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Untitled Article
Then , ^ boy , they say that which is untrue . A larger portion of them may perhaps he able to read and write than among English or Irish , but that is not education ; it is no proof either of good moral or physical training . The poverty alone is sufficient proof of the
absence of education . No educated people , i . e . no people whose judgment were duly trained and ripened , would remain poor . There might be individual examples of poverty , but not national ones . But , father , is it not said that it is a good thing to be brought up hardily ?
There is a distinction to be made , boy . To be brought up hardily is good ; to be brought up in hardships is evil , because misery begets selfishness . This it is which has given a peculiar character to the Scottish people of the poorer classes . Here and there finer natures than ordinary burst through the evils unscathed , and retain their excellence * , but it is a fearful ordeal they pass through , and is mostly fatal to the growth of beneficence , as well as to physical beauty . Father , do you . remember the Scotch colonists at *** ***** ?
Perfectly , boy , and the pain I felt at witnessing their daily degradation by intoxication . What very ugly people they were , and how filthy in their habits And then their voices ; they sounded harsh in mine ears as the groaning of the marsh frogs . I did not understand their speech , but the tones were far more coarse than the deep guttural notes of the Pampas Indians . There was nothing musical about them ; and when I spoke to them in Spanish , they looked cross at me , and afterwards
made signs for something to drink . The Gauchos of the Pampas were quite handsome people when compared with them , both men and women . Their faces were smooth and plump , though dark coloured ; but the faces of the . Scotch were white and freckled , like the leprosy I have read of ; and they were wrinkled ; and their eyes were like those of cats , and altogether I could not look on them with pleasure . The first time I was ever looked crossly at , it was by those people . The Spanish people were always kind to me , and their voices were musical , and they answered all my questions cheerfully .
Thou vvert surprised by the contrast , boy ; and the want of language to communicate with them aided the painful feeling . But in truth thy disposition lacks love to those who do not cheerfull y answer thy questions . Yet in the case of those Scotch colonists thy perceptions were true . Their language and their ideas were as coarse as their
voice ? , and altogether they were worthless people . They were drunken , idle , and filthy , with scarcely an exception . They had no recognition of moral worth . Having * eaten food without labour , bestowed by the inhabitants of a plentiful land , they had learned to be shameless beggars , regarding industry as a thing fit only for a negro . And all this was the result of the extreme poverty and hardship in
which they had been brought up . Having never experienced the comforts which the possession of property can bestow , they cared for nothing but sensual excitement , and that of the coarsest kind . Consequently , when they reached a plentiful land their excitement became almost frantic , like the hunger of starving men after long abstinence from food .
Untitled Article
764 Juvenile Lessons .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Nov. 2, 1833, page 764, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2626/page/32/
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