Page:The collected works of Theodore Parker volume 7.djvu/67

Rh learn; he will not even be taught what has been invented and taught before. None can teach him. The horse is led to the water, or the water brought to the house, but the beast will not drink. "The idle fool is whipped at school," but to no purpose. He is always an oaf. No college or tutor mends him. The wild ass will go out free, wild, and an ass. These four, the idiot, the pirate, the thief, and the clown, are exceptional men. They remain stationary. Meanwhile, mankind advances, continually, but not with an even front. The human race moves not by column or line, but by echelon as it were. We go up by stairs, not by slopes. Now comes a great man, of far-reaching and prospective sight, a Moses, and he tells men that there is a land of promise, which they have a right to who have skill to win it. Then lesser men, the Calebs and Joshuas, go and search it out, bringing back therefrom new wine in the cluster and alluring tales. Next troops of pioneers advance, yet lesser men; then a few bold men who love adventure. Then comes the army, the people with their flocks and herds, the priesthood with their ark of the covenant and the tabernacle, the title-deeds of the new lands which they have heard of but not seen. At last there comes the mixed multitude, following in no order, but not without shouting and tumult, men treading one another under foot, cowards looking back and refusing to march, old men dying without seeing their consolation. If you will lie down on the ground and take the profile of a great city, and see how hill, steeple, dome, tower, the roof of the tall house, gain, on the sky, and then come whole streets of warehouses and shops, then common dwellings, then cheap, low tenements, you will have a good profile of man's march to gain new conquests in science, art, morals, religion, and general development. It is so in the family, a bright boy shooting before all the rest, and taking the thunder out of the adverse cloud for his brothers and sisters, who follow and grow rich with unscathed forehead. It is so in the nation, a few great men bearing the brunt of the storm, and wading through the surges to set their weaker brothers, screaming and struggling, with dry feet, in safety, on the firm land of science or religion. It is so in the world, a tall nation achieving art, science, law,