第 7 节
作者:竹水冷      更新:2022-07-12 16:20      字数:9322
  training; men whose bodies were developed; and their lungs fed on
  pure breezes; long before they brought to work in the city the
  bodily and mental strength which they had gained by loch and moor。
  But it is not so with their sons。  Their business habits are learnt
  in the counting…house; a good school; doubtless; as far as it goes:
  but one which will expand none but the lowest intellectual
  faculties; which will make them accurate accountants; shrewd
  computers and competitors; but never the originators of daring
  schemes; men able and willing to go forth to replenish the earth
  and subdue it。  And in the hours of relaxation; how much of their
  time is thrown away; for want of anything better; on frivolity; not
  to say on secret profligacy; parents know too well; and often shut
  their eyes in very despair to evils which they know not how to
  cure。  A frightful majority of our middle…class young men are
  growing up effeminate; empty of all knowledge but what tends
  directly to the making of a fortune; or rather; to speak correctly;
  to the keeping up the fortunes which their fathers have made for
  them; while of the minority; who are indeed thinkers and readers;
  how many women as well as men have we seen wearying their souls
  with study undirected; often misdirected; craving to learn; yet not
  knowing how or what to learn; cultivating; with unwholesome energy;
  the head at the expense of the body and the heart; catching up with
  the most capricious self…will one mania after another; and tossing
  it away again for some new phantom; gorging the memory with facts
  which no one has taught them to arrange; and the reason with
  problems which they have no method for solving; till they fret
  themselves in a chronic fever of the brain; which too often urge
  them on to plunge; as it were; to cool the inward fire; into the
  ever…restless seas of doubt or of superstition。  It is a sad
  picture。  There are many who may read these pages whose hearts will
  tell them that it is a true one。  What is wanted in these cases is
  a methodic and scientific habit of mind; and a class of objects on
  which to exercise that habit; which will fever neither the
  speculative intellect nor the moral sense; and those physical
  science will give; as nothing else can give it。
  Moreover; to revert to another point which we touched just now; man
  has a body as well as a mind; and with the vast majority there will
  be no MENS SANA unless there be a CORPUS SANUM for it to inhabit。
  And what outdoor training to give our youths is; as we have already
  said; more than ever puzzling。  This difficulty is felt; perhaps;
  less in Scotland than in England。  The Scotch climate compels
  hardiness; the Scotch bodily strength makes it easy; and Scotland;
  with her mountain…tours in summer; and her frozen lochs in winter;
  her labyrinth of sea…shore; and; above all; that priceless boon
  which Providence has bestowed on her; in the contiguity of her
  great cities to the loveliest scenery; and the hills where every
  breeze is health; affords facilities for healthy physical life
  unknown to the Englishman; who has no Arthur's Seat towering above
  his London; no Western Islands sporting the ocean firths beside his
  Manchester。  Field sports; with the invaluable training which they
  give; if not
  〃The reason firm;〃
  yet still
  〃The temperate will;
  Endurance; foresight; strength; and skill;〃
  have become impossible for the greater number:  and athletic
  exercises are now; in England at least; becoming more and more
  artificialized and expensive; and are confined more and more … with
  the honourable exception of the football games in Battersea Park …
  to our Public Schools and the two elder Universities。  All honour;
  meanwhile; to the Volunteer movement; and its moral as well as its
  physical effects。  But it is only a comparatively few of the very
  sturdiest who are likely to become effective Volunteers; and so
  really gain the benefits of learning to be soldiers。  And yet the
  young man who has had no substitute for such occupations will cut
  but a sorry figure in Australia; Canada; or India; and if he stays
  at home; will spend many a pound in doctors' bills; which could
  have been better employed elsewhere。  〃Taking a walk〃 … as one
  would take a pill or a draught … seems likely soon to become the
  only form of outdoor existence possible for too many inhabitants of
  the British Isles。  But a walk without an object; unless in the
  most lovely and novel of scenery; is a poor exercise; and as a
  recreation; utterly nil。  I never knew two young lads go out for a
  〃constitutional;〃 who did not; if they were commonplace youths;
  gossip the whole way about things better left unspoken; or; if they
  were clever ones; fall on arguing and brainsbeating on politics or
  metaphysics from the moment they left the door; and return with
  their wits even more heated and tired than they were when they set
  out。  I cannot help fancying that Milton made a mistake in a
  certain celebrated passage; and that it was not 〃sitting on a hill
  apart;〃 but tramping four miles out and four miles in along a
  turnpike…road; that his hapless spirits discoursed
  〃Of fate; free…will; foreknowledge absolute;
  And found no end; in wandering mazes lost。〃
  Seriously; if we wish rural walks to do our children any good; we
  must give them a love for rural sights; an object in every walk; we
  must teach them … and we can teach them … to find wonder in every
  insect; sublimity in every hedgerow; the records of past worlds in
  every pebble; and boundless fertility upon the barren shore; and
  so; by teaching them to make full use of that limited sphere in
  which they now are; make them faithful in a few things; that they
  may be fit hereafter to be rulers over much。
  I may seem to exaggerate the advantages of such studies; but the
  question after all is one of experience:  and I have had experience
  enough and to spare that what I say is true。  I have seen the young
  man of fierce passions; and uncontrollable daring; expend healthily
  that energy which threatened daily to plunge him into recklessness;
  if not into sin; upon hunting out and collecting; through rock and
  bog; snow and tempest; every bird and egg of the neighbouring
  forest。  I have seen the cultivated man; craving for travel and for
  success in life; pent up in the drudgery of London work; and yet
  keeping his spirit calm; and perhaps his morals all the more
  righteous; by spending over his microscope evenings which would too
  probably have gradually been wasted at the theatre。  I have seen
  the young London beauty; amid all the excitement and temptation of
  luxury and flattery; with her heart pure and her mind occupied in a
  boudoir full of shells and fossils; flowers and sea…weeds; keeping
  herself unspotted from the world; by considering the lilies of the
  field; how they grow。  And therefore it is that I hail with
  thankfulness every fresh book of Natural History; as a fresh boon
  to the young; a fresh help to those who have to educate them。
  The greatest difficulty in the way of beginners is (as in most
  things) how 〃to learn the art of learning。〃  They go out; search;
  find less than they expected; and give the subject up in
  disappointment。  It is good to begin; therefore; if possible; by
  playing the part of 〃jackal〃 to some practised naturalist; who will
  show the tyro where to look; what to look for; and; moreover; what
  it is that he has found; often no easy matter to discover。  Forty
  years ago; during an autumn's work of dead…leaf…searching in the
  Devon woods for poor old Dr。 Turton; while he was writing his book
  on British land…shells; the present writer learnt more of the art
  of observing than he would have learnt in three years' desultory
  hunting on his own account; and he has often regretted that no
  naturalist has established shore…lectures at some watering…place;
  like those up hill and down dale field…lectures which; in pleasant
  bygone Cambridge days; Professor Sedgwick used to give to young
  geologists; and Professor Henslow to young botanists。
  In the meanwhile; to show you something of what may be seen by
  those who care to see; let me take you; in imagination; to a shore
  where I was once at home; and for whose richness I can vouch; and
  choose our season and our day to start forth; on some glorious
  September or October morning; to see what last night's equinoctial
  gale has swept from the populous shallows of Torbay; and cast up;
  high and dry; on Paignton sands。
  Torbay is a place which should be as much endeared to the
  naturalist as to the patriot and to the artist。  We cannot gaze on
  its blue ring of water; and the great limestone bluffs which bound
  it to the north and south; without a glow passing through our
  hearts; as we remember the terrible and glorious pagea