Page:The collected works of Theodore Parker volume 8.djvu/39

Rh interchange of thoughts no less than words, and yearly grew up to be a nobler population.

Let us add still further, to put the last touch to this ideal picture, that when one was born the son of a lawyer, a physician, or a clergyman, and gifted by Heaven with better parts than the mass of men, or when by any adventure he became desirous of growth in qualities that become a man, he left the calling of his fathers, became a cooper, a fisherman, or a blacksmith, solely for the sake of the education he could get in the trade, which he fancied he could not get in the profession, and that he did this, even when he loved the profession he left, having a natural aptitude therefor, and hated the particular craft to which love of perfection impelled him, and that, as a natural consequence, there were men in all these trades who had little natural taste, or even ability, for their employment, who longed to quit it, and were retained therein when its ranks were over-crowded, and themselves as good as useless, solely because they saw no chance to educate their better nature in any of the three professions.

What should we say to this state of things? what to the fact, that here were three classes of men, who, instead of getting the most they could of wisdom, were content to take up the most beggarly pittance wherewith their drudgery could be done? Doubtless we should say it was a very sad state of affairs, most foolish and monstrous. It was wrong that these classes should continue in ignorance, with no effort made for their liberation. It was wrong the ablest heads in Africa—who are the natural sovereigns of their land—did not take up the matter, and toil day and night to redress an evil so striking and fearful. It was doubly wrong that strong minds left a calling in which they were born, to which they were adapted by nature and choice, to seek out of it an education they might find in it, had they the manliness to make the search. It was false in them to desert the calling for which nature made them, seeking to rise above it, not seeking to raise their calling to their own stature. We should thank Heaven that we had a Christian rule for the strong helping the weak, and should say, “Such evils could exist only in a heathen land,” and pious men would sail in the next ship to set matters right.