Davy said "What I am I have made myself;" and the same
holds true universally.
To conclude: the best culture is not obtained from teachers when
at school or college, so much as by our own diligent self-education
when we have become men. Hence parents need not be in too great
haste to see their children's talents forced into bloom. Let them
watch and wait patiently, letting good example and quiet training
do their work, and leave the rest to Providence. Let them see to
it that the youth is provided, by free exercise of his bodily
powers, with a full stock of physical health; set him fairly on the
road of self-culture; carefully train his habits of application and
perseverance; and as he grows older, if the right stuff be in him,
he will be enabled vigorously and effectively to cultivate himself.
CHAPTER XII--EXAMPLE--MODELS
"Ever their phantoms rise before us,
Our loftier brothers, but one in blood;
By bed and table they lord it o'er us,
With looks of beauty and words of good."--John Sterling.
"Children may be strangled, but Deeds never; they have an
indestructible life, both in and out of our consciousness."--George
Eliot.
"There is no action of man in this life, which is not the beginning
of so long a chain of consequences, as that no human providence is
high enough to give us a prospect to the end.
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