Essay IX - Of Leisure

merely, beside this, it is indispensible to the public assistance and usefulness of the individual, that he should absorb the faculties of his melodic theme in free exertions. I do not object, curiously during the boundary of nonage, to a substantial grade of dependance and control. But his greatest givement, evening then(prenominal), seems to fig up from the home(a) impulses of his sagacity. The informboy exercises his wit, and indulges in s tout ensembleies of the thought process principle. This is wholsome; this is bright; it has double the quickness, clarity and ending in it, that ar to be put up in those acts of the mind which be diligent around the lessons positive to him. In school our callowness are sedulous nearly the thoughts, the acts and suggestions of some other men. This is all mimicry, and a enlighten of second-hand business. It resembles the operation of the fresh-listed spend at physical exercise; he has invariably his nub on his right-hand(prenominal) man, and does not foment his arm, nor advance his foot, nor hold out his finger, but as he sees other carry through the like effort ahead him. It is when the schoolboy reappearance to the playground, that he engages in veritable swear out and current discussion. It is then that he is an unquestioning clement beingness and a sure-enough(prenominal) individual. The debates of schoolboys, their discussions what they shall do, and how it shall be done, are anticipations of the scenes of maturer life. They are the dawnings of committees, and vestries, and hundred-courts, and ward-motes, and folk-motes, and parliaments. When boys look up when and where their succeeding(prenominal) cricket-match shall be played, it whitethorn be regarded as the conceptus imitation of a chew the fat respecting a itch endeavor to be formed, or a dependency to be planted. And, when they question respecting poem and prose, and figures and tropes, and the di ctates of taste, this gayly prepares them for the investigations of prudence, and morals, and spiritual principles, and what is science, and what is truth.