38 EDUCATION 



lays the foundation, and it is each one's duty to erect upon it the 

 noblest possible structure. 



Education is not merely or chiefly a scholastic affair, it is a life- 

 work, to be carried on with unwearying patience until death bids 

 us cease or introduces us into a world of diviner opportunities. The 

 wise and the good are they who grow old still learning many things, 

 entering day by day into more vital communion with truth, beauty, 

 and righteousness, gaining more and more complete initiation into 

 the life of the purest, noblest, and strongest who have thought, loved, 

 and accomplished. Self-education, as a life-duty, rests on the idea 

 that personal worth is the measure of all values and the indispensable 

 condition of genuine success; on the conviction that whatever a man 

 may think or do or suffer is to be considered good or evil as it in- 

 creases or diminishes his personal worth. It is indeed the ideal of 

 philosophers and saints rather than that of men engaged in the 

 ordinary business of the world. It may, nevertheless, and doubtless 

 does help to raise the thoughts and aspirations of many above the 

 ordinary demands of their occupations or professions, and so to 

 stimulate them to strive not merely to gain a livelihood or a reputa- 

 tion, but to live in the mind, in the conscience, in the heart, and in 

 the imagination. It may lead them to reflect on the common ways 

 of men and to gain insight into the fact that their failure to continue 

 to cultivate and improve themselves, when they have quit school, is 

 due not so much to want of time and opportunity as to lack of will 

 and energy. It is the result of the natural disinclination to make 

 effort, to foster interest in knowledge and virtue simply because it is 

 good to know and to be true and strong; of the tediousness of cease- 

 lessly trying to surpass one's self, to know one's self, to refine taste, 

 to purify affection, to control desire, to see things as they are, to 

 judge not by opinion, but by evidence; to turn from present enjoy- 

 ment in the hope of winning higher capacity to enjoy, to prefer the 

 society of the immortal minds who live in books to games and gossip. 



It is so much easier to run after pleasure, to labor to get riches or 

 position than to devote one's self first to the upbuilding of one's own 

 being, not doubting but whatever else may be needful shall be had, 

 that it is hardly to be expected that the ideal of culture and pure 

 religion shall strongl}' appeal to the many. A man's real world, 

 nevertheless, the world in which he lives nobly or miserably, is not 

 that which lies round about him, but that which he creates and 

 fashions within his soul. He may wear a beggar's rags, be a slave, 

 an outcast, a prisoner, and yet, in virtue of the truth and love which 

 are the substance of his being, excel in worth and dignity, as in the 

 affection and reverence of the wisest and best, the favorites of fortune 

 and the children of success; and it is this ideal that must be made to 

 gleam along the path of the young, to throw its heavenly light about 



