Dear Boo and Bubble,
We received an announcement in the mail the other day for
the graduation of your second cousin Jack Nix.
Two things struck me as I looked at his picture – how is it possible
that baby Jack could be old enough to be graduating from high school and, as he
exits this passageway of primary education, the two of you are entering
it. As celebrated as his end of the
tunnel might be for the accomplishment, your end is actually much more
significant. Without a proper and
disciplined foundation, the educational process can become a perpetual challenge,
one fraught with inadequacies that can rob a person of life’s full enjoyment.
Your great, great, great, great grandfather Joseph Benson
Cottrell was a brilliant man, prolific writer and renown minister in the mid to
late eighteen hundreds. Yet, even so, he
recognized a fundamental flaw that plagued him – one which he sought to
overcome in his adult years.
He writes -
Without a systematic
plan of life, followed scrupulously, one cannot have the greatest success –
cannot attain to the greatest excellency.
I have never lived by rule. I
lacked the early training. I have
everything to over come. My education
when, at 19 years of age I entered the Military Academy at Charleston, South
Carolina, was nothing. From setting type and reading newspapers in
my brother’s printing office, I had acquired a facility in writing tolerably
the English language – but there was no accuracy in my knowledge – and in
pursuing my studies there – I felt continually that I was building on the sand.
In a class of 32, I
graduated 15th – could with a little trouble have graduated
first. Politics was my misfortune there
as it has been since. I did not acquire
habits of study at the Citadel – the very thing the course is intended
for. Oh! In everything I have been
unfaithful – inconstant. I might have
been with comparative ease, this night, capable of taking most any
position of honor in the land; but indolence – indifference have been my
undoing.
He goes on to vow a remedy -
If I am spared, I will
by the help of that God who has prolonged my unprofitable life, redeem the
time. I have a thirst for
knowledge. I have gone back to relay the
foundation of an education, beginning with the English and Latin
grammars. I am endeavoring to make haste
slowly – building compactly, surely, trudging through that which others presume
I am au fait in. I want to enjoy
what I know – and this is impossible without accuracy. I am a poor speller ever, and sometimes
suffer after mailing a letter, lest some word has been misspelled.
And then he offers an astute observation which should be
emblazoned above the entrance to every place of learning -
One half the labor
spent in studying, which is thrown away in endeavoring to hide ignorance, would
make scholars of many.
He understands that the true profit of education comes from
the personal, inward journey towards excellence, not sought for the praise of
others, but for one’s own evolution –
I have no doubts as to
my capacity to learn. I have never been
beaten in a contest, where I have contested.
As ignorant as I feel myself to be, I am still surprised at my
success. I am more highly esteemed than
I deserve. I feel it, and am often made
to blush at hearing compliments which I know are not deserved – and yet to
correct the impression would do no good.
I want to get to be far wiser and better than persons imagine – to
surpass the ideal of the vulgar mind, and attain to heights to which they are
wholly ignorant. All that I may enjoy
truth, and realize the inadequacy of my finite mind to grasp it in its
entirety. I shall then be humble.
As you make your way through the labyrinth, I hope you will
keep these words in mind and build a good foundation.
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