32

edn Address

fore get Wisdom, and with all thou hast gotten
get understanding.” That is the Bible, not Plato
—and so on the day when the Church commemorates
 the mystery of the Descent of the
Holy Spirit, as typified in the old Apostolic
vision of the fiery tongues, the prayer is for
that gift of the Spirit, a right judgement in all
things.
And there is a bad education. If learning to
read should only kindle a taste for vulgar newspapers
 and exciting fiction, and lead a man’s
mind astray into shallow philosophies and
materialistic views of life, which feed his baser
passions and make disturbance and discontent in
his soul, then education is a bad thing for him.
Better have none.
I knew an old countryman who had worked
hard all his life in devoted service to one master
whom he had attended as a child; and when
(owing to the democratic neglect of agriculture)
the farming estate was impoverished, sold and
degraded into a pleasure-park, this man was
dismissed from his service and turned out of his
cottage by the new landlord, a rich upstart from