THE OLD BUCKET. 43 



We may have seen such an old bucket thrown neglected on the 

 ground — its timber warped by the sun — the seams gaping open — the 

 hoops loosened and just ready to fall olF: so that in ordinary times wc 

 should hardly stoop to pick it from the ground. Now, imagine your- 

 self thrown beside a well in a thirsty desert. Parched and weary, you 

 look around for something in which you may draw water, to allay your 

 thirst. No suitable vessel is at hand. You begin to murmur — almost 

 to despair. Suddenly however, you espy at a distance a crazy old buck- 

 et, such as I have just been describing, and you attempt to use it. At 

 first, the cool clear element drips through it as from the seivc of Tan- 

 talus — and when it reaches tlie top of the well, it is entirely empty, or 

 just moist enough to increase your thirst ! 



Shall you at once despair } Will yot fling away the old bucket be- 

 cause it is not all that it might have been .'' Be very cautious ! Every- 

 thing may depend on another eflbrl ' At the second trial, you are en- 

 couraged to try again. You persevere. At each repetition, tjie scams 

 are swollen together — the cracks diminish — the hoops tighten — and fi- 

 nally you are able, with so poor an aid, to quaff delicious water from 

 the bottorh of the well ! 



The application of this illustration must be obvious.. Some of you 

 may store learning in golden vessels — others in those of brass or of iron 

 — but no one is so utterly destitute, as not to have at least '' the old oak- 

 en bucket." In our first attempts to learn, the mind may have so little 

 power of retention, that knowledge will escape from it as from the 

 chinks of a leaky vessel ; but if we continue to pour in daily a fresh 

 supply, the capacity to retain will improve more and more the oftener 

 and the more severely you task it. 



For my own part, I think that every boy is an object of the deepest 

 interest; for the simple reason, that no one can tell what he may be 

 hereafter. We are apt to imagine that it would have been very delight- 

 ful to have talked with Milton, or Shakspeare, or Walter Scott, in the 

 days of their boyhood ; for we cannot help believing (if not that a lu- 

 minous halo played around their foreheads) that at least some strong in- 

 dication of their future glory must have distinguished them in early 

 years. Byt their biographies indicate rather the revei'se ; and it is high- 

 ly probable, that, if we cAuld have visited the schools in which those 

 men were educated, and had been permitted to select from the crowd 

 those youths whose appearance and conduct gave the surest promise of 

 greatness, we might have chosen one who was destinicd to make the 

 keen attorney or the shrewd man of business, and entirely overlooked. 



