In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire, With a desperate desire, And a resolute endeavor By the side of the pale-faced moon. What a tale their terror tells How they clang, and clash, and roar! Yet the ear it fully knows, By the twanging And the clanging, How the danger ebbs and flows; Yet the ear distinctly tells, In the jangling And the wrangling, How the danger sinks and swells, By the sinking or the swelling in the anger of the bells, Of the bells Of the bells, bells, bells, bells, Bells, bells, bells— In the clamor and the clangor of the bells! IV Hear the tolling of the bells— Iron bells! What a world of solemn thought their monody compels! In the silence of the night How we shiver with affright At the melancholy menace of their tone! For every sound that floats From the rust within their throats Is a groan. And the people-ah, the people, They that dwell up in the steeple, And who tolling, tolling, tolling, In that muffled monotone, Feel a glory in so rolling On the human heart a stone- And their king it is who tolls; And he rolls, rolls, rolls, Rolls A pæan from the bells! And his merry bosom swells With the pæan of the bells! To the pean of the bells, Keeping time, time, time, In a sort of Runic rhyme, To the throbbing of the bells Of the bells, bells, bells To the sobbing of the bells: Keeping time, time, time, As he knells, knells, knells, In a happy Runic rhyme, To the rolling of the bells Of the bells, bells, bells: To the tolling of the bells, Of the bells, bells, bells, bells, Bells, bells, bells— To the moaning and the groaning of the bells. RIGHT TRAINING FOR EXCELLENCE PLATO According to my view, he who would be good at any thing must practice that thing from his youth upwards, both in sport and earnest, in the particular manner which the work requires; for example, he who is to be a good builder, should play at building children's houses; and he who is to be a good husbandman, at tilling the ground; those who have the care of their education should provide them when young with mimic tools. And they should learn beforehand the knowledge which they will afterwards require for their art. For example, the future carpenter should learn to measure or apply the line in play; and the future warrior should learn riding, or some other exercise for amusement, and the teacher should endeavor to direct the children's inclinations and pleasures by the help of amusements, to their final aim in life. The most important part of education is right training in the nursery. The soul of the child in his play should be trained to that sort of excellence, in which, when he grows up to manhood, he will have to be perfected. At present, when we speak in terms of praise or blame about the bringing-up of each person, we call one man educated and another uneducated, although the uneducated man may be sometimes very well educated for the calling of a retail trader, or of a captain of a ship, and the like. For we are not speaking of education in this narrower sense, but of that other education in virtue from youth upwards, which makes a man eagerly pursue the ideal perfection of citizenship, and teaches him how rightly to rule and how to obey. This is the only education which, upon our view, deserves the name; that other sort of training, which aims at the acquisition of wealth or bodily strength, or mere cleverness apart from intelligence and justice, is mean and illiberal, and is not worthy to be called education at all. But let us not quarrel with one another about a word, provided that the proposition which has just been granted hold good; to wit, that those who are rightly educated generally become good men. Eighty years hence it will matter little whether we were a peasant or a peer, but it will matter much whether we did our duty as one or the other. -STOPFORD A. BROOKE |