The debasing beliefs meant being simply those of Homer, David, and St. John[A]--as against a modern French gamin's. And what the results of the intended education of English gamins of every degree in that new higher theology will be, England is I suppose by this time beginning to discern.
In the last 'Fors'[B] which I have written, on education of a safer kind, still possible, one practical point is insisted on chiefly,--that learning by heart, and repetition with perfect accent and cultivated voice, should be made quite principal branches of school discipline up to the time of going to the university.
And of writings to be learned by heart, among other passages of indisputable philosophy and perfect poetry, I include certain chapters of the--now for the most part forgotten--wisdom of Solomon; and of these, there is one selected portion which I should recommend not only school-boys and girls, but persons of every age, if they don't know it, to learn forthwith, as the shortest summary of Solomon's wisdom;--namely, the seventeenth chapter of Proverbs, which being only twenty-eight verses long, may be fastened in the dullest memory at the rate of a verse a day in the shortest month of the year. Out of the twenty-eight verses, I will read you seven, for example of their tenor,--the last of the seven I will with your good leave dwell somewhat upon. You have heard the verses often before, but probably without remembering that they are all in this concentrated chapter.
1. Verse 1.--Better is a dry morsel, and quietness therewith, than a house full of good eating, with strife.
(Remember, in reading this verse, that though England has chosen the strife, and set every man's hand against his neighbor, her house is not yet so full of good eating as she expected, even though she gets half of her victuals from America.)
2. Verse 3.--The fining pot is for silver, the furnace for gold, but the Lord tries the heart.
(Notice the increasing strength of trial for the more precious thing: only the melting-pot for the silver--the fierce furnace for the gold--but the Fire of the Lord for the heart.)
3. Verse 4.--A wicked doer giveth heed to false lips.
(That means, for _you_, that, intending to live by usury and swindling, you read Mr. Adam Smith and Mr. Stuart Mill, and other such political economists.)