62 On the Campus 



our accumulated wisdom ? What have we gained ? What 

 have we really received? 



In the first place, none of us, I think, will look back 

 over the years and attempt to find any complete answer 

 to such questions in tasks actually or perfunctorily ac- 

 complished. There are always students who find satis- 

 faction in the completion from day to day of lessons for- 

 mally assigned. I am not sure that they are wholly to 

 blame. I am reminded that teachers themselves some- 

 times seem to do the same thing. For admission to Har- 

 vard, for example, so many books, so many lines, so many 

 problems are required. Lessons are assigned and lessons 

 heard, not to say recited. Small wonder if sometimes 

 we estimate our finished work by such a scale ! It is like 

 climbing stairs. We count the number of treads in our 

 ascent, never heeding to what they lead, whether to new 

 prospect or new vision, or to vision of any sort at all. 



Now, of course this kind of work is all very necessary. 

 To reach a summit, stairs are exceedingly convenient 

 things. But in any case, how soon the stairway may be 

 forgotten; especially if we are to live upon the heights. 

 No doubt all work attempted in a school like this, has for 

 its object mastery, in so far, of the subjects we attempt. 

 If we expect to teach, of course we are expected also to 

 remember, at least, the principal facts and data of our 

 subjects. We can never expect to enjoy our rightful 

 influence in our work, or really to count for the most in 

 this world, unless we are recognized as authority in some- 

 thing, somewhere. 



And yet, in all that we have done, we are, I hope, per- 

 fectly aware that our great gain is not in fact and datum, 



