﻿DO YOU ATTEND SCHOOL ? 57 



improve your time as though it were, as it really is, passing away? 

 Ah ! that is, after all, the momentous question. You undoubtedly 

 look upon the matter very much as your fathers and mothers, 

 grandfathers and grandmothers, did ; as being at times a very 

 irksome and unpleasant task, to sit still for hours together, and add 

 up long columns of figures, and puzzle your heads about a " hard 

 sum." You are, perhaps, thinking all the while of that smooth, 

 glare piece of ice, that you passed in coming to school, and that 

 your skates are in first-rate order. Well, this is all very natural. 

 The fact is, you cannot see the full value of knowledge until you 

 have become men and women, and then it is too late to recover lost 

 time. No regrets, however sincere, can call back a single misspent 

 day. Your time will then be occupied with the concerns of life in 

 a great degree, and you will then see, as all grown people see, that 

 youth is the time for improvement. 



Tom Tiger told me a very interesting anecdote the other night, 

 and as it illustrates in a degree what I want to impress on your 

 minds, I will relate it. Two travellers once met in front of a tavern 

 in England, before which there hung an enormous pictured sign, 

 upon each side of which there was a different design. " Come," 

 says one, " let us go into ' The Lion,' and have some ale." " Very 

 well," says the other, " I will drink with you, but you are very much 

 mistaken in calling it ' The Lion,' for it is a unicorn that is painted 

 on the sign." " No," says the first, " it is a lion." Well, one 

 word brought on another, until they finally fell to blows, and it was 

 not until each had given the other a good drubbing, that the land- 

 lord succeeded in separating them. Upon learning the cause of 

 their quarrel, he burst into a loud laugh, (as well he might,) and 

 informed them that there was a lion on one side and a unicorn on 

 the other. Now, as you are young, you cannot see but one side of 

 the sign. I am old. I have seen both sides. When I was young, 

 I often felt it very irksome to study, and I have wondered what the 

 use of it could be. I did study, however, because those who were 

 older than myself advised me to ; or, in other words, because my 

 father told me what there was on the other side of the sign. Now 

 I see the use of knowledge, and if I can but persuade you to be dil- 

 igent while you are young, I shall be sure of receiving your thanks 



