EDITORIAL OBSERVATIONS. 
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Nor must it be forgotten by you that, once a student, 
always a student; ever learning, and still to learn; and 
having put on the harness, you must never think of turning 
back in the day of battle, or you can never conquer. Some 
few of the secrets of nature, it may be, you will be privileged 
to discover and make known, but many more will for ever 
lie hidden in depths unfathomable by mortal ken. The 
arcana of Nature cannot be exhausted, nor all her mysteries 
explained, the curtain that enshrines them being impene¬ 
trable. This, however, is no barrier to investigation, but 
rather an incentive thereto. In early life we are apt to be 
struck with something that is to us new, and perhaps we 
may even boast of our powers of penetration, but we soon 
find it is only another aspect of a thing long before known; 
so that with Solomon we are constrained to agree, when he 
says, “ Is there anything whereof it may be said, See, this 
is new ? it hath been already of old time, which was before 
us.” At the most the wisest of us can only say, with Sir 
Isaac Newton, “ I have been only a little more fortunate 
than my fellows in selecting smoother pebbles on the shore 
of the ocean of truth.” 
As to your general comportment during the period allotted 
for the acquirement of knowledge, we have but little to 
advance, feeling assured that with the many your previous 
education will direct vou in a consistent course. An old 
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poet has somewhat quaintly said— 
“ Come wealth or want, come good or ill. 
Let young and old accept their part; 
And bow before the Awful Will, 
And bear it with an honest heart, 
Who misses or who wins the prize ; 
Go, lose, or conquer as you can; 
But, if you fall, or if you rise, 
Be each, pray God, a gentleman !” 
But this is not enough; there is moral as well as intel¬ 
lectual culture, and— 
“ If good we plant not, vice will fill the mind, 
And weeds despoil the place for flowers designed.” 
Moreover, a step once taken in the road of deviation from 
duty, leads to another and another, until the impetus gained 
