes that many men employ much of their time in making the rest miserable. Few of us feel this as we ought, some not at all. We see so clearly, feel so keenly, the misery and wretchedness around us that we fail to realize the blessings lavished upon us. Yet the path of life is paved with enjoyments. There is room for all at the great table of Xature. She provides without stint the main requisites of human happiness. To watch the com grow, or the blossoms set; to draw hard breath over the plowshare; or to read, to think, to love, to hope, to pray—"these," said Ruskin, "were the things that made men happy."

Some years ago I paid a visit to the principal lake villages of Switzerland in company with a distinguished archasologist, M.Morlot. To my surprise I found that his whole income was one hundred pounds sterling a year, part of which, moreover, he spent in making a small museum. I asked him whether he contemplated accepting any post or office, but he said certainly not. He valued his leisure and opportunities as priceless possessions far more than silver or gold, and would not waste any of his time in making money. Just think of our advantage here in London! We have access to the whole literature of the world; we may see in our National Gallery the most beautiful productions of former generations, and in the Royal Academy and other galleries the works of the greatest living artists. Perhaps there is no one who has ever found time to see the British Museum thoroughly. Yet consider what it contains; or, rather, what does it not contain? The most gigantic of living and extinct animals, the marvelous monsters of geological ages, the most beautiful birds, and shells, and minerals, the most interesting antiquities, curious and fantastic specimens illustrating different races of men; exquisite gems, coins, glass, and china; the Elgin marbles, the remains of the mausoleum of the Temple