| A. The power and habit of thinking B. The value of previous education C. The correctness in using mother tongue D. The development of an educated man E. The possession of gratitude F. Refined and natural manners |
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The first characteristic of an educated man is the precision of the use of the native language. When one hears English well spoken, with pure diction, correct pronunciation, and an almost unconscious choice of the right word, he recognizes it at once. How much easier he finds it to imitate English of the other sort.
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When manners are artificial and forced, no matter what their form, they are bad manners. When, however, they are the natural expression of fixed habits of thought and action, and when they reveal a refined and cultivated nature, they are good manners. There are certain things that gentlemen do not do, and they do not do them simply because they are bad manners.
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Human beings for the most part live wholly on the surface or far beyond the present moment and that part of the future that is quickly to follow it. They do not read those works of prose and poetry which have become classic because they reveal power and habit of reflection and induce that power and habit in others. When one reflects long enough to ask the question how? He is on the way to knowing something about science.
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An educated man continues to grow and develop from birth to his dying day. His interests expand, his contacts multiply, his knowledge increases, and his reflection becomes deeper and wider. It would appear to be true that not many human beings, even those who have had a school and college education, continue to grow after they are twenty-four or twenty-five years of age. By that time it is usual to settle down to life on a level of more or less contented intellectual interest and activity. The whole present-day movement for adult education is a systematic and definite attempt to keep human beings growing long after they have left school and college, and therefore, to help educate them.
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The more visionary dreamer, however charming or however wise, lacks something that an education requires. The power to do may be exercised in any one of a thousand ways, but when it clearly shows itself, that is evidence that the period of discipline of study and of companionship with parents and teachers has not been in vain.