AND SUBORDINATION. 71 



the results of this inequality of natural gift in a common school, 

 where all are placed in the same circumstances and on an equal 

 footing. What a remarkable difference in the aptness of boys 

 for particular branches of study! With what rapidity and 

 apparent ease some get through the tasks allotted them ! How 

 slow and wearisome the progress made by others ! Undoubtedly, 

 the diligent and attentive student is generally, at the end of the 

 term, the most advanced in his class. But even in a well regu- 

 lated school, where industrious habits are carefully cultivated, 

 where the strictest discipline is rigidly enforced, and where 

 all are not only expected but actually made to study, there is 

 the same variety in the natural capacities of the scholars the 

 same striking diversity in their intellectual progress. When 

 reference is made to the standing of each at the commencement 

 and then at the close of the Session, some boys have got far 

 ahead of the others in the same branch, notwithstanding those 

 who have had the misfortune to fall back in their class, have 

 not unfrequently received the greatest share of the time and 

 attention of their teacher. Thus, notwithstanding the oft-cited 

 saying of Euclid, " There is no royal road to learning," it is 

 undeniable that there is such a thing as an innate or natural 

 intellectual and moral superiority of capacity possessed by one 

 man over another. 



Now what takes place in a school, in a small way, is only 

 carried out on a grander scale in the great school of the world. 

 But here, from the commencement, the most talented are usually 

 the least favored by fortune. They enter on the active duties 

 of life under great pecuniary disadvantages; but superior 

 ability and energy will assuredly, sooner or later, give them 

 pre-eminence. It is not long that the contest remains doubt- 

 ful. Nothing can withstand their onward progress. In vain 

 you try to keep them down. As well might a fly attempt to stop 

 the advance of the mail-train from Washington. Enterprising 

 business men soon learn to know and esteem each other. There 

 is a congeniality of disposition which inspires mutual confidence. 

 It is then that capital combines with capital. Contracts are 

 made, and the most extensive public works are executed. 

 Banking establishments are carried on all over the country ; 



