782 
MR. MAYKll’S ORATION. 
selves competent to preserve your proper station in society, with 
great advantage to yourselves and those who employ you. 
Do not, however, suppose that, in thus recommending you to 
store up the knowledge, opinions, and ideas of others, I wish you 
to adopt them without examination : certainly not. You must 
pass them into the circulation of your own thoughts, test them 
by your own experience, and apply them to practical use. If you 
suffer the knowledge you have obtained from your books to rest 
upon the memory as it came there, it might as well, for any prac- 
tical purpose, have remained upon your shelves, to be taken down 
as occasion might demand. The food we take into the stomach 
will contribute nothing to our nourishment, health, and strength, 
unless it is digested, and, passing into the different regions of the 
body, becomes a part of ourselves. Without this process and 
distribution it is rather a weight upon the organs of life, an op- 
pression upon the elasticity of the system. So it is with learning 
remaining on the memory in the crude masses in which it was 
received. Reflection is the digestive power of the mind. By 
this we prove what we have read and heard— we separate it into 
various parts — we modify conclusions that are too strong — we 
narrow principles that are too universal, and extend to new 
objects and relations those that are too much restricted. We 
select and retain what is good and valuable, and reject the un- 
sound and unprofitable. We thus extract all its nutritious juices 
from that which we have learned from others, and we strengthen 
and enrich the soil of our own intellect, making it capable, in 
return, of producing fruit and food for others. 
Another evil consequence of depending wholly on authority 
for our opinions on all subjects, and shrinking from the use of our 
own understanding, is, that we remain in a mental bondage, a 
helpless childhood all our lives, becoming, indeed, more timid 
and servile than children. Therefore, reflect and meditate upon 
all you read and see; for although reading may make a plausi- 
ble man, it is reflection and meditation that create the substan- 
tial riches of the mind, and constitute a well-read and a wise man. 
Think not, when you have obtained your diploma, that the 
race is won. The most difficult part of your career in life is only 
commencing. A diploma is only an entry — if I may use a sport- 
ing phrase — into the racing calendar of life. You form one among 
the list of competitors for the prize to be won. You have, indeed, 
rasping work often before you — a great deal to try the metal you 
are made of ; but by industrious, sober habits, great vigilance 
and much patience and perseverance, all obstacles will gradually 
vanish before you, and success will crown your efforts. Perhaps 
