LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 
 
 Ohai), Copyright So. 
 
 Slielf.,:B.-T 
 
 -J— 
 
 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 
 
WORK AND PLAY 
 
 TALKS WITH STUDENTS 
 
 BY 
 / 
 
 JOHN E. BRADLEY, PH. D., LL. D., 
 
 President of Illinois College 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 tlbe pilgrim ipress 
 
 CHICAGO 
 
12398 
 
 Library of Concjrert>- 
 
 Two Copies Received 
 JUN 29 19G0 
 
 Copyright entry 
 No 
 
 SECOND COPY. 
 
 Deliverwl to 
 
 OROER DIVISION, 
 
 
 Copyright, 1900, by 
 J. H. TEWKSBURY 
 
^0 m^ wife, 
 
 WHOSE ENTHUSIASM AND HELPFULNESS HAVE 
 
 ENRICHED THE LIVES OF MANY STUDENTS 
 
 AND INSPIRED ALL THAT WAS BEST IN 
 
 MY OWN, THIS LITTLE BOOK IS 
 
 AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED. 
 

 CONTENTS 
 
 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. 
 
 Student Life 
 
 
 I 
 
 II. 
 
 Intellectual Growth . 
 
 
 19 
 
 III. 
 
 Work . . . . 
 
 
 35 
 
 IV. 
 
 Play . . . . 
 
 
 49 
 
 V. 
 
 Health . . . . 
 
 
 ^3 
 
 VI. 
 
 Habit . . . . 
 
 
 81 
 
 VII. 
 
 The Cost of Foundatic 
 
 )NS 
 
 lOI 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Unconscious Education 
 
 
 121 
 
 IX. 
 
 Reserve Power 
 
 
 ■ 139 
 
 X. 
 
 The Scholar in Public 
 
 Life 
 
 ' 157 
 
 XI. 
 
 Castles in Spain 
 
 . 
 
 175 
 
 XII. 
 
 What is Education .? 
 
 
 193 
 
These familiar addresses were first given to the stu- 
 dents of Illinois College. They were reported, and, 
 most of them, first published in the College Rambler. 
 After revision, they are now given to the larger public 
 who are interested in student life and student aims. 
 
 J. E. B. 
 
 December, 1899. 
 
STUDENT LIFE 
 
Measure your 77iind''s height by the shade it casts. 
 
 Robert Browning. 
 
 The college, appealing immediately to the ?nental 
 part, is yet to train every part. It is doing its 
 duty only when it causes man to regulate appetite, 
 to crush passion^ to guide desires, to quicken affec- 
 tions, to prevent wrong, and to stiinulate right 
 
 choices. 
 
 President C. F. Thwing. 
 
STUDENT LIFE 
 
 OTUDENT life presents many phases. 
 Its special characteristics are strongly 
 marked. An outside observer, misled by 
 that which is most obtrusive, thinks of its 
 gayety and its pranks, the noise and 
 excitement which attend its intercolle- 
 giate games, its festivities, and, perhaps, 
 its mistakes. Those who are familiar 
 with it, looking beneath its frolics and 
 ebullitions, find a more serious side, rich 
 with ambition and earnestness, but check- 
 ered with doubts and misgivings. Hopes 
 and fears, triumphs and defeats, are close- 
 ly mingled on every college campus. 
 
 Some of you are already familiar with 
 the scenes of student life ; to others its 
 experiences and its episodes will be com- 
 paratively new. Such students may have 
 come here with mistaken conceptions. 
 
4 Work and Play 
 
 They have heard the stories which are 
 told in every community of college 
 excitements, college rallies, college 
 ** events," and these things have an un- 
 due prominence in their ideas of student 
 life. Let us understand, then, at the out- 
 set that, in the college as in the outside 
 world, industry and good habits attract 
 little attention, while idleness, escapades, 
 and every act which would fain be con- 
 cealed have a wonderful facility of getting 
 themselves reported. 
 
 If our o-reat business here is not faith- 
 ful and thorough work, we might as 
 well pack our trunks and go home, and 
 the college would better close its doors. 
 But this kind of work is not published. 
 It goes on unnoticed. It does not create 
 a sudden disturbance and then mysteri- 
 ously disappear around the corner. It 
 joins in no rushes. It blows no horns, it 
 rings no bells. But it is the principal 
 factor in college life. It fills the time 
 and engages the energies of most of us. 
 
Student Life 5 
 
 It develops mental power and transforms 
 character, but, like the great forces of 
 nature, it usually works silently and un- 
 observed. College life is not peculiar in 
 this respect. The same fact holds in 
 society at large. The manifold indus- 
 tries of a city or village roll on unnoticed ; 
 but let some scandalous event occur and 
 it quickly seems to be upon every lip. 
 The daily papers report it, the telegraph 
 spreads it abroad. But they have noth- 
 ing to say concerning the upright men 
 and women who go steadily about their 
 own business. 
 
 A generation ago, college students had 
 a wretched habit of expending their sur- 
 plus energies in tearing up sidewalks, 
 unhanging gates, carrying off signs and 
 other dubious midnight performances. 
 You have heard men relate, with a touch 
 of glee and a touch of shame, the ex- 
 ploits and the disgraces of their own 
 college days. That these things should 
 have so largely ceased is due, perhaps. 
 
6 Work and Play 
 
 to the development of athletics and the 
 introduction of the gymnasium. Vent is 
 thus given to the exuberant vitality of 
 youth and the way has thus been pre- 
 pared for the more wholesome and manly 
 sentiments which now prevail in most 
 colleges concerning such disorders and 
 riot. We welcome the change and would 
 gladly make it complete and permanent. 
 So let us not mistake that which is excep- 
 tional, that which is trivial, or that which 
 is unworthy for the main business which 
 we have in hand. And let us all unite 
 in a common purpose and an earnest 
 endeavor to make our own lives and the 
 general life of the college clean, manly 
 and industrious. 
 
 You who have come to college are 
 picked men. You have been selected 
 for leadership. You can be prepared 
 for the unusual opportunities and respon- 
 sibilities which await you only by faith- 
 ful work. Your time is too valuable to 
 be squandered in loafing or frivolity. 
 
Student Life 7 
 
 You need it for your daily work and you 
 will find it none too long to make sure 
 that your friends will not be disappointed 
 in the great ends which have brought 
 you here. The college boy becomes a 
 man, not before but during his student 
 days. The fiber and the stamina of his 
 future years depend on the grit and self- 
 control which he throws into his college 
 life. He will meet new temptations, but 
 the same prudence and restraint which he 
 has learned by practice at home will keep 
 him upright and safe from wrong here. 
 
 One of the diflferences between the col- 
 lege life of to-day and that of former 
 times consists in the greater freedom 
 which is now given to students. You 
 have been amused at the codes of minute 
 college laws which used to be published. 
 But the present freedom of students con- 
 sists not merely in release from surveil- 
 lance, in determining so largely for 
 themselves how they will pass their time, 
 what their interests and who their asso- 
 
8 Work and Play 
 
 ciates shall be, and numerous details 
 relating to their personal conduct, but 
 also in the choice of subjects of study 
 and in forming opinions on'moral social 
 and religious subjects. 
 
 When students entered college a gen- 
 eration ago, they found a course of study 
 prescribed for them which gave no op- 
 portunity for selection of studies, and 
 which consisted principally of those 
 branches that were believed to possess 
 the highest disciplinary value. The 
 classics and mathematics were held to 
 be nearly all that preparatory schools 
 and colleges needed to teach. The 
 analysis of words, the construction of 
 sentences in their minor shades of differ- 
 ence, and wrestling with intricate prob- 
 lems were considered the true work of 
 the student. By these things his accu- 
 racy of thought, strength of reasoning, 
 fairness of judgment and keenness of 
 insight would be developed. 
 
 Let us not undervalue what the col- 
 
Student Life 9 
 
 lege did for its students thirty or forty 
 years ago. It laid firm hold of the great 
 truth that intellectual strength is better 
 than mere acquisitions. It inculcated it 
 with every lesson. But there are other 
 important things. While discipline is a 
 fundamental purpose in education, it is 
 intimately related to certain subordinate 
 ends which must not be overlooked. The 
 mind, like the body, grows strong by vig- 
 orous exercise. In the gymnasium you 
 raise the vaulting bar inch by inch to 
 train yourself to jump as high as you 
 can. Intellectual strength comes not so 
 much by a dull routine as by intense and 
 earnest effort. As far as possible we 
 should be interested in what we study ; 
 we should see its relation and its uses. 
 The knowledge to be gained should be 
 such as will be devoured with avidity. 
 Hence the value of the elective system 
 of studies which is now, in one form or 
 another, incorporated into the work of all 
 American colleges. 
 
lo Work and Play 
 
 Form the habit of interesting your- 
 selves thoroughly in your work. Cuvier, 
 when a student, was one day walking 
 along the beach in his native Normandy 
 when he observed a cuttlefish lying 
 stranded on a hillock of sand. Attracted 
 by the curious object, he took it home to 
 dissect, working for weeks upon it, and 
 thus began the study of mollusks which 
 ended in his becoming the most eminent 
 scientist of his day. Hugh Miller's curi- 
 osity was excited by certain remarkable 
 traces of extinct sea-animals in the old 
 red sandstone. He studied, investiga- 
 ted, and became a leader of scientific 
 thought. It was necessity, he said, 
 which made him a geologist. He could 
 not stop studying. How readily and 
 how completely was the interest of these 
 men aroused ! Dr. Johnson defined a 
 genius to be *'a man of large general 
 powers accidentally determined in some 
 particular direction." Students do their 
 best work when they are interested. 
 
Student Life 1 1 
 
 Their improvement depends not on their 
 ability but on their effort. So be in 
 earnest; throw vitality into your work. 
 And while you thus gain strengdi and 
 alertness of intellect, you will acquire 
 and assimilate much that you will here- 
 after be glad to know. You will not be 
 ** ever learning, and never able to come 
 to the knowledge of the truth ;" you will 
 see facts and laws in their relations and 
 weave them unconsciously into your hab- 
 its of thought. Such study will send you 
 to the library and 3'ou will read, as you 
 ought, with a purpose. The true love of 
 reading, if not acquired in youth, is sel- 
 dom gained at all. If the object of edu- 
 cation is to make men and women cul- 
 tured, it surely involves the copious 
 reading of books and reading with real 
 interest. And we may rest assured that 
 while the great ends of mental discipline 
 are thus incidentally attained, the treas- 
 ures of knowledge, of sympathies and 
 interests, thus secured, will prove of in- 
 
12 Work and Play 
 
 estimable value. Is there any true man 
 who does not rejoice for all he knows 
 and wish that he knew more? How 
 many there are who wish that they had 
 learned more in youthful hours which 
 were wasted in idleness or misdirection ! 
 But let us not carry our elective sys- 
 tem too far. There are students who 
 seem to stretch it from studies to life. 
 They elect not only what they will do but 
 also when they will work. As they always 
 try to elect the easiest subjects and seldom 
 elect to work, they get very little out of 
 their student life, and it is apt to come to 
 a premature end. Extreme cases of this 
 kind are, fortunately, rare ; but a tinc- 
 ture of this weakness pervades the lives 
 of too many. Let every true student 
 make sure that he selects his studies be- 
 cause he values them, not because they 
 are easy ; and let him prove that he can 
 work not only because he is attracted by 
 the subject but also because it is his duty 
 to work. College life ought to train 
 
Student Life 13 
 
 him to buckle down to a disagreeable 
 job, to stick to it till it is finished ; to 
 distrust cleverness and put his faith in 
 industry and earnestness. Let the stu- 
 dent elect this course or that course, but 
 let his work be vital. The college is made 
 up of youth of superabounding life ; let 
 their work illustrate and embody it. The 
 atmosphere of college work, no less thar 
 of college play, should be life, life ! 
 
 College students may be divided into 
 four groups. The first consists of men 
 without intellectual aspiration and with- 
 out positive convictions or purpose. 
 They drift with the tide. They " cram 
 to pass, they *' crib " to pass ; their only 
 ambition is to get through. What little 
 moral influence they have is bad. 
 
 The second group is the middle class 
 intellectually, morally and socially. 
 They are not without self-respect and 
 ambition, but their aims are low and 
 their w^ork is commonplace. They would 
 gladly stand high as students and as 
 
14 Work and Play 
 
 men, but their interest is weak and fickle. 
 They do not often rouse themselves to 
 earnest work. 
 
 The third group consists of men who 
 toil with fidelity and often with painstak- 
 ing assiduity. They rank high in schol- 
 arship and are regular at all college 
 exercises. No one can speak of them 
 but with respect. Their failure is in not 
 reflecting on what they learn and the 
 lack of an absorbing interest. History 
 is to them only history, literature is only 
 literature ; the lessons in character and 
 life which these teach are overlooked. 
 
 The fourth class is also made up of 
 earnest workers. But, while they may 
 not surpass all others in intellectual en- 
 dowments nor in exact scholarship, they 
 are distinguished from them by broad 
 sympathies and an enthusiasm which 
 vastly enrich their work. They seek 
 knowledge, definite and exact informa- 
 tion. The effort to obtain it not only 
 yields mental discipline, but they work 
 
Student Life 15 
 
 with minds so open to truth in its com- 
 pleteness and in its relations that they 
 gain not merely information, learning, 
 intellectual strength, but also that higher 
 grace and power — culture. 
 
 When Professor Tyndall was asked to 
 name the formative influence which had 
 been strongest in shaping his life, he 
 quoted Nelson's appeal to his men just 
 before the batde of Trafalgar — ''Eng- 
 land expects every man to do his duty " — 
 and said that the thought of duty had out- 
 weighed all other motives in determining 
 the work of his life. He could do what 
 he believed he ought to do. No education 
 is complete which does not teach one to 
 be loyal to his convictions — obedient to 
 the voice of duty. Religion cannot be 
 taught ; it is a matter of personal choice 
 and experience. But the persuasions to 
 a religious life, " the forces which make 
 for righteousness," are nowhere stronger 
 than in the Christian college. The stu- 
 dent who neglects these claims makes a 
 
1 6 Work and Play 
 
 lifelong mistake, and he who fails to 
 become a factor in the religious life of 
 the college loses an immeasurable oppor- 
 tunity. Moreover, if a man would see 
 his life in all its possibilities, he must go 
 up into the mountains of spiritual thought 
 as Christ went up into the mountain alone 
 to pray. He must take time to reflect, 
 in prayerful recognition, upon his sacred 
 importance and responsibility as a man. 
 Metaphorically he may be '' a worm," 
 but literally he is an immortal soul, cre- 
 ated in the image of God and given 
 boundless scope for growth and the ex- 
 ercise of his godlike powers. What 
 young man can really understand him- 
 self and his relations to his fellow men 
 and not be lifted above base and unwor- 
 thy things? When he thus sees the true 
 significance of his life will he not strive 
 to make the most of it? Will he not 
 realize his best self? 
 
 As one advances in his college course 
 he is apt to lind his judgment changing 
 
Student Life 17 
 
 concerning many things. His estimate 
 of men is different. The idols of his 
 freshman year gradually sink into insig- 
 nificance ; more mature reflection raises 
 to first place men whose modest worth he 
 had formerly overlooked. His clearer 
 judgment and wider horizon give him 
 better ideals of manhood and of culture 
 than he had before. With this higher 
 conception of what a true man should be, 
 comes a vital question : Does his improve- 
 ment keep pace with his ideal ? Is he sat- 
 isfied with less than the best he can do? 
 
 Character is cumulative. George Eliot 
 says: '* We reiterate our lives in each 
 new deed." 
 
 " I looked behind to find my past 
 And lo ! it had gone before." 
 
 Fortunate is the man whose youth, 
 wisely spent, has become for him a life- 
 long spring of health and power. He 
 will carry with him, amid life's burdens, 
 the enthusiasm and the gladness of the 
 true student. 
 3 
 
II 
 
 INTELLECTUAL GROWTH 
 
In life's small tkhigs be resolute and great 
 
 To keep thy muscle trained; know 'st thou ivhen 
 
 Fate 
 Thy measure takes, or when she ''II say to thee, 
 ' I fi7id thee worthy ; do this deed for fne P " 
 
 J. R. Lowell. 
 
 " I would the s^reat world grew like thee. 
 Who growest not alotie in power 
 And knowledge, but by year and hour, 
 In reverence and in charity y 
 
 Alfred Tennyson. 
 
II 
 
 INTELLECTUAL GROWTH 
 
 T WISH to take a few minutes this morn- 
 ing to talk familiarly with you con- 
 cerning some of the conditions of intellec- 
 tual and moral growth. Students often fail 
 to receive the full benefit of their study 
 and instruction because they do not know 
 how to co-operate most effectively with 
 their teachers in efforts for their own im- 
 provement. There is no lack of willing- 
 ness on their part — no lack of fidelity 
 and skill on the part of their teachers, 
 but simply a failure to put themselves in 
 the position to receive the stimulus and 
 mental uplift which might be obtained. 
 
 We have all observed the difference in 
 the intellectual progress of different stu- 
 dents. One seems to grasp every subject 
 with ease and certainty. His classmates 
 point to him with pride. If we meet 
 
22 Work and Play 
 
 him after an interval of a few months 
 we are impressed with his intellectual 
 growth. Another makes little progress 
 and becomes a hard problem to himself 
 and his friends and especially to his 
 teachers. 
 
 Now it is generally true that a student's 
 advancement will be in proportion to his 
 dihgence in study, and this is what we 
 naturally expect. But it was not so in 
 the case of General Grant, it was not so 
 in the case of Henry Ward Beecher. 
 And there have always been enough 
 instances of successful men who were 
 poor students to keep some excellent 
 people busy explaining and to afford 
 great comfort to lazy and conceited stu- 
 dents who want the rewards of hard 
 work without being willing to do the 
 work. In this college we have an ad- 
 vantaore over some institutions in that 
 nearly all who are here have come with 
 a desire and a distinct purpose to im- 
 prove. There are schools in which other 
 
Intellectual Growth 23 
 
 considerations prevail more largely, in- 
 stitutions whose students have little ap- 
 preciation of the value of a college train- 
 ing. There are classes of people in 
 every large community who have no 
 aspiration for mental or moral improve- 
 ment. Their feeling towards all that is 
 above them is one of envy and hate, with 
 no ambition to attain to excellence them- 
 selves. Thus the philanthropic workers 
 who are carrying on the Hull House and 
 other social and college settlements in 
 Chicago and New York find their first 
 and most difficult duty to be that of in- 
 spiring in the minds of those among 
 whom they labor a desire for something 
 better and a willingness to strive for its 
 attainment. A college boy without am- 
 bition is a discouraging subject for his 
 instructor. If he cannot become inter- 
 ested in his work, he might as well give 
 it up. 
 
 If, then, we desire to grow, let us try 
 and apprehend clearly the conditions 
 
24 Work and Play 
 
 and the means of growth. We shall 
 thus be able to work intelligently to 
 secure the desired end. 
 
 There are certain processes of devel- 
 opment which go on in us unconsciously. 
 This passive growth is no more credit 
 to us than our increase of stature or of 
 avoirdupois. It probably never raises a 
 person above mediocrity. The growth 
 which leads to real excellence is always 
 accompanied with conscious effort. 
 Great men do not become such by idly 
 waiting and wishing. There is much in 
 heredity, but there is more in education 
 and environment. No blood was ever 
 blue enough to make a man eminent 
 except as he himself strove to attain 
 eminence. 
 
 Intellectual growth requires, first, a 
 consciousness of one's need of growth, 
 and, second, a consciousness of one's 
 capacity for growth. There are some 
 people who feel no need of improvement ; 
 they are self-complacent in the belief that 
 
Intellectual Growth 25 
 
 they are great already. And there are 
 multitudes whose sluggish and benighted 
 minds never discover their own igno- 
 rance and feebleness. It is only as one 
 realizes his need that we can hope for 
 his improvement. One of the most sal- 
 utary processes which certain students 
 undergo at the hands of their fellows is 
 to have the conceit taken out of them. 
 While the methods by wdiich this is 
 accomplished cannot always be com- 
 mended, and while we pity the victim, 
 just as we would if he were having a 
 bad tooth extracted, we are glad to have 
 him cured of a disease which is worse 
 than the toothache. 
 
 But many who are conscious of their 
 need distrust their capacity for growth. 
 Faith in ourselves, in the capacity of our 
 faculties to respond to the demands which 
 will be made upon them, is no less essen- 
 tial than the consciousness of our need 
 of improvement. History abounds in 
 inspiring examples of men who have 
 
26 Work and Play 
 
 risen to eminence in spite of personal dis- 
 advantages. When Beaconsfield, stam- 
 mering through his first parliamentary 
 argument, was at length coughed down 
 by his jeering audience and compelled 
 to take his seat, he exclaimed : " I yield 
 to your ridicule to-day, but the time shall 
 come when you will be glad to listen to 
 me." If we may believe the stories 
 which have been handed down to us, 
 Demosthenes was accustomed for years 
 to recite poems and orations as he ran 
 up hill and to declaim in the face of the 
 winds and the waves that he might 
 strengthen his voice and lungs and 
 overcome natural defects in his speech. 
 It is safe to assert that no one ever at- 
 tained to superiority who could not *' screw 
 his courage to the sticking-point." We 
 develop our powers by overcoming the 
 difficulties which confront us. The solu- 
 tion of a difficult problem in mathematics, 
 the first participation in a society debate, 
 the successful dash in a football game, all 
 
Intellectual Growth 27 
 
 test and develop an ability to accomplish 
 a purpose. "All progress," says von 
 Ranke, the German historian, *' whether 
 of individuals or of nations, has been 
 through conflict." 
 
 A symmetrical character implies an 
 even balance between self-confidence 
 and modesty. An excess of either is a 
 serious, often a fatal, barrier to success. 
 He who is over-confident gives offense 
 by his arrogance and neglects the pre- 
 paration necessary to successful perform- 
 ance. He who is self-distrustful cannot 
 rouse his powers to their fullest exertion, 
 magnifies the obstacles in his way and 
 yields to difficulties which might be over- 
 come. Henry Clay was content to be 
 a grocer's clerk until he was suddenly 
 awakened by a strange personal experi- 
 ence to the possibilities which lay slum- 
 berincr within him. Then he roused 
 himself and determined to surmount 
 every obstacle. 
 
 The true means of intellectual and 
 
28 Work and Play 
 
 moral growth is, then, vigorous effort 
 towards a definite end. A clear aim and 
 an earnest purpose must go hand in hand. 
 A certain half-truth current nowadays 
 declares that *' we learn to do by doing," 
 and there is an old maxim which says 
 that practice makes perfect. But it de- 
 pends on the kind of practice whether it 
 makes perfect or not. We do not always 
 learn to do by doing. You have seen 
 pages of school-boys' copy-books where 
 every line grew poorer from the top to 
 the bottom of the page. Sometimes 
 practice results in listlessness, sometimes 
 in celerity rather than in good work. 
 There are men whose business requires 
 them to sign their name so often and so 
 rapidly that their signature is almost 
 illegible. We find many persons who 
 have done one thing so long that they do 
 it poorly. They take little interest in 
 their work and it becomes a dull routine. 
 Mere repetition makes men mechanical 
 rather than skilful. Practice makes 
 
Intellectual Growth 29 
 
 perfect when there is a definite aim. We 
 must clearly apprehend the exact thing 
 to be done ; we must muster our energies 
 to do it most effectually. Did you ever 
 watch the pitcher in a baseball game? 
 How his eye guides his hand as he sends 
 the ball spinning past the bat? A good 
 pitcher illustrates the kind of practice 
 which makes perfect. The intellect and 
 the will must unite in vigorous action if 
 we are to learn to do by doing. 
 
 The conditions of mental growth are 
 few and simple, but they are important. 
 In general they are the same as those 
 of physical growth. The body cannot 
 grow without food ; neither can the mind. 
 The farmer fattens his steers by feeding 
 them well ; he cannot raise large animals 
 without giving them an abundance of 
 good food. But he also looks carefully to 
 other conditions. He gives them appro- 
 priate exercise. If one of his colts is to 
 be a racer, he tests his speed from time 
 to time on a good track. He notes the 
 
30 Work and Play 
 
 effects of different kinds of food and diff- 
 erent forms of exercise. 
 
 The training of a thinker involves the 
 same conditions as the training of a racer. 
 The student must have mental nourish- 
 ment, food for thought; that is, he must 
 learn facts. Lack of information causes 
 feeble thinking, obscure thinking. It is 
 only when facts are clearly apprehended, 
 when they are known in their relations, 
 that they will be fairl}^ and vigorously 
 considered. But practice, judicious ex- 
 ercise, is also needed. The mind must 
 be trained to ease and clearness in ac- 
 quiring information : it should be nimble 
 and Argus-eyed ; it should also sift and 
 classify its acquisitions. Unclassified 
 knowledge, unassimilated facts, hinder 
 and enfeeble thought. It is only when 
 truth is seen in its relations that it truly 
 educates. 
 
 Mistakes have often been made just at 
 this point. Some have over-estimated 
 the importance of acquiring facts ; others 
 
Intellectual Growth 31 
 
 have given undue emphasis to drill. It 
 has been thought that better results, or 
 quicker results, would be obtained by 
 omitting one or the other of these factors. 
 Some have magnified the element of ex- 
 ercise ; they have likened education to 
 gymnastics ; mental training has been 
 believed to consist in the rapidity with 
 which certain acts are performed ; they 
 would have every teacher a drill-master. 
 But they forget the element of acquisi- 
 tion, that the mind must have materials 
 with which to work. Perhaps the black- 
 smith could harden the muscles of his 
 arm and make it strong by merely pound- 
 ing the anvil, instead of working to fashion 
 the hot steel. But it is not so with mental 
 effort. The exercise which strengthens 
 the mind has a purpose. Aimless repe- 
 tition makes the mind dull and mechan- 
 ical. Mental training is not like turning 
 a crank ; it is rather like the athlete's 
 spring, like the racer's dash. Lessing 
 uttered only a half-truth, or a truth which 
 
32 Work and Play 
 
 has often been misapplied, when he said 
 that if he held truth like a bird in his 
 hand he would let it fly away that he 
 might catch it again, since it is the pur- 
 suit of truth, he says, which is valuable, 
 rather than the truth itself. But truth is 
 desired because of its value in itself or in 
 its applications. Modern industry has 
 been developed by utilizing the truths 
 which science has sought out. Scholar- 
 ship is the reward which comes to him 
 who has found and appropriated many 
 truths. The mind grows strong in the 
 process if the search for truth is intelli- 
 gent and thoroughly in earnest. The 
 truth must be worthy of the pursuit ; it 
 must call forth the mind's best energies. 
 Hence the value of interest in study ; 
 listless or aimless study yields no 
 strength. Select studies in which you 
 feel a spontaneous interest, if you can ; 
 if not, create an interest. College days 
 ought to yield us an enduring enthusi- 
 asm in some department of study. It 
 
Intellectual Growth 33 
 
 often happens, indeed, that the early- 
 enthusiasm thus gained leads to valuable 
 results in after life, or determines one's 
 future callincr. 
 
 Have you a lesson or a class exercise 
 to prepare? Set before yourselves the 
 hinrhest standard ; be content with no 
 slovenly work. Bring all the energies 
 of your mind to the preparation. Train 
 your faculties to respond to your demands 
 upon them as the pitcher trains his mus- 
 cles. Do not allow yourselves to spend 
 two hours upon what should be done in 
 forty minutes. Permit no interruption, 
 no wandering thoughts. Learn to con- 
 centrate all your powers and compel 
 them to act every time with their utmost 
 vigor. This is the secret of growth. 
 
 4 
 
Ill 
 
 WORK 
 
" Work is my 7'ecreation, 
 
 a delight like that 
 Which a bird feels in flyings or a fish 
 In darting through the waters 
 
 H. W. Longfellow. 
 
 * ' The law of jiature is that a certain qnantity of 
 
 work is necessary to produce a certaiji qtiantity of 
 
 good. If you want knowledge, you must toil for 
 
 it ; if food, you must toil for it ; and if pleasure^ 
 
 you jnust toil for it.'''' 
 
 John Ruskin. 
 
Ill 
 
 WORK 
 
 A YEAR or two ago, Edward Everett 
 Hale published an article in one of 
 the magazines entitled '* Getting the Best 
 of It." It was of special interest because 
 it was understood to describe his methods 
 of daily work. If it had enabled him to 
 accomplish so much, why would it not 
 be serviceable to others? The article 
 attracted much attention, and while some 
 doubted the practicability of his pro- 
 gram, all agreed that each day's work 
 should be so planned as to yield the 
 largest possible result with the smallest 
 possible expenditure of nervous energy. 
 No one can measure the power of work. 
 It is work that has built up the world's in- 
 dustries and carries them on, organized 
 its vast systems of transportation and ex- 
 change, filled its warehouses with goods 
 and provisions and carried comfort and 
 
38 Work and Play 
 
 contentment into millions of homes. A 
 laborer puts in his spade to dig a trench. 
 He can remove but a few pounds of 
 earth at a time, but he perseveres and in 
 a few days he sees a goodly piece of 
 work accomplished. A student looks at 
 the well filled shelves of a library and 
 says to himself: *' No one can read all 
 these books ; I might as well give up try- 
 ing to know anything. There is so 
 much to learn in every department of 
 study that I am discouraged before I 
 begin." But we have all heard of the 
 man who read the seven volumes of 
 Rawlinson's Ancient History during the 
 tedious moments when he was waiting 
 for his meals, and a busy young man, 
 who was carrying more than the re- 
 quired amount of college work, found 
 time this year in the leisure hours of 
 two months to read five thick volumes of 
 history. It only requires time and well 
 directed work to make almost any one of 
 us a learned man. 
 
Work 39 
 
 Great men have always been great 
 workers. The essential characteristic 
 of strong manhood is power of accom- 
 plishment. It is not wealth nor official 
 position, but brains and work that take 
 first rank. Not long ago two important 
 positions became vacant at the s^me 
 time in a great business office. One 
 man was appointed to fill both positions 
 at a salary higher than the combined 
 salaries of both of his predecessors. His 
 ability, in one sense, was no greaterthan 
 theirs ; but he was known to be an ex- 
 traordinary worker. He was more valu- 
 able to his emplo3^ers than two common 
 men. The highest working power 
 stands at the head. 
 
 A strange mistake in the interpreta- 
 tion of Scripture has taught us to look 
 upon work as a curse. Human pride 
 and laziness readily accept this view. 
 But reason and science, as well as the 
 Bible, teach us that a life of work is 
 man's normal condition and his greatest 
 
40 Work and Play 
 
 blessing. Much of the folly, misery and 
 crime of the world are the result of idle- 
 ness. It is difficult even to provide 
 needed leisure for working men with- 
 out bringing with it unseemly vices. 
 Christianity honors work, exalts it, dis- 
 tinguishes it from labor. Wor/e implies 
 intelligence, implies a purpose, implies 
 hope; labor is blind, unthinking, aim- 
 less. The Latin word labor has come 
 down to us from a heathen civilization 
 and still carries in its meaning the taint 
 of heathen hopelessness and oppression. 
 Christianity teaches man to work out his 
 own salvation. It sets before him a 
 thousand possibilities of improving his 
 condition ; it cultivates ambition and 
 then it bids man work ; and it teaches 
 that patient work yields grand results, 
 not only in material products but also in 
 intellectual enjoyment and in strong, 
 well balanced character. 
 
 The gentleman of leisure is not ordi- 
 narily the highest kind of a man. Un- 
 
Work 41 
 
 less he has retired from his business or 
 profession after many years of industri- 
 ous activity, he will rarely show robust 
 and manly character. The very enjoy- 
 ment of our vacations depends upon the 
 vigor with which we have been working. 
 A real vacation can only be earned by 
 work. The best time of our livinef is 
 the time of working, when we are sum- 
 moned to put forth our most earnest 
 efforts to meet the duty of an appointed 
 hour. Why should we despise a daily 
 routine? Few men are ever happy with- 
 out it. Let us prize most the education 
 which fits us for earnest, manly work. 
 
 Napoleon could go through the man- 
 ual of arms better than any soldier in 
 his army, he could make or repair any 
 article used in his campaigns, he was 
 gifted with marvelous foresight and in- 
 tuition, but his real genius consisted in 
 extraordinary ability to work ; — now gal- 
 loping to the head of his army to cheer 
 his soldiers by his presence, now stop- 
 
42 Work and Play- 
 
 ping to consult with a field-marshal, 
 now looking after the baggage-train in 
 the rear and, when a halt was made, 
 sitting surrounded by his secretaries 
 more than half of the night, answering 
 inquiries, preparing orders and planning 
 the details of his campaign. 
 
 Garfield was eloquent, poetic, versa- 
 tile, but his strength consisted in the 
 ability to do an enormous amount of 
 work. The librarians of Congress tell, to 
 this day, of the remarkable number of 
 books he used to consult when he was 
 in the House. He w'ould send for a 
 hundred volumes at a time ; and when he 
 made a report or a speech on an impor- 
 tant bill that was pending, it would 
 appear that he had found something for 
 his use in every one of the books. 
 
 The late Dr. Philip SchafFwas a mar- 
 velous worker. Perhaps no pen has 
 been so productive in this countr\^ as his, 
 while the quality of his work is attested 
 by the fact that when he visited the 
 
Work 43 
 
 World's Fair some years ago he found 
 in the little library of five thousand 
 books which were deemed the best ever 
 published in the United States fifteen of 
 his own books. And yet he was never 
 hurried ; he had time to frequent liter- 
 ary clubs, had leisure for the most 
 delightful social relations and he ren- 
 dered a great variety of services to the 
 public and to the Church. 
 
 Since, then, work is so powerful, so 
 important a factor in our lives, our col- 
 lege days ought to yield, _;fr5/, the ability 
 to work effectively and, second^ the love 
 of work. 
 
 I. Our education should not be ex- 
 clusively intellectual. 
 
 How often do men's best thoughts and 
 purposes fail of realization from lack of 
 ability to carry them into effect 1 That 
 young men should learn to think is well ; 
 that they should learn to act is better. 
 They should learn in school and college 
 the secret of accomplishment, how to 
 
44 Work and Play 
 
 escape discouragement and defeat, how 
 to achieve successes that will endure. 
 Each obscure passage in the Greek or 
 German, each knotty problem in mathe- 
 matics, ought to be regarded as a sort of 
 challenge which it would be disgraceful 
 to decline. Students should acquire the 
 habit of investigating for themselves, of 
 setting themselves deliberately to work 
 to find out in the library or laboratory 
 the exact truth which they need to know. 
 They should learn to overcome difficul- 
 ties, to rouse their energies and hold 
 each practical problem firmly in hand 
 until its perplexities disappear. The 
 old-fashioned virtue of perseverance 
 should be cultivated. Young men 
 should be ready to declare with Car- 
 dinal Richelieu that ''in the bright 
 lexicon of youth there is no such word 
 asy^/7." The proof of will-power is the 
 ability to succeed. 
 
 2. College training ought to enable us 
 to overcome a dislike of work. The 
 
Work 45 
 
 element of inertia is pretty strong in 
 most people and they accept work as 
 a necessity which they would gladly 
 escape. Since it is a necessity for 
 most, a true philosophy w^ould teach 
 us to welcome and enjoy, not to resist, 
 it. Those who try to do this usual- 
 ly find that they become interested in 
 the work, whatever it may be, and idle- 
 ness becomes distasteful and oppressive ; 
 they are able to exclaim with Lord 
 Chancellor Coke ^^ Labor ipse volun- 
 tas.''' It is safe to say that unwilling 
 work is usually poorly done and he who 
 would put forth his best energies must 
 become so interested as to find zest and 
 inspiration in his work. 
 
 To assist you in making the work of 
 each day as easy and effective as possi- 
 ble, perhaps you will find these sugges- 
 tions helpful. 
 
 {a) Remember that each day will 
 bring its own work. A distinguished 
 graduate of this college, Hon. Newton 
 
46 Work and Play 
 
 Bateman, says that when he was a stu- 
 dent he could saw two cords of wood in 
 a day, but that if he was idle one day he 
 could not saw four cords the next day. 
 If you are to be successful students, you 
 will find your time pretty full. Resist 
 encroachments upon it. Keep a little 
 in advance of your work. Gain your 
 leisure before you take it. 
 
 (3) Learn concentration. If you can 
 prepare a lesson thoroughly in one hour, 
 don't spend two hours upon it. Compel 
 your mind to put forth its best energy. 
 Permit no interruption while you are en- 
 gaged in study. I once saw a student 
 completely absorbed in his work while 
 five or six fellows were lounging and 
 chatting in his room, but even he would 
 have found it easier and more beneficial 
 to study alone. The habit of two or 
 more students getting out their lesson 
 together does not tend to develop the 
 best working ability. 
 
 (c) Be systematic. Have regular 
 
Work 47 
 
 hours for study, regular hours for exer- 
 cise, regular hours for sleep. Do not 
 depend upon impulse, but rather train 
 your impulse, your interest in the thing 
 to be done, to come to your aid at the 
 right time. If you cultivate the habit of 
 devoting the same hours each day to the 
 preparation of certain lessons, reading in 
 the library at certain hours and having 
 fixed hours for all your work, you will 
 find the interest rising at the right time 
 to make your work easy, as surely as 
 your appetite will return at meal-time. 
 
 {d) Don't be bafiled. Train yourself 
 to succeed, not to fail. If you cannot 
 surmount obstacles in one way, try an- 
 other. It is the bulldog grip that wins. 
 When the cultured young Governor Rus- 
 sell of Massachusetts said at a Harvard 
 dinner that he would rather hear that 
 Harvard had won in an intercollegiate 
 game of football than in an intellectual 
 contest, he did not intend to disparage 
 high scholarship or literary excellence, 
 
48 Work and Play 
 
 but rather to exalt that strength of will 
 which is a prerequisite to success in any 
 undertaking. If you have convictions, 
 live up to them. If life presents a prob- 
 lem, solve it. If tasks and difficulties 
 rise mountain-high, tunnel through them. 
 There are few thincrs which work in- 
 spired by faith and hope cannot accom- 
 plish. 
 
 " To thine own self be true 
 And it must follow as the day the night 
 Thou canst not then be false to any man." 
 
IV 
 PLAY 
 
^'A day for toil, an hour for sport.''"' 
 
 R. W. Emerson. 
 
 ' ♦ Our pleasures and our discontents 
 Are rounds by which we 7nay ascend.'''' 
 
 H. W. Longfellow. 
 
 ' * If those who are the enemies ofin7tocent amuse- 
 ments had the direction of the world, they would 
 take away the spring and yotith, — the former 
 from the year, the latter fro7n the hiunan life.'''' 
 
 Balzac. 
 
IV 
 
 PLAY 
 
 T^HE subject of one of our recent 
 chapel talks was Work. It may 
 have seemed like a rather heroic topic, 
 but I think we all agree that our success 
 in life will depend largely on our ability 
 to do a large amount of good work. 
 Every year increases the importance of 
 working power. A college training ought 
 certainly to yield good results in this 
 direction. Carlyle says : '* The only 
 happiness a brave man ever troubles 
 himself about is happiness enough to 
 get his own work done." 
 
 But, fortunately, life is not all made 
 up of work. No one can work inces- 
 santly, and the attempt to do this always 
 defeats itself and often brings its own 
 swift penalty. He who would acquire 
 and retain great capacity for work must 
 
52 Work and Play 
 
 beware lest he lose the very power which 
 is so valuable to him. The ability to 
 work well implies the ability to rest well. 
 Health is fundamental. A famous wit 
 once said : '* If I was to pick out a wife 
 for the Crown Prince of England, I 
 would ask first, 'Does she sleep well?' 
 second, 'Does she eat plain food?' and 
 if so, I 'd tell the prince to take her and 
 be thankful for whatever other good 
 qualities she possessed." 
 
 Primitive man lacks power of applica- 
 tion ; he acts from impulse, as he is 
 incited by hunger, love or hate. " There 
 is danger," says Herbert Spencer, '* that 
 civilized man will lose the power of re- 
 pose, of the ability to enjoy the present 
 good in his eager strivings for the fu- 
 ture." 
 
 We want health and heartiness and a 
 bounding pulse. Many people are cyn- 
 ics without knowing it. They are under- 
 vitalized, overworked — victims of worry 
 and borrowed trouble. Their friends 
 
Play 53 
 
 sometimes think them profound, but who 
 would not rather be superficial and shal- 
 low than to be morose and cynical in 
 order that he might be thought deep? 
 
 The opposite of work is not idleness, 
 but play. Nature's penalty for idleness 
 is no less stern than for overwork. She 
 demands the joyous alternation of work 
 and play. Every person whose life is to 
 be robust and hearty must have his peri- 
 ods of play. Recreation must turn his 
 thoughts into new channels, relieve the 
 pressure upon the brain and the tension 
 upon the nerves, and give tone and vigor 
 to the muscles and vital organs. 
 
 I am sorr}^ for the man who no longer 
 likes to play. He has lost one of the 
 most precious gifts with which nature 
 endowed him. God intended that we 
 should live in the sunshine, not grope 
 about in clouds and shadows. It is a 
 credit to a person's physical and moral 
 condition that he likes to be amused. 
 
 Some one has said that it is work that 
 
54 Work and Play 
 
 transforms a boy into a man ; but it is 
 also to be said that the boy of -promise 
 plays. If any boy says that he would 
 rather sit and study than to go to the 
 playground, take a good look at him. 
 Either he is sick, or prematurely devel- 
 oped, or he is a little humbug, trying to 
 get credit for studious tastes under false 
 pretenses. If his schoolmates are at 
 play, he ought to be squirming in his 
 chair and impatient to join them. Un- 
 less he is a poor, premature little book- 
 worm, with flabby muscles and quiver- 
 ing nerves, he is an incipient little pre- 
 tender. ** Man made the school; God 
 made the playground," says Walter 
 Bagehot. 
 
 So, I say, do n't be ashamed of the 
 fact that you love to play and that you 
 sometimes leave vour lessons behind 
 with a sense of relief, and hurry away 
 to the athletic field or the gymnasium, 
 or to the familiar haunts of your friends 
 and playmates. Do not become prema- 
 
Play 55 
 
 turely blase, and look on with a lazy 
 indifference and superiority while others 
 amuse themselves. 
 
 Military drill and the systematic train- 
 ing of the gymnasium are excellent; no 
 one should undervalue them ; but real 
 play is better. It was noted, years ago, 
 by Dr. Wiese, that the young men of 
 Rugby and Eton did not play in order 
 to develop their muscles, expand their 
 lungs, quicken their circulation, improve 
 their figures, or add grace to their bear- 
 ing. They thought of none of these 
 things. They simply played, from the 
 mere love of playing, and all these and 
 many other benefits were the results. 
 
 Why is the little child so ceaselessly 
 active ? Every muscle is called into exer- 
 cise. To the ordinary observer, it seems 
 like a perpetual but meaningless use of 
 half-developed organs. Sometimes the 
 restlessness and noisy ways of the little 
 ones disturb older people, and attempts 
 are made to check them. But, fortunate- 
 
56 Work and Play 
 
 l}', the natural impulse is too strong, and 
 such efforts are largely unsuccessful. 
 The appetite for play, for amusement, 
 for exercise, is no less fundamental in 
 our constitution than the appetite for 
 food. It is implanted for a purpose, 
 and subserves an end which must be as 
 important as its phenomena are strik- 
 ing. What is this purpose? 
 
 The first answer to this question is 
 that the impulse to play secures physical I 
 
 development. The bodily frame is to be I 
 
 built up and made strong and supple for 
 use. The law of its growth is exercise. 
 The love of play secures it. The sense 
 organs are also trained. Many sports 
 are as admirably adapted to train and 
 quicken the senses as they are to 
 strengthen the muscles. 
 
 Play trains the intellectual powers. 
 In few persons does the intellect ever 
 attain its full development. It is like an 
 organ of many keyboards and stops ; 
 the danger is that its possessor will ac- 
 
Play 57 
 
 quire the use of only a small part of 
 them. Education consists largely in 
 awakening these slumbering powers and 
 revealing the harmonies which nature 
 makes possible. Play brightens the 
 mental processes, and adds gladsome 
 tints to activities which would otherwise 
 be prosaic. 
 
 Play cultivates a habit of glad and 
 generous appreciation ; a disposition to 
 be easily pleased ; a joy in companion- 
 ship and intellectual converse. What is 
 more valuable than a cheerful spirit and 
 a ready sympathy ? Nature intends that 
 the impulse to play shall quicken the 
 lighter emotions, and infuse gladness 
 and vivacity and sparkle into the mind's 
 activities. Those who play together 
 quickly become friends. 
 
 The sports of childhood and 3'^outh 
 train the will. Games of streno-th or 
 skill appeal to each contestant to put 
 forth his utmost efforts. Aijain and 
 again the test recurs, and each time the 
 
58 Work and Play 
 
 will marshals all the forces at its com- 
 mand to attain the end desired. Thus 
 the man learns in his youth to meet com- 
 petitors, to surmount obstacles, to face an 
 opponent, to unite his efforts with those 
 of others. 
 
 Play lays the foundation for strength 
 by the exercise which it calls forth, — 
 strength of body, strength of mind, — and 
 then it trains and invicforates the direct- 
 ive power which is to use it. 
 
 Such, in brief, are some of the uses of 
 play. It is the recruiting-officer and 
 drill-sergeant of all the physical, mental 
 and moral powers. While it springs 
 from an irresistible impulse, it contrib- 
 utes to the highest rational ends. 
 
 But this love of play must be con- 
 trolled — subordinated to worthy aims. 
 Suppress it and you dwarf every intel- 
 lectual and moral power ; give it free 
 rein — full control — and it defeats its own 
 ends, loses its charm, and becomes a 
 source of weakness and ruin. Play is a 
 
Play 59 
 
 necessity, a delight, but it must be in- 
 dulged with due subordination to the 
 higher ends of growth and character. 
 
 Three principles may guide us in the 
 pursuit of recreation : 
 
 1. Play should be invigorating. Its 
 purpose is to promote cheerfulness, buoy- 
 ancy, and a healthful glow. If it is ath- 
 letic, it should quicken the circulation 
 and purify the blood. If it is mental, it 
 should be interesting enough to divert 
 the thoughts from their previous chan- 
 nels. If it is both athletic and mental, 
 double benefit will be received. It should 
 be hearty and somewhat exciting ; it fails 
 of its purpose if it is too quiet and pas- 
 sive. Loafing is not play. 
 
 2. Play should be innocent — not harm- 
 ful to ourselves or to others. Here is a 
 young man w^ho likes to play certain 
 games, but who says they are not inter- 
 esting enough unless he stakes some 
 money on the result. If he does that, 
 he is making a fatal mistake, and enter- 
 
6o Work and Play 
 
 ing the path which is trod by spend- 
 thrifts and gamblers — a steep decline 
 from which few escape. Another, re- 
 joicing in his strength, craves the excite- 
 ment of personal encounter. Hence we 
 find students in the German universities 
 fighting a kind of sham duel, and young 
 men in certain American colleges taking 
 their exercise with boxing-gloves. But 
 we have prize-fighters enough without 
 trying to develop them in our institutions 
 of learnincj ! Let us choose amusements 
 which will not create in us low tastes 
 or false standards of right and wrong. 
 
 3. Play should not be excessive. No- 
 where is self-control more important than 
 in those amusements which tempt us to 
 excess. A few years ago the name of a 
 certain young man was known ail over 
 the country. He was famous in several 
 lines of college athletics. His whole 
 soul was in them. But his interest in 
 other and more important things was 
 lost, and his college course was a fail- 
 
Play 6 I 
 
 ure. His enthusiasm for athletics was a 
 good thing, if properly controlled. Not 
 so controlled, it became the rock on 
 which he was shipwrecked. One's rec- 
 reations afford a test of character. The 
 strong man puts them in their true place. 
 They are an incident, a pleasant change 
 in the routine of his daily life. He en- 
 joys them keenly, but he gives them up 
 at the proper time. The weak man is 
 absorbed by his amusements, and for- 
 gets everything else. They usurp the 
 place of his work, blind his reason, and 
 stifle his conscience. 
 
 It is said that football originated in 
 Yale college fifty or sixty years ago 
 in an effort to prevent brutality. The 
 freshman and sophomore classes were 
 having trouble, and a collision and a 
 free fight were imminent. The seniors, 
 jealous for the good name of the college, 
 acted the part of peacemakers, and ar- 
 ranged for a trial of strength by a foot- 
 ball match between the classes. This 
 
62 Work and Play 
 
 was the old game of football. Twenty- 
 five or thirty years later, Rev. Dr. D. S. 
 Schaff brought to this country the new 
 Rugby game which has become so 
 popular. It is a rough game. For ig- 
 norant or clumsy players it is a dan- 
 gerous game ; but, when the Duke of 
 Wellington, late in life, sat watching a 
 game of football among the students of 
 Eton college, he said : " There's where 
 the battle of Waterloo was won." 
 
 Amusements are a necessity, relieving 
 an overburdened mind, restoring elas- 
 ticity and vigor. They are a discipline 
 of judgment, of temper, of will. They 
 brace the body and calm the spirit. 
 They keep the heart young, the tastes 
 simple, the sympathies warm. Without 
 them the body, mind and spirit alike 
 lose their rightful gladness and tone. 
 
V 
 HEALTH 
 
■i 
 
 ' ' T/ie 7norality of clean blood oitght to be one of 
 the first lessotis taught its. The physical is the sub- 
 stratiwi of the spiritual', and this fact ought to ^ive 
 to the food we eat and the air we breathe a transcend- 
 ent significa^tce.'''' 
 
 John Tyndall. 
 
V 
 
 HEALTH 
 
 "LJEALTH is said to be wealth. It is 
 more ; it is the foundation of every 
 blessing in life. Wealth, scholarly at- 
 tainments, even life itself, lose half their 
 value without this priceless gift. In pur- 
 suit of health, people give up the com- 
 forts of home and the companionship of 
 friends, travel to distant lands and live 
 in lonely retreats. Once lost, no search 
 is too difficult, no price too great to pay 
 for its recovery. 
 
 And yet with what recklessness and 
 prodigality this treasure is squandered ! 
 The number of oreventable diseases is 
 enormous. In this age of scientific re- 
 search, when the secret germs of so many 
 diseases have been discovered, it is still 
 said by a high medical authority that 
 ninety-six per cent, of the deaths in this 
 6 
 
66 Work and Play 
 
 country are premature and unnecessary. 
 The best physicians devote themselves 
 more and more to the prevention rather 
 than the cure of disease. It is to be hoped 
 that the time will come when we shall pay 
 our doctors as we do our pastors, to keep 
 us well and doing well, rather than to 
 cure us when we fall sick. Those of 
 you who are looking forward to the study 
 of medicine may readily realize that a 
 full collecre course affords none too much 
 preparation for the profound investiga- 
 tions which must be carried on by the 
 physician of the coming day. No man 
 needs wider information or deeper in- 
 sight than he who guards the life and the 
 health of his fellow men. 
 
 Assuming, then, that most sickness is 
 unnecessary, that it is, generally, our 
 duty to be well and OKr sin, or some other 
 person's sin, if we are sick, let us glance 
 briefly at some of the conditions of good 
 health. Of course a treatise on hygiene 
 cannot be compressed into the limits of a 
 
Health 6^ 
 
 familiar talk, but, confining our attention 
 to the personal aspects of the matter and 
 to those things which especially relate 
 to student life, a few points may be em- 
 phasized. 
 
 Hygiene has been defined as the 
 science which teaches people to take the 
 ounce of prevention instead of the pound 
 of cure. Of course the ounce of preven- 
 tion is not always pleasant to take. Peo- 
 ple persuade themselves that it is a need- 
 less precaution, that the dose is too large 
 or too bitter, or that it will be more agree- 
 able at some other time. Sometimes the 
 ounce seems so trivial as to be of no con- 
 sequence, and so it is forgotten or neg- 
 lected till suddenly the pound of cure 
 becomes necessary. Surely we must 
 count that education poor and incom- 
 plete which does not train to good judg- 
 ment and self-control in the care of the 
 health. " Be watchful over your body," 
 says Descartes, *'if you would rightly 
 exercise your mind." Let us select a 
 
6S Work and Play 
 
 few practical points as worthy of special 
 consideration. 
 
 I. Food and Drink. These are the 
 foundations of life ; they have peculiar 
 relations to our health. No small part 
 of the diseases which afflict mankind 
 spring from the misuse of food and drink. 
 Lest, in the press of other interests, we 
 should forget these necessities of our 
 nature, two sentinels have been placed 
 on guard to remind us from time to time 
 of our danorer. One of these sentinels 
 we call hunger, the other, thirst. But 
 while the}^ are pretty sure to tell us when 
 we need to eat or drink, they cannot 
 always be relied upon to tell us when to 
 stop eating and drinking. The tempta- 
 tions of cooks, caterers and distillers do 
 more to shorten human life than all the 
 contagious and inherited diseases the 
 doctors know. 
 
 Moreover, appetite, which ought to be 
 a faithful guide, is easily suborned and 
 made the efficient allv of our deadliest 
 
Health 69 
 
 enemies. The world presents no more 
 revolting spectacle than the man who has 
 become the degraded slave of appetite. 
 Thousands of people go through life 
 dyspeptic and handicapped, because in 
 youth they were unwilling to practice a 
 little self-restraint in the use of various 
 palatable but indigestible dishes and 
 condiments ; while other thousands lay 
 the foundation in 3'outh of lifelong mis- 
 ery and disgrace by learning to tamper 
 with alcoholic drinks. He who eats too 
 much takes a step towards the contempt- 
 ible vice of gluttony. He who acquires 
 an appetite for intoxicating drinks lights 
 a torch to burn his own dwelling. There 
 can be no temperate use of poisons. 
 Every city and town in the land affords 
 staggering, bloated, loathsome illustra- 
 tions of the destruction of health and 
 manhood by indulgence in intoxicating 
 drinks. Many of these men, once as 
 strong and hopeful and ambitious as you 
 are, laughed at the squeamishness of 
 
70 Work and Play 
 
 those who thought it was dangerous to 
 drink light wines and beer. They glo- 
 ried in their independence and their 
 strength. But now their maudlin words 
 and labored breath portray, as no tem- 
 perance lecture can, the abject bondage 
 of him who is a slave to appetite. Let 
 every student remember the beautiful 
 words of Tennyson : 
 
 " Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control; — 
 These three alone lead life to sovereign power/' 
 
 2. Brain-workers need more sleep than 
 other people, yet they often get less. 
 Their brain goes on working after they 
 have retired to rest. Grinding, like a 
 mill without a grist, it only wears away 
 its own substance, exhausts its own 
 power. Blessed mystery of sleep ! No 
 physician or biologist can explain it ; it 
 is akin to creation, a divine thing. And 
 yet, how men trifle with it, defraud it, 
 begrudge the hours which it consumes ! 
 Kant, the philosopher, had acquired, by 
 
Health 7 1 
 
 practice, a dexterous mode of wrapping 
 himself in the bedclothes, like a silk- 
 worm in its cocoon. When thus snugly 
 folded in, he would say to himself, " Can 
 any man enjoy better health than I do?" 
 And when he tells us that he retired 
 every night with this peaceful reflection 
 at the same hour and rose at precisely 
 the same hour every morning for thirty 
 years, we are not surprised at his robust 
 health or the matchless vigor of his mind. 
 Byron complained of sleeplessness, des- 
 pondency and nightmare. He " wrote 
 when the fit was on " by night or by day. 
 He was one of those men of whom Goethe 
 sneeringly says, *'they spend their days 
 complaining of headache and their nights 
 drinking the wine which produces it.'' 
 His lamp of life went out when he was 
 but thirty-six, and the world has never 
 ceased to lament the loss and misuse of 
 his brilliant intellectual gifts. Gladstone 
 slept regularly, took systematic exercise 
 and observed the conditions of good 
 
72 Work and Play 
 
 health, and we find him, hale and hearty, 
 returning to the premiership at eighty- 
 four. 
 
 Be jealous of the hours of sleep. Make 
 your work, your amusements, your social 
 life, conform to the reasonable demands 
 of this beneficent visitor. Count it not 
 pleasure, but dissipation and weariness, 
 to spend the hours which belong to sleep 
 in gayety or unseasonable work. Enjoy 
 society and cultivate friendship, but 
 always subject to the claims of duty and 
 usefulness. 
 
 Here are two young men working side 
 by side. One sleeps early and long ; 
 the other retires late and irregularly. 
 You say they seem to get on equally 
 well, but Kant would have told you, as 
 their physician will tell you, that one of 
 them is slowly exhausting his stock of 
 vitality, while the other is keeping it full. 
 In time, one will be bankrupt, the other 
 rich, in health. "I can do nothing," 
 said General Grant, " without nine hours 
 
Health 73 
 
 of sleep." Horace Greeley refused to 
 sit up at night sessions of Congress, ab- 
 ruptly leaving when his hour for retiring 
 arrived. No young man can afford to 
 disregard, or cut short, the ministrations 
 of 
 
 ♦« Kind nature's sweet restorer, balmy sleep." 
 
 3. Another great preserver of life and 
 health is exercise. Nothing destroys 
 power so completely and effectually as 
 disuse. Compare the arm that has been 
 carried in a sling with the arm that has 
 wielded the blacksmith's hammer. Com- 
 pare the hard, well-rounded muscles of a 
 college athlete with the puny frame of 
 one who has been confined in a close 
 room. But even this contrast does not 
 tell the whole story. It is more than a 
 hundred years since Priestly discovered 
 oxygen, but there are many people who 
 do not seem to have discovered it yet. 
 They shut it out of their homes and al- 
 most shut it out of their lungs. Oxygen 
 
74 Work and Play 
 
 is life ; the gas which it liberates is death. 
 The most important effect of exercise is 
 to produce a vigorous flow of blood to the 
 lungs. If taken, as it should be, in the 
 open air, or in a large, cool room, the 
 blood is rapidly oxygenated, purified 
 from dangerous poisons, and life and 
 strength and health are absorbed. 
 
 Nature has provided for this bodily 
 need during childhood by implanting the 
 love of play. The sports in which chil- 
 dren most delight are admirably adapted 
 to develop and strengthen the body. 
 That man is fortunate who never out- 
 grows the fondness for play. But it 
 must be conceded that many men do not 
 thus preserve their childish impulses. 
 They lose this one very young ; indeed, 
 some are never so old, in this respect, as 
 about the time they are college students. 
 You will find, sitting side by side in every 
 company of students, those who delight 
 in athletic sports and those who shrink 
 from vigorous exercise as they would 
 
Health 75 
 
 from an ice-cold bath. They almost re- 
 sent the kindly but expensive provision 
 made for their welfare in playgrounds 
 and gymnasiums. And to such I say, 
 take your exercise whether you enjoy it 
 or not. Your disinclination to it is the 
 strongest proof that you need more of it. 
 The reward of exertion is the ability to 
 exert yourself more easily next time. 
 Not long ago, a man walked down the 
 principal street of an Eastern city carry- 
 ing a barrel of flour under each arm. A 
 few years before he had been given up to 
 die of an incurable disease ; but well- 
 directed exercise quickened the circula- 
 tion and gave vigor to every part until he 
 astonished a whole city with his feats of 
 strength. 
 
 4. Much has been said recently con- 
 cerning the danger of overwork. That 
 there is a danger of this kind, no one will 
 deny. Men break down from overwork; 
 the nerves give way from sheer exhaus- 
 tion. Students undermine their health 
 
76 Work and Play 
 
 from excessive study. Prudence and good 
 judgment are necessary in these things. 
 But so much misapprehension exists and 
 the danger is thus so greatly increased, 
 that we ought to estimate it as carefully 
 as we can. 
 
 We do well to remember, then, that 
 mental exercise is as conducive to bodily 
 health as physical exercise is to mental 
 health. "A sound mind in a sound body" 
 implies the vigorous activity of both. 
 They are not counter claimants of a lim- 
 ited stock of vitality, but rather constituent 
 factors of one whole. Intellectual tone, 
 cheerfulness, earnest purpose invigorate 
 the body no less certainly than good 
 physical conditions strengthen the mind. 
 A score of people overwork their bodies 
 where one overworks his mind. Com- 
 pare the faces of the cash-boys and girls 
 in a city store with those of the children 
 in a grammar-school; compare the youth 
 in high schools and colleges with the 
 clerks and operatives of the same age. 
 
Health ']'-j 
 
 '* Itis the factory-children, not the school- 
 children, that die," said an eminent phy- 
 sician, not long since. Intellectual pur- 
 suits are the most healthy occupations. 
 Records of life insurance show that 
 brain-workers outlive mechanics and 
 laborers. Make a list of a hundred of 
 the most eminent men this country has 
 produced and you will be delighted to 
 find what a large proportion of them lived 
 to a good old age. The average age of 
 the fifteen presidents of the United States, 
 first deceased, was seventy-five years. 
 The triennial catalogues give eloquent 
 testimony to the prolonged lives of col- 
 lege graduates. There is no better tonic 
 than success. Defeat is as demoralizing 
 to the health as it is to the character. It 
 is often better to make a brave eflfort and 
 incur fatigue than to give up and say, '' I 
 can't." Education consists in gaining the 
 ability to use one's powers — to make them 
 yield the largest possible service. It 
 trains men to do things — not to refrain 
 
78 Work and Play 
 
 from doing them. The men who are 
 getting the most out of life are the broad- 
 gauge men who are interested in all that 
 concerns the public welfare. They were 
 *' hustlers" when they were students. 
 The man who draws back within his 
 shell, who has no time, no strength, for 
 anything but his own self-centered round, 
 makes his health as precarious as his in- 
 fluence is insignificant. Better to wear 
 out than to rust out. Barbarians are 
 short-lived ; but the clear-headed grad- 
 uate of a New Hampshire college, doing 
 more thinking in a month than an Esqui- 
 mau in a lifetime, resists disease and 
 stands like one of his native hills, calm 
 and serene for almost a century. 
 
 But some one will say : Is there, then, 
 no danger of excessive study? Is por- 
 ing over books twelve or fifteen hours a 
 day the best tonic? Have young people 
 never been injured by brain-work? 
 
 There is, of course, the possibility of 
 excess in study as in all other employ- 
 
Health 79 
 
 ments. But study is not dangerous nor 
 destructive of the health except in rare 
 instances. In most cases of poor health, 
 apparently induced by hard study, im- 
 pure air, want of proper exercise, social 
 diversions, or something else, is the real 
 cause. It is care, trouble, worry, disap- 
 pointment, jealousy and hate that crush 
 out life and hope. It is the exultant 
 glow of 
 
 " Something attempted, something done," 
 which renews them. 
 
VI 
 HABIT 
 
<* This law is the 7)iagistraie of a 7naiCs life.'''' 
 
 Joseph Johnson. 
 
 ' ' Habit is a cable ; we weave a thread of it every 
 day, and at last we caiuiot break it.'''' 
 
 Horace Mann. 
 
 *' Use almost can cJiange the stamp of N'atnre.'''' 
 William Shakespeare. 
 
VI 
 
 HABIT 
 
 T N the early history of periodical 
 literature, Dr. Samuel Johnson wrote 
 a series of allegories on familiar sub- 
 jects for the Rambler. They attracted 
 much attention and have been famous 
 ever since. One of these allegories 
 personifies education as a gentle queen 
 and describes her solicitude that all 
 her subjects should be free from the 
 power of a tyrant named Habit. Habit 
 was always lying in wait for the un- 
 wary. As Education led her followers 
 up the side of the mountains which 
 lay in the pathway of learning, nothing 
 was more noticeable than her frequent 
 cautions to beware of Habit. She was 
 always guarding them against this dan- 
 gerous enemy and kept calling out to 
 one and another, at every step, that 
 
84 Work and Play 
 
 Habit was ensnaring them ; that they 
 would be under the dominion of Habit be- 
 fore they perceived their danger ; and that 
 those whom Habit should once enslave 
 had little hope of regaining their liberty. 
 This has been, from Dr. Johnson's day 
 to the present time, the prevalent idea of 
 Habit. Rousseau, in one of his oracular 
 utterances, says that the only habit 
 which a child should be permitted to 
 form is to contract no habits whatever. 
 Habit has been represented as a devour- 
 ing monster, as a poisoned atmosphere, 
 paralyzing effort, as a treacherous dwarf, 
 ready to develop a giant's strength at an 
 unguarded moment. 
 
 " Habit, at first, is but a silken thread, 
 
 Fine as the light-winged gossamers that sway 
 In the warm sunbeams of a summer^s day ; 
 A shallow streamlet rippling o'er its bed, 
 A tiny sapling ere its roots are spread. 
 A yet unhardened thorn upon the spray, 
 A lion's whelp that hath not scented prey, 
 A little smiling child obedient led. 
 
Habit 85 
 
 Beware ! that thread may bind thee as a chain, 
 That streamlet gather to a fatal sea, 
 That sapling spread into a gnarled tree. 
 That thorn, grown hard, may wound and give thee 
 pain, 
 That playful whelp his murderous fangs reveal, 
 That child, a giant, crush thee 'neath his heel." 
 
 But though these figures vividly por- 
 tray the insidious nature of evil habits, 
 there is another side of this truth far 
 more agreeable to contemplate. The 
 power of an evil habit is not necessarily 
 greater than that of a good habit. The 
 one aids and elevates as surel}^ as the 
 other degrades. Indeed, the value of 
 well formed habits can scarcely be over- 
 stated. Habit gives ease and certainty 
 to acts which would otherwise be diffi- 
 cult or misdirected. It is nature's 
 method of accumulating strength and 
 vastly augmenting our powers of accom- 
 plishment. 
 
 Thus a bookkeeper foots up long col- 
 umns of figures with an ease and cer- 
 
86 Work and Play 
 
 tainty which surprise us. He will add 
 five or ten columns while we are adding 
 one and not work half as hard as we do. 
 A business man will run through a pile 
 of a hundred letters, making a note on 
 this one and a figure on that and assign 
 them to different clerks to answer or 
 record with wonderful rapidity and never 
 make a mistake. Such men illustrate 
 the value of habit. Give them some- 
 thing else to do and they will show no 
 such facility. 
 
 Habit diminishes the time necessary 
 for any given action. Compare the 
 clumsy finger exercises of a beginner on 
 the piano with the performance of a 
 skilled pianist; compare the time the 
 child spends over his first written words 
 with the rapid writing of a college boy 
 in taking notes of a lecture. As Mauds- 
 ley says : " If an act became no easier 
 after being done several times, no prog- 
 ress could be made. The washing of 
 his hands or the fastening of a button 
 
Habit ^j 
 
 would be as difficult for a man as for a 
 child." We may rejoice, then, that " man 
 is a bundle of habits," for his habits mul- 
 tiply his powers a hundredfold. 
 
 The discipline of education consists 
 largely in the formation of habits. The 
 Duke of Wellington, referring to the 
 familiar proverb concerning habit, ex- 
 claimed : "Habit a second nature! 
 Habit is ten times nature." Wellington 
 was himself a fine illustration of habit 
 and we can easily see how such a man, 
 relying upon his trusted soldiers, might 
 think so. The daily drill and the years 
 of discipline completely fashion a man 
 over again. 
 
 Habits are of various kinds, physical, 
 mental and moral, though many habits 
 involve both mental and moral activities. 
 Examples of bodily habits are peculiari- 
 ties of gait or gesture, or skill in using 
 some tool, as a saw or hammer, or an 
 engraver's chisel. A child accidentally 
 or by imitation falls into some peculiarity 
 
88 Vv^ork and x^lay 
 
 of speech and soon finds it fastened upon 
 him as a fixed habit, difficult or impossi- 
 ble to overcome. Or he may fail at the 
 proper age to acquire the distinct articu- 
 lation of certain sounds — that is, to get 
 his vocal apparatus to do its full work — 
 and so he will always lisp, or have some 
 other peculiarity of speech. In the same 
 way people form their own individual 
 handwriting, almost as characteristic as 
 their faces, the result of habit. 
 
 Manners are habits. A courteous 
 bearing is not merely the expression of 
 the man for the moment ; it is the record 
 of his attitude of mind for years. If he 
 would enter a room or say good-morn- 
 ing gracefully, he must do it uncon- 
 sciously. We cannot do anything well 
 till we can do it without thinking. Thus 
 a boy does not really know how to swim 
 till he can swim. Complete knowledge 
 in many such things implies an estab- 
 lished habit. Our education and experi- 
 ence ought to train us to make as many 
 
Habit 89 
 
 useful actions as possible habitual and 
 automatic. The details of our daily life 
 usually follow a routine. People some- 
 times regret this, but we are fortunate 
 that it is so. Why should we waste our 
 energies in deciding the same questions 
 everyday? The good old maxim, "a 
 time and a place for everything " is the 
 crystallization of a hundred good habits. 
 Who is more miserable than one in 
 whom nothing is habitual but inde- 
 cision? 
 
 In one of Professor Huxley's books 
 the story is told of a discharged soldier 
 who was so accustomed to the military 
 drill that he would always suit the action 
 to the word of command. One day, a 
 wag who saw him carrying home his 
 dinner called out "Attention ! " Where- 
 upon the soldier instantly brought his 
 hands down and dropped his mutton and 
 potatoes in the gutter ! When a pupil 
 begins to play the violin, a book is often 
 placed under his right armpit which he 
 
90 Work and Play 
 
 is to hold fast by keeping the upper arm 
 tight against his body. This prevents 
 his swinging his elbow awkwardly as he 
 pla3^s. In the same way, mechanical 
 devices are employed to prevent bad 
 habits or mannerisms in the young 
 pianist, singer and speaker. 
 
 Habit implies an accumulation of energy 
 by repeated actions till a mental faculty or 
 a bodily organ is predisposed or held — 
 habihis — to act in a certain manner. The 
 mind repeats its activities with a constant 
 tendency to perform each process in the 
 same way it has acted before and with 
 a constantly increasing facility. Habit 
 steadies and gives strength. It gives mo- 
 mentum and finish to every act. We have 
 truly learned not that which we can be 
 examined upon, but that which has been 
 absorbed into our habits of thought. A 
 boy begins to be a gentleman by remem- 
 bering to perform certain courtesies ; he 
 really is one when these acts become 
 so habitual that he performs them uncon- 
 
Habit 91 
 
 sciously. He begins to be morally up- 
 right when he tries to treat his school- 
 mates and others kindly and fairly ; he 
 really becomes so when the habit has 
 ripened into character. 
 
 " Sow an act and you reap a habit, 
 
 Sow a habit and you reap a character." 
 
 Habits are formed largely in youth ; 
 they constitute one's personality. By 
 the time one is twenty-five, often much 
 earlier, you see the professional bearing 
 and habit settling down upon him. Cer- 
 tain little mannerisms indicate that he is 
 a young doctor, or minister, or lawyer, 
 or commercial traveler. And still earlier 
 do one's habits, his looks and his man- 
 ners, point him out as studious or earnest 
 or superficial or fast. No one can say 
 that he will do a thing only once. The 
 very act of doing it — the act which was 
 to be his first and his last of the kind — 
 makes him weaker to resist the tempta- 
 tion w^hile it increases its power. 
 
92 Work and Play 
 
 In *' Sandford and Merton " the story 
 is told of a young man who purchased a 
 handsome memorandum book every day 
 and immediately proceeded to fill it with 
 good resolutions, one on a page. When- 
 ever one of his resolves was broken he 
 hastened to tear out the leaf on which it 
 was written. All of his books which 
 were more than a few days old consisted 
 of empty covers ! None of his good 
 purposes were maintained long enough 
 to yield a habit. Too often is it thus 
 with men's best intentions. They fail at 
 the very outset. Professor Bain has sug- 
 gested several excellent maxims for the 
 benefit of those who are tr3ang to estab- 
 lish a good habit, or overcome a bad 
 one. 
 
 In the first place give the desired habit 
 as strong an initiative as possible. Its 
 beginning should be an event worthy of 
 note. No other engagements or allure- 
 ments should be permitted to conflict with 
 it. Give it all the momentum you can in 
 
Habit 93 
 
 the outset in order that it may not break 
 down before it has had time to be forti- 
 fied by repetition. 
 
 In the second place, permit no excep- 
 tion until the habit is well rooted in life. 
 Each inducement overcome makes the 
 next conquest easier. Moral habits 
 imply the presence of two hostile pow- 
 ers. Never lose a battle ; for a step in 
 the wrong direction costs all that has 
 been gained and makes a new start more 
 difficult. Every time a resolve evapo- 
 orates without result is worse than a 
 chance lost. 
 
 The third maxim is that we should 
 seize the first opportunity to act on every 
 good resolution. Good sentiments or in- 
 tentions are of no value if the will is not 
 able to hold the position it has chosen in 
 the various concrete cases as they arise. 
 Keep the faculty of effort strong, if need 
 be, by a little gratuitous exercise. What 
 is needed is not emotion, but manly 
 deeds. 
 
94 Work and Play 
 
 Such things as smoking, drinking 
 and opium-eating are sometimes spoken 
 of as physical habits ; they are even 
 called diseases. Of course they have 
 their physiological side ; their effects are 
 often very marked. But all such habits 
 begin m separate actions which are free 
 and voluntary. They are therefore 
 moral habits. The use of the stimulant 
 is entirely within the field of personal 
 control ; the effects of the use are entirely 
 outside this field. Men often foresee and 
 regret consequences which they could 
 avert if they were willing to deny them- 
 selves. They crave the indulgence even 
 though they know that it is wearing the 
 ruts of habit deeper and deeper. In the 
 formation of these habits the will does 
 ver}^ little in the outset, but it surren- 
 ders much. Each time the surrender 
 is made the will grows weaker and the 
 physical excitability becomes greater. 
 At length the craving is irresistible and 
 the dominion of the will over that feature 
 
Habit 95 
 
 of the bodily life is abandoned. Then 
 the habit may be truly called physical, 
 for in that particular the person has 
 ceased to be a man and has become 
 an animal, or a thing. His intelligence 
 draws helplessly back while his appetite 
 drives him on. What could be more pit- 
 iable ! *' Conceive," says Coleridge, " a 
 poor, miserable wretch, who for many 
 years has been attempting to beat ofT 
 pain by a constant recurrence to the vice 
 which reproduces it. In short, conceive 
 whatever is most wretched, helpless, and 
 hopeless, and you will form as tolerable 
 an idea of my state as it is possible for a 
 good man to have." 
 
 If, now, it be asked what is the secret 
 of the wonderful power of habit, why 
 habits are so easily formed in youth, and 
 why they are so persistent, I answer that 
 I believe the true answer, so far as we 
 can go in our explanation, has been 
 found during the last few years. 
 
 The mind uses nervous force in all 
 
g6 Work and Play 
 
 its activities. Every time an act is per- 
 formed this nerve-force makes, as it 
 w^ere, a track for itself along which it will 
 run more easily next time, and after a 
 few repetitions it is difficult to make the 
 nerve-force run in any other way. Now, 
 in the economy of nature, the use of the 
 hands in labor or athletics will no more 
 surely harden the muscles and make cal- 
 lous spots on the palms than it will cause 
 the nervous force to run along certain 
 lines and result in certain regular move- 
 ments. And when one thinks the same 
 thing happens ; the nerve force is wear- 
 ing channels for itself — mental habits are 
 forming. And if one talks, habits of 
 speech are forming. If he acts, habits of 
 life are forming. 
 
 And thus the new psychology of which 
 some good people have been afraid is, 
 as Professor James has shown, the strong- 
 est ally of sound moral instruction. Every 
 right action helps to form a right habit 
 which is a source of strength ; every 
 
Habit 97 
 
 wrong action tends to break down a 
 good habit or establish a bad one. In 
 the play, Rip Van Winkle excuses him- 
 self for each new drink by saying, " We 
 won't count this time." So young men 
 say nowadays. Well, they may not 
 count it, their friends may not count it, 
 kind heaven may not count it ; but it is 
 being counted none the less. Down 
 among the cells of the brain and along 
 the lines of the nerves, the molecules 
 and fibers are steadily registering and 
 storing it up against the time of the next 
 temptation. And how often the account 
 becomes too heavy for the man to pay, 
 and, try as he will, he cannot reform ! 
 He has been running in debt to nature 
 till he is morally insolvent. 
 
 But, fortunately, it is not our mistakes 
 and sins alone that are thus registered. 
 Every right choice leaves its impress ; 
 every manly decision is counted no less 
 certainly. The youth who resists the 
 temptation to shirk to-day makes it easier 
 
98 Work and Play 
 
 to do good work to-morrow. Industry, 
 integrity and self-control may become 
 so habitual that temptation along these 
 lines cannot move us, and even happi- 
 ness and cheerfulness ma}^ become habits 
 by always looking on the bright side. 
 The student who keeps faithfully busy 
 each day may rest assured of the final 
 result. The little molecules will find 
 their appropriate places in his brain as 
 certainly as they will in a cr3^stal or a 
 flower. Only let him persevere in whole- 
 some effort and study and he will cer- 
 tainly find as the years glide by that right 
 mental activities have become mental 
 habits, and right moral activities have 
 become moral habits, and have given 
 him strength to take his place among the 
 strong and successful men of his genera- 
 tion. 
 
 He will have some battles to wage, 
 but he will win, and it will do him good 
 to \vin them. There is a fable of a Nor- 
 man captain who inherited all the virtues, 
 
Habit 99 
 
 — courage, sagacity, foresight, persever- 
 ence, whatever they were, — of the per- 
 sons slain by him in battle. Thus only 
 could he grow strong. This fable be- 
 comes fact in the life of every one who 
 conquers an evil habit or acquires a good 
 one. 
 
 LofO. 
 
VII 
 THE COST OF FOUNDATIONS 
 
•Too low they build who build beneath the stars.'''' 
 
 Edward Young. 
 
 ' Souls ai'e built as temples are, — 
 Based on truth'' s eternal law. 
 Sure and steadfast, without flaw, 
 Thro2igh the sutishine, througJi the snows, 
 Up and on the building goes ; 
 Every fair thing fluids its place. 
 Every hard thing lends a grace. 
 Every hand may make or mar^ 
 
VII 
 
 THE COST OF FOUNDATIONS 
 
 'T^HE cost of foundations is proverbial ; 
 it is often discouraging. When a 
 man who proposes to build a new house 
 first looks over the plans and estimates, 
 he finds that the artistic features of win- 
 dows, porch and roof will add compara- 
 tively little to the expense, but that the 
 solid masonry, buried deep out of sight, 
 is the most costly part of the building. 
 In all ages deep and secure foundations 
 have been sought for structures which 
 were to endure. Those whose base was 
 weak have long since disappeared, but 
 the Pyramids and the Parthenon and 
 many another ancient edifice will testify, 
 for ages yet to come, to the skill and 
 foresight of the men who laid their in- 
 destructible foundations. 
 
 The walls of the Board of Trade build- 
 
I04 Work and Play 
 
 ing in Chicago are said to rest upon huge 
 granite pillars, fifty feet long, filled 
 round with great beds of concrete. Other 
 towering buildings in that city have still 
 stronger foundations. Seven of the twen- 
 ty millions which the capitol at Albany 
 has cost were expended before the first 
 story was reached. Its stately roof might 
 almost have been buried in the great 
 excavation which was made to receive 
 its sub-structure. When it was pro- 
 posed to build a lighthouse on Minot's 
 Ledge at the entrance of Boston harbor, 
 it was found that the rock was uncovered 
 only twenty minutes a day, at low tide. 
 It took two years, at great cost, to shape 
 the sea-worn surface to receive the tower ; 
 it took five years more to lay the first 
 courses and attach them securely to the 
 rock. Then one year sufficed to com- 
 plete the tower and place in position one 
 of the most celebrated lights which flashes 
 its rays along the Atlantic coast. 
 
 The young student often stands dis- 
 
The Cost of Foundations 105 
 
 heartened at the cost of an education. It 
 will take so many years, he complains, 
 to go through college, and then there 
 are other years of preparation to follow. 
 He wants to be in business or profes- 
 sional life at once. In his eagerness to 
 be a man among men he is tempted to 
 take a'* short cut " in education. Why 
 should he not enter at once upon the 
 study of his profession? Why spend so 
 much time upon general and disciplinary 
 branches? Why are they so important? 
 If he could save four years in preparing 
 for his life-work what a gain it would 
 be! 
 
 Most 3^oung men have such thoughts 
 as these. They are impatient of prelim- 
 inaries. They are interested in whatever 
 bears upon their future calling, but dis- 
 posed to criticize and question studies 
 and methods of work which do not im- 
 mediately contribute to prepare them for 
 their calling. They want to be putting 
 on the roof when they should be making 
 
io6 Work and Play 
 
 the foundation strong. No doubt some 
 of you often have feelings of this kind, 
 for it must be admitted that while the 
 number of college students is increasing 
 rapidly in this country, the great majority 
 of young men still refuse to take time for 
 a college course. 
 
 It is well therefore for us to bear in 
 mind that the conditions under which 
 men work have greatly changed during 
 the last few years ; other changes are 
 taking place. Competition has grown 
 fiercer, personal rivalries and compari- 
 sons are closer ; many of the old 
 methods of carrying on business or 
 conducting professional practice are out 
 of date and no longer possible ; con- 
 certed effort has taken the place of 
 indivicTual action ; skilful leadership 
 and foresight have become more and 
 more important. In almost every direc- 
 tion, the obstacles in the way of business 
 or professional success have increased. 
 If you are to do as well as your fathers 
 
The Cost of Foundations 107 
 
 have done, you must possess more than 
 their abilities. But you need to do 
 better, for standards have been raised. 
 It takes more money to make a man 
 rich than it used to take ; and in the • 
 same way it takes more abihty to make 
 him able, more learning to make him 
 learned, more education to make him 
 cultured. Many a man who would 
 have risen to note a generation ago is 
 only ordinary now and sinks out of 
 sight. 
 
 On the other hand, the possibilities 
 which await the 3'Oung man of the 
 highest ability and culture have greatly 
 increased ; honors and emoluments have 
 multiplied ; new opportunities for dis- 
 tinguished service have sprung up. 
 The world is in sore need of stroncr, 
 useful men ; they have never been more 
 loudly called for than at the present 
 time. Formerly, the only opportunities 
 offered to college graduates in this coun- 
 try were found in the three " learned 
 
io8 Work and Play 
 
 professions," the Christian ministry, law, 
 or medicine : but now every department 
 of science and almost every branch of 
 manufactures requires its broadly trained 
 scholars and experts, while the great 
 business interests and enterprises de- 
 mand a constantly increasing number of 
 men of the highest ability and training 
 to guide and direct their affairs. Not 
 long ago a teacher's position, paying a 
 salary of eighty-five dollars a month, 
 became vacant in the state of Iowa, and 
 in a short time six hundred and ten ap- 
 plications were received from fifteen 
 different states. But if a high position 
 requiring unusual ability is to be filled, 
 trustees and committees often spend 
 many months searching for a suitable 
 man. The crowding is all around the 
 foot of the ladder ; the saying of Daniel 
 Webster was never more strikingly true 
 than it is to-day, that " there is plenty of 
 room in the upper stories." 
 
 The inference is therefore irresistible 
 
The Cost of Foundations 109 
 
 that every aspiring young man should 
 lay his foundation of liberal study broad 
 and deep. It is of course each one's 
 duty to make the most of himself; 
 higher considerations than those which 
 have been suggested might be urged, 
 but it is unnecessary to dwell upon them 
 here. Only let us clearly understand 
 that the obstacles in the way of the weak 
 and inferior have multiplied, while new 
 and attractive opportunities are con- 
 stantly opening before the strong and 
 well equipped. " To him that hath 
 shall be given." 
 
 But the fields of study have been 
 greatly extended ; colleges offer much 
 more to their students than formerly ; 
 no one can pursue all the courses ; 
 which shall we elect? Most students 
 should seek personal advice in this 
 matter; we can give here only one sug- 
 gestion : 
 
 Choose broadly ; do not specialize too 
 early. Give your powers time to de- 
 
I lo Work and Play 
 
 velop under favorable influences. Spe- 
 cial training is best when it rests upon a 
 broad and strong foundation of liberal 
 study. Let us note a few corner-stones : 
 
 1. A well educated man in the comino- 
 years will possess the power of concen- 
 tration. He will be able to focus his 
 mental energies and bring them to bear 
 upon a definite point ; he will be able to 
 hold them steadily to the matter in 
 hand; his mental grip, while quiet and 
 easy, will be firm. He will be able to 
 give accurate and prolonged attention to 
 the facts and phenomena presented. 
 His studies will have made him familiar 
 with the methods of investigation pur- 
 sued in modern science ; and he will 
 unconsciously employ them, as occasion 
 arises, in the search for truth and the 
 detection of error. 
 
 2. His powers of retention, his mem- 
 ory and imagination, will also be 
 trained ; he will be able to hold and 
 organize his knowledge for ready use. 
 
The Cost of Foundations 1 1 1 
 
 It will not be a mass of disconnected 
 facts, but rather a comprehensive ac- 
 quaintance with the laws and relations 
 which underlie them. He will know 
 the great events of history and the 
 lessons which the}^ teach. The experi- 
 ences of mankind, their struggles for 
 freedom, and their groping for the 
 truth, then- various phases of social evo- 
 lution, will have their bearing for him 
 upon present day problems. He will 
 be, in the best sense, a well informed 
 man. 
 
 3. His judgment will be trained. He 
 will be able to discriminate clearly, 
 to compare accurately and justly. His 
 habit of thought will lead him constantly 
 to distinguish between that which is 
 essential and that which is accidental, 
 between the real and the apparent, the 
 true and the false, the good and the bad, 
 the right and the wrong. His analysis 
 of subjects will be clear and logical. 
 Holding each deduction steadily in hand. 
 
1 1 2 Work and Play 
 
 he will be able to apply it till his chain 
 of reasoning is strong and convincing. 
 The habit of foresight will be formed, 
 and, blending experience with expecta- 
 tion, he will wisely judge of the future 
 from the past. 
 
 4. In the coming years the well edu- 
 cated man will possess the power of clear 
 and easy expression. It is not enough 
 to perceive, remember and think well ; 
 mental processes lose their value in pro- 
 portion as they fail of utterance. One's 
 education is incomplete and disappoint- 
 ing if it does not enable him to state his 
 wishes or opinions distinctly and forcibly 
 on any subject. Perhaps it is too much 
 to say that he should do it equally well 
 by voice or pen, but he must, at least, 
 be able to join, at any time, in confer- 
 ence or debate as occasion may arise. 
 His weight and influence will depend 
 largely on this power. Nothing is more 
 central in a good education than a real 
 acquaintance with one's native tongue. 
 
The Cost of Foundations 113 
 
 A knowledge of a dozen languages, of 
 ancient and modern history and of all 
 the sciences, would not compensate one 
 for ignorance of English. No man's 
 education is good until he has read dis- 
 criminatingly in all the great depart- 
 ments of American and EngHsh litera- 
 ture. 
 
 These are some of the foundation- 
 stones which every college student 
 should lay. Others might well be 
 added; no one will claim, I am sure, 
 that we have made the requirements 
 too comprehensive, or set the standard 
 too high for the liberally educated man. 
 Whatever may be his professional or 
 business attainments, whatever intimate 
 and minute familiarity he may subse- 
 quently acquire with any special study 
 or calling, he will need, and ought to 
 possess at the outset, all the qualifica- 
 tions which we have outlined. Nothing 
 less will constitute him a well rounded 
 and well trained man. 
 9 
 
114 Work and Play 
 
 As we enter upon the work of a col- 
 lege year, new hopes and purposes 
 spring up within us. Aspiration is 
 quickened ; thoughts at once joyous and 
 serious fill our minds. Let us see to it 
 that these desires shall not be fleeting 
 and evanescent. Whatever else the 
 coming months may fail to bring, they 
 need not and should not fail to strengthen 
 our moral fiber — our true manliness. 
 
 Dr. Arnold of Rugby was accustomed 
 to estimate his students less by their 
 intellectual attainments than by their 
 personal character and stamina. He 
 urged upon them " moral thoughtful- 
 ness ; " their real improvement would be 
 evinced by their conduct. It is natural 
 for youth to act from impulse ; maturing 
 years and discipline should bring reflec- 
 tion, a thoughtful regard for every in- 
 terest, not forgetting our own. Let 
 none of us think that, because w^e are 
 well and strong, we may therefore disre- 
 gard the conditions of good health, or 
 
The Cost of Foundations 115 
 
 that because we have talent we may 
 neglect the means of intellectual growth, 
 or that because we are away from home 
 we may relax the principles of rectitude 
 or the rules of gentlemanly intercourse. 
 Nowhere do actions ripen into habits 
 more rapidly than in college. Any edu- 
 cation is weak and narrow which does 
 not make us kind, considerate and ap- 
 preciative. 
 
 And let us not suppose that the old- 
 fashioned, homespun virtue of industry 
 is less needful in college than in other 
 places. Nowhere is the loss of time 
 more disastrous, nowhere are the temp- 
 tations to waste it more frequent. Pleas- 
 ant companionship, diversions, indolence 
 and love of ease are all liable to en- 
 croach upon the hours of work. The 
 result is poor and hurried preparation of 
 lessons, neglect of college and society 
 exercises. And more serious than this 
 loss is the habit of slipshod work which 
 is thus formed and the willingness to be 
 
1 1 6 Work and Play 
 
 satisfied with less than the best that 
 one can do. Our future character and 
 quality, our moral stamina and force of 
 will depend upon the habit of doing our 
 best every time. 
 
 And to this comprehensive virtue of 
 industr}^ we need to add another plain 
 and unpretending but fundamental trait 
 — that of earnestness. The lukewarm 
 man, the student who is half awake and 
 half asleep, will never accomplish any- 
 thing. It is natural for youth to be enthu- 
 siastic ; nothing is more becoming. And 
 yet, many young people, college boys 
 among them, have conceived the idea that 
 it is iii bad form to be very much in ear- 
 nest about any thing. ** Harvard indif- 
 ference," as the Nation called it, was al- 
 most a fad in many colleges a few years 
 ago. It has not disappeared from some 
 of them yet ; but it is going. There 
 is no room in any college for a Nil 
 Adinirari society. It you have strong 
 muscles and a bounding pulse, act as if 
 
The Cost of Foundations 117 
 
 you had them. Why should a young 
 man belie his abounding vitality? Why 
 affect a supercilious unconcern, or en- 
 gage with sluggish indifference in those 
 things which should elicit earnest pur- 
 pose and enthusiasm? Why live in 
 intellectual hovels when we might live 
 in palaces? 
 
 The preparation for college is cen- 
 tered upon the scholastic requirements 
 for admission ; the requisites in those 
 things which pertain to character are too 
 often overlooked. The higher insdtu- 
 tion must supplement, as it can, the 
 work of the preparatory years. Great 
 temptations beset a college boy in the 
 comparative freedom of his student life. 
 If he has been sheltered from evil influ- 
 ences at home, or if he has not learned 
 to resist them, can he stand against them 
 now? Sooner or later he must meet 
 them. Is he equal to the responsibility 
 of self-direction? Some evening when 
 he is with a lot of friends, can he raise 
 
1 1 8 Work and Play 
 
 his protest if something is proposed 
 which he knows to be wrong? And if 
 he is unable to stop it, can he separate 
 himself and go to his room w^hile his 
 friends enjoy themselves? Can he com- 
 pel his reluctant energies and faithfully 
 perform his work when temptations to 
 shirk it press upon him? Can he turn 
 away from the allurements of vice when 
 he sees no danger of discovery or dis- 
 grace? Are his habits and integrity 
 guarded by firm principles? For most 
 of us there need be no doubt concerning 
 these things ; if some are weak let those 
 who are strong throw about them a 
 manly protection and care. 
 
 Such are the foundations upon which 
 we need to build. They cost much in 
 self-denial, in modest thoughtfulness, in 
 patient and earnest work. But they 
 enable us to build a comely and endur- 
 ing structure. Upon them our lives 
 may rise in symmetry and stand un- 
 shaken by time or tempest. They af- 
 
The Cost of Foundations 119 
 
 ford ample compensation for every sac- 
 rifice in the consciousness of purity, 
 integrity and uprightness. And they 
 give us faith in ourselves and faith in 
 the future that we shall realize its inspir- 
 ing possibilities. 
 
VIII 
 UNCONSCIOUS EDUCATION 
 
^'■Love is ever the beginning of knowledge, as fire 
 
 is of light.'''' 
 
 Thomas Carlyle. 
 
 ' '■A desire of knowledge is the natural feeling of 
 
 mankind ; a?id every human being whose nmid is 
 
 not debased, will be willing to give all that he has to 
 
 get knowledge P 
 
 Samuel Johnson. 
 
 * ' Repose and cheerfulness are the badge of the 
 gentleman — repose in energy. '''' 
 
 R. W. Emerson. 
 
VIII 
 UNCONSCIOUS EDUCATION 
 
 W 
 
 E all understand that education is a 
 growth, a development. The mind 
 is not a storehouse to be filled or a ma- 
 chine to be set in motion ; it is a spiritual 
 principle, putting forth its own energies 
 and working out its own ends. 
 
 We also understand that in its pro- 
 cesses of growth the mind is constantly- 
 influenced by the things towards which 
 its activity is directed. We grow to be 
 like the things which we think most 
 about. He who habitually thinks of low 
 or selfish things will be himself debased, 
 while the mind which is filled with noble 
 conceptions tends to become strong and 
 pure. One's likes and dislikes are usu- 
 ally reflected in his habits of thought. 
 
 I wish this morning to think with you 
 for a few minutes along the line of the 
 
124 Work and Play 
 
 indirect or unconscious education we are 
 constantly receiving. We recognize, of 
 course, the value of the discipline gained 
 in the recitation-room and laboratory. 
 The intellectual powers are trained and 
 developed by study and drill. The col- 
 lege work stands first ; it is the soil into 
 which our mental growth strikes its roots. 
 But I remember that the experiment was 
 once tried in the royal botanical gardens 
 at Kew of planting a tree in a large box 
 in which it grew rapidly for some years. 
 It was then transplanted and, while the 
 tree had gained hundreds of pounds in 
 weight, the box of earth weighed nearly 
 as much as when the tree was first set 
 in it. 
 
 The mind, like the tree, derives the 
 materials of its growth largely from the 
 atmosphere which surrounds it, and 
 while, like the tree, it grows best in a 
 good soil, it also requires certain other 
 favorable conditions of air and warmth 
 and sunshine. We will look for a mo- 
 
Unconscious Education 125 
 
 ment at some of these unconscious influ- 
 ences of growth which are of special 
 importance during our college days. 
 The first of these is our environment. 
 
 Buckle has pointed out in his great 
 work on the Intellectual Development 
 of Europe that the type of civilization 
 developed by the people of each country 
 is largely due to their natural surround- 
 ings. Thus we find in the Swiss moun- 
 taineer, the Scotch highlander, the Yar- 
 mouth fisherman, and the Hollander 
 guarding his dykes and canals, marked 
 characteristics and differences due to 
 their locality and the life which they 
 lead. Most persons are deeply influ- 
 enced by the home in which their child- 
 hood is passed. Some 3^ears ago Wash- 
 ington Gladden wrote to several hundred 
 of the most successful men of his city 
 asking them certain questions concern- 
 ing their early life and habits of work. 
 The replies showed that the boyhood of 
 over ninety per cent, of these men was 
 
126 Work and Play 
 
 passed in the country, generally on a 
 farm, and that they learned to work with 
 their hands. They knew the value of 
 money, and early acquired habits of 
 thrift and industry. Many of them 
 gained a college education under great 
 difficulties. Now it does not follow 
 because Daniel Webster could mow, or 
 because Nathaniel P. Banks was a 
 bobbin boy, that every student who has 
 had like experiences will be a great 
 man ; but it is true that the youth who 
 has learned to apply himself, who is 
 willing to " shovel," has a great advan- 
 tage in the struggles of life. John M. 
 Palmer, a man whom the people of Illi- 
 nois have so long delighted to honor, 
 mixed mortar and carried the hod to 
 pay his expenses while he was attend- 
 ing school. Who can estimate how 
 much of the strength and lofty purpose 
 which have always characterized Sena- 
 tor Palmer, which characterized Abra- 
 ham Lincoln and Richard Yates, and 
 
Unconscious Education 127 
 
 which have been evinced by most of 
 the makers of the Great West, was due 
 to their early environment, in which they 
 learned industry, economy and self- 
 reliance? 
 
 But, besides these great foundation 
 habits which are laid in 'our early asso- 
 ciations, there are influences more subtle 
 and pervasive which help to form our 
 judgments and often our convictions and 
 ruling ideas. A fine college campus is 
 a perpetual teacher. Beautiful build- 
 ings and their historic associations, great 
 names and the deeds or places connected 
 with them, and even the anniversaries 
 which commemorate the birth of a nation 
 or a hero stimulate our ambition and 
 make it easier to do our best. 
 
 Art and music and pleasant surround- 
 ings improve our intellectual life. Re- 
 fined tastes and courteous manners are 
 silently absorbed ; rough habits steal up- 
 on us unawares. If any of us suppose 
 we can, without harm, permit our rooms 
 
128 Work and Play 
 
 to become repulsive with dirt and dis- 
 order, it is a serious mistake. Carlyle 
 says that he who lives like an animal 
 becomes an animal. An atmosphere of 
 refinement and courtesy is as necessary 
 for intellectual and moral health as pure 
 air is for our bodies. " He who drinks 
 beer," says Emerson, " will talk beer." 
 He who absorbs from his daily surround- 
 ings — from the very atmosphere he 
 breathes — an interest in science and lit- 
 erature and scholarly themes is gaining 
 an intellectual uplift which may deter- 
 mine his career. Dr. Thomas Hill, for 
 many years president of Harvard col- 
 lege, used to say that if a man only 
 rubbed his shoulders acjainst the colleo^e 
 walls he would in four years receive no 
 small part of a liberal education. Who 
 can measure the influence exerted by 
 the college literary societies, by college 
 athletics, by the dormitor}^ life? It 
 seems but a little thing to attend our 
 daily chapel service, but the graduates 
 
Unconscious Education 129 
 
 of many a college will testify that this 
 recognition throughout the college course 
 of their dependence upon the heavenly 
 Father's care has had a beniorn and 
 abiding influence upon their lives. 
 
 Companionship plays an important 
 part in our education. The keenest ob- 
 server of men and things that ever lived 
 once said : "He that walketh with wise 
 men shall be wise : but a companion of 
 fools shall be destroyed," or, more lit- 
 erally, " go to pieces ;" and the shrewd 
 old Yankees used to say: "A man is 
 known by the compan}' he keeps." The 
 influence of our daily intercourse can 
 hardly be overestimated. There are 
 few characters so strong that they may 
 not go to pieces under the disintegrating 
 influence of evil associates. It v^^as not 
 the brilliant society of Edinburgh but 
 the smuggler boys of Kirkoswald that 
 led Burns astray. 
 
 The social atmosphere and customs 
 amidst which we live have a silent but 
 10 
 
130 Work and Play 
 
 powerful influence upon our character 
 and habits of thought. A young man 
 once entered Oberlin College who was 
 addicted to profanit}^ This vice was 
 frowned upon in the college circles, and 
 he soon gave it up. But returning at va- 
 cation to his old associations he resumed 
 the habit. When he went back to col- 
 lege he stopped swearing, but in his 
 vacation he always relapsed into pro- 
 fanity. Many another young man is 
 almost as fickle and characterless. Un- 
 stable and chameleon-hued, he changes 
 to suit the crowd he chances to be with. 
 Every student should be sure of his 
 backbone. What a pity that a popular 
 maxim should advise us " when in 
 Rome to do as the Romans do," as if we 
 were to have no mind or principles of 
 our own. The companionship which 
 students have with one another in Chris- 
 tian colleges is generally wholesome and 
 invigorating, far better than they have 
 out of college. But in most schools. 
 
Unconscious Education 131 
 
 cases may be found of that which 
 abounds in every city and village 
 throughout the land — the degradation 
 of character by personal influence. The 
 wise young man will therefore determine 
 never to associate familiarly with those 
 whose habits are bad or whose influ- 
 ence will draw^ him down. 
 
 But in college as in the outside world 
 we are thrown together in various rela- 
 tions. We must discharge these rela- 
 tions. We cannot get rid of them if we 
 would. We must meet various sorts of 
 people and have constant relations with 
 them. It is a grand thing to fulfil all 
 the obligations which spring from our 
 associations in the school, in business, 
 in society. That life is exceedingly 
 narrow and sheltered which does not 
 come in contact with some corrupting 
 influences. Well-rounded manhood im- 
 plies strength and judgment safely to 
 meet all sorts of men. Our associations 
 are not wholly of our own choosing. 
 
132 Work and Play 
 
 They are largely the outgrowth of our 
 occupation and place of residence. That 
 youth is fortunate who is never thrown 
 into corrupting associations ; he is more 
 fortunate whose quick perception and 
 firm principles prove a panoply of de- 
 fense against every evil allurement. 
 
 But while our associations are thus 
 largely the result of circumstances, our 
 friendships are peculiarly our own. No 
 one need ever continue, or even form, 
 an unworthy friendship. It is true that 
 casual association leads to companion- 
 ship, and companionship often ripens 
 into friendship ; but what communion 
 hath light with darkness, or what fel- 
 lowship have truth and purity vv'ith 
 falsehood and uncleanness? Prize your 
 friends ; bring yourst-lf into closest sym- 
 pathy with them ; enjoy them ; be ready 
 to serve them, to make sacrifices for 
 them ; but be sure, first of all, that they 
 are worthy to enter into your life, and 
 never give your confidence and aflec- 
 
Unconscious Education 133 
 
 tion to one whose influence will drag 
 you down. 
 
 " The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried, 
 Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel ; 
 But do not dull thy palm with entertainment 
 Of each new-hvatched, unfledged comrade." 
 
 And now to this warnlno; it is but fair 
 to add the assurance that well assorted 
 friendships contribute no less to our 
 improvement than to our enjoyment. 
 Bacon declares that a friend is another 
 self, and a still higher authority says 
 that as iron sharpens iron, so a man 
 bricrhtens the countenance of his friend. 
 Much of our success as well as our 
 pleasure depends on our friends. In- 
 deed, they are a necessity; we cannot 
 get along without them. '^Untis homo^ 
 niillus homo " is an old Latin proverb 
 which concisely expresses the truth that 
 one man alone is no man at all. He 
 who tries to live without friends narrows 
 his life and dwarfs his powers. Form 
 no unworthy friendships, but do not 
 
134 Work and Play 
 
 become hermits. Let your powers of 
 mind and heart expand under genial 
 intercourse with those whom you can 
 respect and love. 
 
 One practical suggestion : There is 
 no place where politeness is of more 
 value than where it seems superfluous. 
 Respect your friend's ideas and prefer- 
 ences. Don't think you must be con- 
 stantly setting him right or giving him 
 advice. Some people seem to think 
 they can say to their friends, face to 
 face, such things as they say about 
 strangers behind their backs. Don't 
 have stock subjects of dispute which you 
 are always liable to stumble upon. Cul- 
 tivate the amenities even with your 
 most intimate friends. 
 
 A third source of unconscious educa- 
 tion is to be found in our aims and 
 ideals. These are the motives by which 
 we are actuated. To a large extent 
 they have already made us what we are. 
 All good work, all high endeavors, are 
 
Unconscious Education 135 
 
 born of aspiration. *' Hope tells a flat- 
 tering tale.'" Fancies light as air, 
 springing from incidents which the 
 world deemed trivial, have been cher- 
 ished in the heart of a boy till they 
 have made him great. Thought makes 
 character. As a man " thinketh in his 
 heart, so is he." He who does not 
 think high things, whose imagination 
 does not revel in glowing pictures of 
 what he hopes to be and to do, will not 
 achieve high things. Every youth has 
 his day-dreams, his half-formed ideals. 
 We cannot guard too closely this foun- 
 tainhead of our aspirations. Thought 
 quickly passes over into action. The 
 ideal becomes the real. The germs of a 
 pestilence in the body are not more active 
 to destroy the health than false ideals are 
 to corrupt the character. They poison 
 the very springs of action, making of 
 one a spendthrift or a libertine ; of 
 another, a quack or a miser. 
 
 Henry Schliemann, while still an er- 
 
136 Work and Play 
 
 rand-boy, resolved that he would one 
 day unbury Troy. His bold purpose 
 and the wide renown which it afterwards 
 brought him were born of his boyish 
 dreams. He would never have found 
 Troy, he tells us, had it not been for the 
 inspiration he caught while reading 
 Homer. 
 
 Robert Fulton, a young miniature- 
 painter of seventeen, conceived the bold 
 fancy that a ship might be propelled 
 through the water by steam. Still prac- 
 tising his art as a livelihood he went to 
 London to study mechanics and to Paris 
 to test his inventions. He endured un- 
 told hardship and ridicule, and at length, 
 after more than twenty years of study 
 and experiment, he was triumphantly 
 carried on his little ''Clermont" from 
 New York to Albany. 
 
 The youth who is strong enough to 
 drive out all unworthy aims, who will 
 make room for no ideals but those that 
 are high and pure, is training himself 
 
Unconscious Education 137 
 
 towards a noble manhood and enduring 
 success. He may never reach his ideal, 
 for that will advance with his progress ; 
 but, like hope, it will beckon him on and 
 nerve him for still higrher achievement. 
 
 «' Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, 
 As the swift seasons roll ! 
 Leave the low vaulted past ! 
 Let each new temple, nobler than the last. 
 Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast, 
 Till thou at length art free, 
 
 Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting 
 sea!" 
 
IX 
 
 RESERVE POWER 
 
^ '■There is nothing so becomes a man as modest 
 stillness.'''' 
 
 William Shakespeare. 
 
 " Gentleness is power.'''' 
 
 Leigh Hunt. 
 
 ' ' The world is God's seed-bed. He has planted 
 deep and inultitudinonsly , a?td jnany things there 
 are which have ?wt yet co7?ie ?//.'" 
 
 H. W. Beecher. 
 
IX 
 
 RESERVE POWER 
 
 OOME men are able to find valuable 
 suggestions in events which to others 
 seem trivial. General Garfield once said : 
 ** When I was a freshman in college I 
 looked out of my window before retiring 
 one night and saw a light twinkling in 
 the room of my principal competitor for 
 the prize in mathematics. It gave me a 
 hint which I was not slow to take, and I 
 then and there determined to invest a lit- 
 tle more preparation in the contest for 
 the prize. I smile now as I recall the 
 rivalry of those days, and the resolution 
 to do a little more work which gained 
 the much coveted prize, but I rejoice in 
 the great truth which I then discovered, 
 and which applies in business, in politics, 
 in morals, in every relation in life, that a 
 margin of unused resources is the best 
 guarantee of integrity and success." 
 
142 Work and Play 
 
 If every student could learn the lesson 
 which Garfield learned in his student 
 days, it would be greatly to his advan- 
 tage. Not that he might be taught how 
 to beat his competitor and take a prize ; 
 not merely that he might learn the value 
 of thoroughness and continue to work 
 until his lessons were learned, but rather 
 that he might know that real strength 
 consists largely in energy which is not 
 used, that power held in reserve is often 
 more effective than that which is applied 
 and multiplies one's working-capacity 
 many fold. 
 
 This is a principle of far-reaching im- 
 port, but one which men are very slow 
 to learn — a paradox, constantly illus- 
 trated in our daily life. People ignore 
 it, or perhaps deny it, as they do the 
 sayings of the Bible that " unto every one 
 that hath shall be given" and "there 
 is that scattereth, and yet increaseth," 
 but they go right on making life's suc- 
 cesses large or small in the same propor- 
 
Reserve Power 143 
 
 tion that they conform to this law. No 
 one can escape it or set it aside ; the 
 wise and fortunate man is he who adapts 
 his life to it most completely. 
 
 Nature teaches this truth on every 
 side. The swinging of the tides would 
 carry all the machinery of the world 
 could it be utilized. A lump of earth 
 or a drop of water holds imprisoned 
 within itself latent forces which would 
 lift mountains were they called into 
 use. The sun gives out heat enough 
 every hour to consume all the planets of 
 the solar system. Even when the en- 
 ergy is exerted and applied, it is the 
 gentle and unnoticed forces which pro- 
 duce the ixreatest effects. The boisterous 
 winds sought in vain, in the fable, to rob 
 the traveler of his cloak, but the genial 
 sunshine soon made him cast it aside. 
 The silent forces of vegetable growth 
 lift from the soil or condense from the 
 air the wonderful materials which cover 
 the earth with verdure, fruits and for- 
 
144 Work and Play 
 
 ests, while other unseen forces gather 
 from the land and sea the particles of 
 water which refresh the fields and fill 
 the lakes and rivers. 
 
 In mechanics, the first condition of 
 good work is ample power. A Corliss 
 engine, capable of driving the machinery 
 of a whole exposition, will cut tlie 
 smallest screw or the finest watch- 
 spring. The locomotive of a generation 
 acfo worked with a full head of steam as 
 it jerked and jolted a few cars slowly 
 along ; but its modern successor, sweep- 
 ing with its heavy train three times as 
 fast across the continent, uses but half 
 its power. The ''ocean greyhounds" 
 never run at their full speed, but the 
 ''tramp" steamer drives its engines to 
 their utmost capacity during every hour 
 of its tedious voyage. 
 
 Still more conspicuous is this law in 
 human aff'airs — in the great crises and 
 emergencies of life. It is the general 
 who knows that he is well supported who 
 
Reserve Power 145 
 
 can lead a resistless charge. It was the 
 arrival of Blucher's reserves which won 
 the field of Waterloo. It was the 
 United States soldiers who enabled the 
 New York police to suppress the draft- 
 riots without striking a blow. At the 
 Battle of Gettysburg, when that last ter- 
 rific charge of the Confederate forces 
 seemed about to break through Han- 
 cock's lines, it was the brilliant dash of 
 the Vermont reserves which lent new 
 courage to the Union ranks and turned 
 the tide of battle. 
 
 When danger threatens, w^hen prudent 
 counsels are needed, people eagerly turn 
 to the man whose wisdom and streniith 
 are most trusted. It is related by Emer- 
 son that, whenever Lord Chatham spoke, 
 those who listened felt that there was 
 something finer in the man than anything 
 which he said, and additional weight 
 was thereb}^ given to every sentence 
 \vhich he uttered. History abounds in 
 records of men whose deeds bear no ade- 
 ji 
 
146 Work and Play 
 
 quate proportion to the esteem in which 
 they were heWby their contemporaries. 
 Measured by abilit}^ displayed, intellect- 
 ual or military achievements, America 
 has had many greater men than Wash- 
 ington ; but no one has ever yet arisen 
 to dispute with him the foremost place 
 in the nation's veneration and honor. 
 Every community contains persons 
 whose mere approval or dissent carries 
 more influence than the ablest arguments 
 of other less trusted advocates. The 
 power of such men is, in a sense, latent; 
 it is not consciously displayed and as- 
 serted ; it makes itself felt without effort 
 and often by unseen means. It has been 
 said that '*the measure of power is the 
 resistance of circumstance," but it is the 
 felicity of reserve power to create cir- 
 cumstances, or so to shape them that the 
 crisis never comes and the battle is won 
 before it is visibly joined. Men recog- 
 nize their safe leader ; they find in him 
 a power which they cannot, perhaps, 
 
Reserve Power 147 
 
 analyze but which they gladly acknowl- 
 edge. His presence inspires confidence 
 and his words are like a tonic. 
 
 We have all seen the quiet poise, the 
 modest self-assertion, of such men. In 
 many things, we would be glad to take 
 them for our models. We ask, What is 
 this intangible, indefinable quality which 
 men call reserve power? What is its 
 secret? Can it be cultivated ? He would 
 be bold who asserted that every man's 
 power can be clearly explained. Too 
 many factors contribute to it, some of 
 which are diflicult to trace. But it is 
 easy to point out certain fundamental ele- 
 ments of personal power, native gifts 
 and also fruits of training, open in vary- 
 ing degree to every one, which become 
 an unfailing aid and reinforcement to 
 their possessor. 
 
 I. A settled purpose contributes vastly 
 to one's strength. It is a propelling force. 
 A weak and vacillating will brings not 
 only failure, but also the habit and ex- 
 
148 Work and Play 
 
 pectation of failure. It is the man who 
 is dead in earnest that succeeds ; if baf- 
 fled or obstructed in one direction, he 
 tries another ; he sticks to his point till 
 he carries it. Because he knows no 
 such word as fail, because he habitually 
 attains his end, he grows strong and irre- 
 sistible. " Unto everyone that hath shall 
 be given." 
 
 It is a trite saying, but as true and as 
 important as it is trite, that there can be 
 no mastery over others until one has 
 learned to govern himself. It is the 
 man who holds his faculties in steady 
 control in the ordinary affairs of life 
 that accumulates a reserve, a force of 
 will, to meet its crises. A quiet spirit 
 and a quiet manner are great elements 
 of strength. Excited or unruly souls 
 yield to the spell of calm composure. 
 Repose is not stagnation or inaction ; it 
 is the serene mastery of one's self with 
 an assurance which masters others. 
 
 ''The shallow murmur, but the deep 
 
Reserve Power 149 
 
 are dumb," says Sir Walter Raleigh. 
 The man who first declares his opinion 
 when great issues arise seldom gains our 
 confidence, while he who calmly waits 
 till others have spoken and thoughtfully 
 weighs every consideration commands 
 our willing assent. Silence is sometimes 
 more convincing than argument. A set- 
 tled purpose, moreover, yields a steady 
 progress. A spurt at the start may be 
 good — there are times when it is indis- 
 pensable — but it is usually the " unrest- 
 ing, unhasting advance " that wins the 
 day. We must have a quiet spirit if we 
 would get the best out of ourselves. He 
 who gains the mastery over a strong im- 
 pulse, a quick temper, a sharp tongue, a 
 roving imagination, little by little acquires 
 an energy on which he can draw in time 
 of need. Every such act of self-control 
 is like a deposit in a savings-bank. 
 Nature puts it out at interest and holds 
 the accumulating fund. She makes him 
 rich in will-power, in mental poise, — a 
 
150 Work and Play 
 
 reserve of energy for himself and a guar- 
 antee to the world of fitness for her ser- 
 vice and honors. 
 
 2. Simplicity augments one's strength. 
 Men want the truth ; they want no re- 
 servations or double-dealing. It is the 
 man whose transparent course leaves no 
 room for doubt that gains their confi- 
 dence. People admire brilliancy, ap- 
 plaud it, honor it, for a time ; but they 
 tie to genuineness. They want reliabil- 
 ity ; they trust their interests to the man 
 who is straightforward. Temptations 
 to conceal or evade are constantly pre- 
 sented. Duplicity is the recourse of 
 weak men ; it takes strength and charac- 
 ter to resist the inducements to assume 
 false colors. But the man who has the 
 courapfe of his convictions and unflinch- 
 ingly stands by them is not only safer 
 than the trickster, but is also gaining 
 strength which will support him in every 
 emergency. There is no higher great- 
 ness than the greatness of simplicity. 
 
Reserve Power 1 5 i 
 
 3. Ample intellectual resources afford 
 a constant reserve. Ignorance is always 
 at a disadvantage. Most of the prob- 
 lems which men meet are simplified and 
 made easy by fuller information, by 
 acquaintance with related subjects. It 
 is marvelous how almost ever}" item of 
 knowledge sooner or later becomes 
 directly serviceable ; and how, if not 
 immediately used, it contributes indirect- 
 ly to help one in his work. A New 
 York capitalist recently said that his col- 
 lege education had been of constant ser- 
 vice to him in meeting men, by enabling 
 him to feel that he was their intellectual 
 peer and at no disadvantage in point 
 of culture or discipline. He thus had 
 confidence in taking steps or making 
 decisions where he would otherwise have 
 been in doubt. 
 
 There can be no question that people 
 have greater confidence in a leader and 
 hold him in higher esteem if they are 
 sure of his mental equipment. Thorough 
 
152 Work and Play 
 
 training, then, broad culture and infor- 
 mation, are a constant reserve which 
 give a man power in every department 
 of service. 
 
 4. Executive ability constitutes an im- 
 portant element. It is interesting to 
 observe the differences among men in 
 this regard. Some work with great 
 rapidity and for many hours at a time ; 
 their powers of accomplishment are won- 
 derful. Others can do but little ; the 
 limit of their working capacity is quickl}^ 
 reached. There are few important posi- 
 tions which do not at times call for 
 ability to do a large amount of work in 
 a short time. Such conditions are not 
 favorable to good work. But speed is in- 
 dispensable ; there is no time for reflection 
 or delay ; the opportunity will soon be 
 past ; the best possible use must be made 
 at once of the time afforded. An editor, 
 for example, finds it necessary to write 
 on an important matter just before the 
 paper goes to press ; a lawyer has to 
 
 4 
 
Reserve Power 153 
 
 make a brief, or prepare to try a case, on 
 very short notice ; a preacher or a 
 statesman must speak on an important 
 occasion with little time for preparation ; 
 an author must furnish an unusual 
 amount of copy within a limited period ; 
 an officer in a great corporation is unex- 
 pectedly called on for a statement or 
 estimate covering large amounts. In 
 these and multitudes of other cases a 
 man's opportunity comes and is quickly 
 gone ; and his value depends upon his 
 capacity for rapid work, for prolonged 
 effort. If this has been tested and 
 proven it becomes to him a reserve 
 power, enhancing the esteem in which 
 he will be held. 
 
 One's college da3's ought, at least, to 
 lay the foundation of this power. No 
 one believes in cramming; hurried and 
 superficial preparation of a lesson is only 
 to be condemned. But the ability to 
 work rapidly, to prepare a lesson thor- 
 oughly in a short time, is one of the 
 
154 Work and Play 
 
 most desirable results of a college train- 
 ing. It ought to be attained as early as 
 possible in one's .student life. It stands 
 in sharp contrast with the easy-going 
 procrastination which creeps upon too 
 many of us unawares. 
 
 5. It would be a serious omission 
 should I fail to add that an intelligent 
 and unwavering faith is an important 
 element in one's reserve power. Faith 
 in one's self, in one's faculties and 
 powers and their ability to respond to 
 the demands which will be made upon 
 them, is right and necessary. It is not 
 o'erweening confidence or conceit, but 
 a calm assurance of one's strength. It 
 is simply trusting one's intellectual 
 powers and relying upon them for their 
 necessary service, just as one trusts his 
 eyes or his ears and knows that they will 
 do their proper work. Faith in others is 
 also right. Not that we are to put our- 
 selves in the power of strangers, or 
 neglect proper precautions ; but simply 
 
Reserve Power 155 
 
 that we need to trust the men with whom 
 we work and that mutual confidence and 
 interdependence are necessary and pro- 
 mote our peace and efficiency. Faith in 
 truth, faith in righteousness, faith in 
 a higher Power whicli makes for right- 
 eousness, faith in a heavenly Father, 
 who loves and cares for his children and 
 who will not desert them in their times 
 of stress and difficulty, contributes, as 
 nothing else can, to one's reserve 
 strength. It was this faith which gave 
 calm assurance and irresistible vigor to 
 Cromwell and his Ironsides, to Luther 
 as he nailed his theses to the church 
 door in Wittenberg, to Savonarola, to 
 John Knox and to every champion of 
 justice and freedom. There is nothing 
 higher or nobler in one's education than 
 to learn the power of a living faith. It 
 is like awaking to one's possibilities 
 and resources. It enables a man to 
 make the most of himself and of his life, 
 to inspire confidence and bring out the 
 
156 Work and Play 
 
 best in his fellow men, and it enables 
 him to stand in hours of struggle or of 
 darkness, with, his hand firmly grasping 
 unseen strength and to hear a voice 
 assuring him of divine guidance and sup- 
 port. 
 
X 
 THE SCHOLAR IN PUBLIC LIFE 
 
" States?na7i, yet friend of tnUJi ! of soul sincere. 
 In action faithful a7id in ho7ior clear ; 
 EjtJiobled by hijnself, by all approved. 
 And praised, unenvied, by the muse he loved ^ 
 
 Alexander Pope. 
 
X 
 
 THE SCHOLAR IN PUBLIC LIFE 
 
 'T^HE death of Gladstone (which is re- 
 ported in this morning's papers) 
 suggests some practical thoughts upon 
 which it cannot be unprofitable for us to 
 dwell for a few moments. His charac- 
 ter is so exalted and his career so illus- 
 trious that comment and eulogy seem 
 superfluous and out of place. His deeds 
 need no explanations or defence ; it is 
 unnecessary even to recount them. His 
 splendid attainments and personal worth 
 scarcely admit of commendation or re- 
 view. We instinctively feel that analy- 
 sis of character and motives would be- 
 little and obscure a statesmanship which 
 has long stood forth so grand and clear 
 as to be recognized and honored all over 
 the world. 
 
 But his life affords some very practi- 
 
i6o Work and Play 
 
 cal lessons of preat value to us as stu- 
 dents and young men. Whatever other 
 traits college boys may have, they are 
 pretty sure to love a hero. They admire 
 a great man and are thrilled by his 
 achievements. It is not easy to be great 
 even in college days, and the enthusiasm 
 of students flows spontaneously for the 
 man who has won distinction. You do 
 well, 3^oung gentlemen, to study a great 
 life and to catch the inspiration which it 
 affords. Though the contemplation may 
 not make you great, it will surely help 
 as well as please you. From studying 
 eminent men, one may gain an impulse 
 to make his own life sublime. 
 
 We have time this morning to note but 
 two of the valuable lessons which the 
 life of Gladstone suggests ; I wish it 
 were possible for us to give even these 
 two the careful consideration which they 
 deserve. 
 
 And, first, the career of Gladstone 
 teaches us the value of a long life. 
 
The Scholar In PubHc Life i6i 
 
 His eighty-nine years nearly span the 
 century. When he was born, Napoleon 
 had just effected his divorce from Jose- 
 phine, and Waterloo was six years in 
 the future. Scott had just published 
 *'Marmion;" Macaulay was a boy of 
 nine. Disraeli, his rival in politics, 
 over whom, three quarters of a century 
 later, he was to pronounce so beautiful a 
 funeral oration, was four years old. 
 The world had yet to wait another de- 
 cade before it could record the births of 
 Dickens and Thackeray, Tyndall and 
 Huxley, Helmholtz and Pasteur and all 
 the rest of that galaxy of scientists and 
 thinkers who have made this century so 
 remarkable in the annals of scientific 
 discovery and popular progress. Glad- 
 stone himself declared, a dozen vears 
 ago, that the increase of wealth during 
 the present century exceeds the accu- 
 mulations of all the centuries which have 
 preceded it, and that the inventions and 
 scientific discoveries of the nineteenth 
 
 12 
 
1 62 Work and Play 
 
 century surpass in number and impor- 
 tance those of all the previous ages. 
 What a privilege to have lived so long 
 and to have had so large a part in such 
 progress ! 
 
 The v^orld has many maxims which 
 admonish us to '' live while we do live," 
 to ** seize the present" and leave the 
 future to take care of itself. Excellent 
 people sometimes resolve to do certain 
 work or live in certain ways even if it 
 should shorten their lives, but no one 
 ever yet accomplished more work or got 
 more out of life in the long run by disre- 
 garding the conditions of health, while 
 many have sacrificed their future enjoy- 
 ment and efficiency and even their lives 
 by mistaken conditions of work or by 
 neglect of the simplest precautions. 
 And so it is gratifying to learn that Glad- 
 stone laid the foundation for his many 
 years of earnest work in his youth ; that 
 he expected to live to a good old age 
 and deliberately planned for it ; that 
 
The Scholar in PubHc Life 163 
 
 from his early manhood to his latest 
 years he rejoiced in the strength which 
 could swing a scythe or fell a tree, and 
 cultivated it. His example as well as 
 his words commend physical culture. 
 The ideal student of a generation ago, 
 with his flabby muscles and pale cheeks, 
 has given place to the hard-fisted fellow 
 who can play center rush on the football 
 team, while the average college man of 
 to-day can do and does far more intel- 
 lectual work than his old-time predeces- 
 sor. His eyes and brain work fewer 
 hours, but they accomplish more. We 
 have learned to recognize the value of 
 blood and breath — the necessity of a 
 sound physical basis. But the tempta- 
 tion is still presented to many students to 
 neglect needful exercise, to abandon the 
 sports and amusements essential to the 
 best mental tone. It is fortunate that 
 such students should be reminded of 
 these things by the example of so illus- 
 trious an intellectual worker as Glad- 
 
164 Work and Play 
 
 stone, a man whom no one has ever ac- 
 cused of mental unproductiveness or mis- 
 use of time. 
 
 His life illustrates the fact that intel- 
 lectual pursuits are conducive to health. 
 He was never weighted by physical in- 
 firmity. He believed that change of 
 work is the best rest for a scholar. He 
 had in his library three tables, at one of 
 which he studied the problems of poli- 
 tics, at another, the problems of litera- 
 ture, and at a third, the problems of 
 religion. He accumulated a library of 
 twenty-five thousand volumes which 
 were filled with the notes, references 
 and impressions of the reader. His days 
 of recreation and leisure were largely 
 devoted to profound study of classical 
 authors. Biblical interpretation and his- 
 torical research. But, in all his enthusi- 
 asm for study, he never forgot proper 
 physical limitations or enfeebled his body 
 by neglect of sleep or exercise. 
 
 If any of you have a theory, as young 
 
The Scholar in Public Life 165 
 
 men sometimes have, that the factor of 
 time may be disregarded, do not cherish 
 it. A man's work is cumulative ; each 
 noble deed illustrates and adorns those 
 which have preceded it. Gladstone has 
 been a great man, a famous man, for 
 more than half a century ; but how dif- 
 ferent would have been his place in his- 
 tory if he had burned life's candle at 
 both ends and died, like Byron or Shel- 
 ley or Poe, in the prime of his manhood ! 
 What an inspiration to think of him as 
 living on, adding decade to decade, wit- 
 nessing the changes and the progress of 
 the passing years which he had done so 
 much to promote, and girding himself 
 again and again to meet the new issues 
 of public and private life as they arose ! 
 The memorable campaign for home 
 rule in Ireland was conducted by Glad- 
 stone when he was seventy-seven. He 
 bore his defeat as calmly as if it had 
 been a victory, began at once the culti- 
 vation of public sentiment in favor of 
 
1 66 Work and Play 
 
 needed reforms, and at eighty-four re- 
 turned to the premiership to resume the 
 struggle and carry it to a practically 
 victorious issue. 
 
 Some of you have heard our honored 
 associate, who sits upon this platform, 
 talk about the art of longevity — an art 
 which he most beautifully illustrates in 
 his own person — and have been enabled 
 to realize how much an added score or 
 two of years mean. Think what they 
 mean to the man himself whose ripened 
 powers enjoy the best which life's oppor- 
 tunities afford ; think how much they 
 mean to his family and friends and how 
 much they mean to the community in 
 which he lives. How fine is the honor 
 which is everywhere paid to such an old 
 age ! Do not let any one persuade you, 
 young gentlemen, that it is of little ac- 
 count. And do not forget that the 
 foundation of vitality and endurance on 
 which it must be built is laid in early 
 life. One of America's most distin- 
 
The Scholar in PubHc Life 167 
 
 ffuished scholars was frail and in feeble 
 health in his youth, but well-directed ex- 
 ercise gave tone and vigor and vitality. 
 With robust health came increased 
 mental power, and now for nearly half 
 a century he has been an honored leader 
 in his department of research. If he 
 who achieves distinction may be envied, 
 how much more should he be deemed 
 fortunate who wears his laurels for many 
 years ! 
 
 The second lesson which I wish to 
 draw from the career of Gladstone is 
 the opportunity and the duty which polit- 
 ical life offers to young men of the finest 
 talent and culture. The scholar in poli- 
 tics is an unfamiliar sight in this country. 
 The selection of party candidates, the 
 management of political campaigns and 
 the shaping of party policies are gener- 
 ally deemed too coarse and belligerent 
 business to attract refined and scholarly 
 men. Practical politics has become al- 
 most a synonym for dubious deals and 
 
1 68 Work and Play 
 
 trading. They bring one into close con- 
 tact or sharp antagonism with very 
 unattractive characters ; they expose 
 him to misrepresentation and slander ; 
 they present great temptations. But for 
 precisely these reasons they need the up- 
 lifting influence of young men of the high- 
 est grade. It is time that the positions 
 of power and responsibility should be 
 wrested from the corrupt and incompetent 
 and filled by men of ability and honor. 
 And so the colleges w^elcome every move- 
 ment which aims at the overthrow of a 
 political boss or the education of the 
 people in political freedom and righteous- 
 ness. Every lover of liberty desires that 
 the young men of thought and character, 
 who year by year go forth from college 
 halls, should be enlisted in defense of the 
 nation's honor and welfare. We ap- 
 plaud the youth who volunteers to follow 
 the nation's flag and fight, if need be, on 
 the field of battle ; but who shall say that 
 he is less worthy who fights for the pre- 
 
The Scholar in Pubhc Life 169 
 
 servation of the nation's integrity and 
 honor at home? 
 
 The men of the present generation 
 are too much absorbed in their own af- 
 fairs. Business and professional life are 
 too engrossing ; no time remains for 
 public problems. The spoilsman and the 
 schemer have had control. Our relief 
 from political evils depends upon our 
 young men. We need a generous infu- 
 sion into the body politic of clear-sighted 
 observers and students of public affairs. 
 Ignorance and apathy go hand in hand. 
 If men were better informed they would 
 be more interested. Few men become 
 statesmen or even politicians who do not 
 gain an interest in politics in early life. 
 Humboldt once said: "Plant your re- 
 forms in the schools ; formation is better 
 than reformation ;" and in the same spirit 
 the college exhorts her students and young 
 graduates to be interested in politics. 
 The problems of democratic government 
 are neither few nor simple ; they require 
 
170 Work and Play 
 
 profound study and should elicit lifelong 
 enthusiasm. Most American statesmen 
 of the better type began their political 
 experience in their youth, seeming almost 
 to inherit their career. 
 
 Gladstone was trained to statecraft 
 from his boyhood. He relates that when 
 he was a lad of twelve, his father began 
 for him a systematic course of instruc- 
 tion in the science of government. An 
 hour was devoted each day to a lesson 
 in politics and finance. Guests at the 
 Gladstone house were surprised to see 
 the father, an eminent banker and a 
 member of parliament, proposing grave 
 and complicated problems, which the son 
 examined and discussed with marvelous 
 ability and enthusiasm. When, a few 
 years later, he was a student at Eton his 
 political training was continued, and 
 when at Oxford he gained no small 
 celebrity as a debater and orator. 
 
 English politics and civil service were 
 more corrupt in those days than ours 
 
The Scholar in Public Life 171 
 
 have ever been ; but this only made him 
 more eager to enter public life, and at 
 the early age of tv^enty we find him sit- 
 ting in parliament and tw^o years later he 
 was named by Peel as junior lord of the 
 treasury. He was a tireless worker and 
 threw himself with ardor into the strug- 
 gles of that troubled period of English 
 history. It is not easy to exaggerate his 
 work or the value of the services which 
 then and all his life through he rendered 
 to England and to civilization, but we 
 fail to estimate them at their true worth 
 if we forget that they were lifted far 
 above the plane of self-seeking ambi- 
 tion. His steadfast aim was to brincr 
 Christian ideals into politics. His whole 
 career was an attempt to reconcile poli- 
 tics with the Sermon on the Mount. He 
 boldly asserted that the state must have a 
 conscience and the reforms which he 
 proposed sought to carry legislation up 
 to the level of ethical standards. His 
 interest and his sympathies embraced the 
 
172 Work and Play 
 
 world. He learned of the sufferings of 
 prisoners in Naples, devoted a parlia- 
 mentary recess to an investigation of 
 their condition, saw these patriots in 
 their dungeons, and then declared, in a 
 letter of denunciation which aroused the 
 world, that their treatment was a blot 
 upon civilization and humanity. His 
 utterances had the needed effect and, in 
 after years, the Italians were wont to 
 call him one of the founders of free Italy. 
 And when, in the year 1896, the nations 
 of Christian Europe looked with averted 
 eyes while those terrible massacres were 
 carried on in Armenia, it was the voice 
 of the aged Gladstone which fitly charac- 
 terized the ''great assassin" and com- 
 pelled him to yield to the indignation of 
 Christendom. 
 
 And so, while we honor Gladstone, let 
 us not fail to catch an inspiration from 
 his example. Had he merely followed 
 his scholarly tastes and preferences, we 
 should never have heard of him in public 
 
The Scholar In PubHc Life 173 
 
 life. He would have avoided its con- 
 tamination and unseemly struggles. He 
 would have devoted himself to the more 
 congenial fields of literature, which 
 offered him distinction without the attacks 
 and reverses of politics. But how grand- 
 ly has he been rewarded for his sacri- 
 fice ! Devoting himself to the public 
 good, he has gained a fame which kings 
 and conquerors might envy. 
 
 Could the young men of this genera- 
 tion in America catch his spirit, our polit- 
 ical ills would vanish. The wretched 
 notion that the civil service is a sort of 
 government ambulance in which the 
 lame and the weary may ride, and that 
 still more detestable theory that public 
 office is a reward of party service, would 
 pass away like a miasma before the sun. 
 Our consuls and other representatives in 
 foreign countries would cease to discredit 
 us in the eyes of the world ; committees 
 to investigate government frauds and 
 scandals would no longer present humili- 
 
174 Work and Play 
 
 ating reports, the righteousness which 
 exalteth a nation would speedily come, 
 and the hope of the Pilgrim and the 
 Puritan would be realized. 
 
XI 
 
 CASTLES IN SPAIN 
 
' ' Wlioi I could not sleep for cold 
 1 had fire enough in my brai?i, 
 And builded with roofs of gold 
 My beautiful castles in Spain.''"' 
 
 J. R. Lowell. 
 
 We are sitch stuff as dreams are made oji.'''' 
 William Shakespeare. 
 
 ■ Yotir yo2ing 7nen shall see visions.'''' 
 
 Joel. 
 
XI 
 
 CASTLES IN SPAIN 
 
 piTZHUGH LUDLOW relates that 
 in his boyhood, the drug-store of his 
 friend Anderson possessed such a fasci- 
 nation for him that he wanted to taste 
 everything he found there. He spent 
 many leisure hours examining myste- 
 rious drugs, inquiring into their composi- 
 tion and their effects. One day he dis- 
 covered, among the new goods, a little 
 jar labeled Canahis Indica. Pleased with 
 its aromatic smell, he proceeded to inves- 
 tigate its other properties. He learned 
 from the dispensatory that it was famil- 
 iarly known as hasheesh, was used in 
 cases of lockjaw, and that it possessed 
 an extraordinary power of producing 
 dreams. He forthwith rolled up a good- 
 sized pellet and swallowed it. 
 
 A few hours later, as you will antici- 
 13 
 
178 Work and Play 
 
 pate, he fell into an ecstatic dream. The 
 room in his modest home, where he was 
 sitting, began to enlarge and to grow 
 surprisingly beautiful ; the hall became 
 an enchanting vista and the stairs a 
 magnificent avenue up which he could 
 triumphantly ascend. His delight and 
 anticipations knew no bounds. No young 
 man ever before possessed such talent, 
 deserved such consideration or enjoyed 
 such distinction. The rich, the gay, the 
 famous hastened to do him honor. The 
 very atmosphere was radiant with hope 
 and promise. He was about to summon 
 the poor and oppressed of all lands to 
 receive the golden rain which dripped 
 from his fingers, when the famil}^ physi- 
 cian administered a timely sedative and 
 relieved him of his heavy responsibility. 
 Scarcely less extravagant and improb- 
 able are the day-dreams and air-castles 
 of many a boy as he looks eagerly for- 
 ward into life. His pictures lack pro- 
 portion ; his events are unreal ; his 
 
Castles in Spain 179 
 
 projects are visionary. Many people 
 deem such fancies worthless and look 
 upon them much as they would upon the 
 overwrought excitement of a hasheesh- 
 eater. They are constantly exhorting 
 us to be practical and warning us against 
 vain hopes and illusions. Some of them 
 would almost eliminate ima2;ination and 
 poetry and bright fancies from our life. 
 They would deprive youth of its ro- 
 mance and fervor. They think it would 
 thus avoid the temptations, mistakes and 
 disappointments which an unfettered im- 
 agination sometimes brings. 
 
 But, for my part, I am sorry for the boy 
 who has no day-dreams ; indeed, I am 
 sorry for the man whose daily life is not 
 cheered and brightened by many unreal 
 fancies. It is true that his castles in the 
 air may be as fictitious as the " Castles 
 in Spain " of which George William 
 Curtis has told us ; but like the castles in 
 Spain they will be a source of perpetual 
 delight, however fictitious they may be. 
 
i8o Work and Play 
 
 Though he should live to be fourscore, 
 I should wish that the Hght of glad an- 
 ticipations might never cease to illumine 
 his path. 
 
 But we have a more serious reason to 
 be sorry for the youth who has no day- 
 dreams — a reason which is very funda- 
 mental. All good work, all our best 
 endeavors, all the worthy achievements 
 of life, are born of aspiration. No man 
 ever rises above his ideal ; high aims are 
 the first condition of excellence. The 
 man with low standards, the man with 
 commonplace ideals and expectations, 
 will do only commonplace work. If 
 one's life is confined to the present, there 
 is no room for dreams ; but if there is a 
 Beyond in it, he will assuredly dream 
 about it. If in life's morning he looks 
 out upon a future which seems to rise 
 peak above peak, he will long to climb 
 them and scan the more distant horizon. 
 The heart is not satisfied with the vision 
 of to-day; it will again demand posses- 
 
Castles In Spain i8i 
 
 sion when it sees the promise of to-mor- 
 row. The dream of youth is a dream 
 of gladness, success and honor ; and, 
 let us hope, a dream of usefulness, 
 nobility and consecration. 
 
 The young man who does not think 
 high things, whose imagination does not 
 paint glowing pictures of what he hopes 
 to be and to do, is training himself to be 
 inferior, to be contented with the bald 
 and sullen actualities of life. It is hope 
 which leads to effort and hope springs 
 from aspiration. There can be few 
 worse misfortunes than to feel no aspira- 
 tion to improve one's condition — to wear 
 deeper and deeper the ruts of life with 
 no desire to make it better, stronger or 
 more useful. 
 
 The great need of every student is 
 ambition — the desire and determination 
 to improve. A student without ambition 
 is almost a contradiction of terms. The 
 college can do but little for him. He 
 needs to rouse himself and see the possi- 
 
1 82 Work and Play 
 
 bilities which lie before him, to kindle 
 within himself a great enthusiasm to at- 
 tain them. He will not stop with dream- 
 ing if he sees great deeds to be done. 
 
 We become like that of which we 
 think — like that on which the heart is 
 fixed. The eagle soars far aloft because 
 he wishes to ; the horse is fleet because 
 he wants to be ; the athlete is supple and 
 strong because he desires to be so ; each 
 has developed his powers according to 
 his wish. It is in this way that '* the 
 child is father of the man." Thought 
 is supreme and, under the divine com- 
 mand, creates us w'hat we are. He who 
 keeps before his mind the lofty powers 
 of intellect and character which he 
 would gain will one day find that they 
 are his as certainly as training will de- 
 velop the athlete's muscles ; and he who 
 steadfastly holds in view the splendid 
 thinsrs which he would som.e time do, 
 will at length gaze upon them as his 
 finished work. 
 
Castles in Spain 183 
 
 And this is as truly natural — accord- 
 ing to nature's laws — as the growth of a 
 young man's stature. The difference is 
 that one kind of growth comes in obedi- 
 ence to his wish ; the other without 
 regard to it. The dream, the aspiration, 
 the purpose, become as truly a means 
 of growth as are the digestion of the 
 food or the circulation of the blood. 
 The youth who truly aspires, who deter- 
 mines to improve, will unconsciously 
 seize the opportunities and use the means 
 of improvement no less certainly and 
 naturally than the flower selects from the 
 atmosphere and the soil the materials of 
 its growth. 
 
 The opportunities, the sacred trust 
 and responsibility of life, unfold grad- 
 ually before most of us ; we see them 
 dimly at first and from afar, or like one 
 slowly awaking to new surroundings. 
 But sometimes the aw^akening comes 
 suddenly and after long delay, like the 
 bursting forth of a great fountain. You 
 
184 Work and Play 
 
 remember the story of Garfield and the 
 self-discovery which came to him. 
 
 He was employed, when a youth, on 
 a canal-boat, and, in spite of the entrea- 
 ties of his noble mother, was growing 
 up in coarse and sluggish indifference. 
 One dark midnight he was called up to 
 take his turn at the bow as the boat was 
 passing through one of the long stretches 
 of slack-water on the Ohio and Pennsyl- 
 vania canal. Mechanically and half 
 asleep he began uncoiling a rope, when 
 it caught in a tangle. He gave it a jerk, 
 and then a harder jerk, and, as the knot 
 gave way, he staggered backward and 
 fell overboard into the deep, dark water. 
 The boat glided on, brushing him aside as 
 it passed. No human help was near, and 
 only a miracle could save him. So the 
 boy thought, as he instinctively clung to 
 the rope which he held in his hand. But 
 it slipped loosely off the coil, and he sank 
 beneath the surface, and the boat left him 
 far behind. At length he felt the rope 
 
Castles In Spain i85 
 
 tighten in his grasp and hold firmly. 
 Hand over hand he drew himself along 
 and climbed on deck. Recovering from 
 his shock, and surprised to find himself 
 still alive, he examined the rope. An- 
 other kink had caught in a crevice in the 
 edge of the boat and saved him. The 
 coil was nearly unwound ; only a few 
 more yards and he would have clung to 
 it in vain. 
 
 Wondering how it could have hap- 
 pened, he coiled the rope again, and 
 tried to throw it into the crevice ; but it 
 would not catch. Many times he tried 
 to make it kink — six hundred, it is said 
 — but it would kink no more. Then he 
 sat down and thought. " I have thrown 
 this rope," he reflected, "six hundred 
 times, but I cannot make it catch. I 
 might have thrown it six thousand. It 
 is one chance in thousands which has 
 saved my life. Providence, then, must 
 think that it is worth saving, and I '11 not 
 throw it away." Ere the first streaks of 
 
1 86 Work and Play 
 
 dawn appeared, the horizon of his life 
 had widened, and was lighted up with 
 the rays of a brighter promise ; for his 
 imagination was already weaving the 
 beautiful day-dreams of what he would 
 one day become. 
 
 He left the boat at the end of the trip, 
 and the world knows his history. From 
 that day his heart was aglow with 
 thoughts of the things he would do. He 
 never ceased to be an idealist. In col- 
 lege his enthusiasm gave new life to 
 every interest. Traditions lingered long 
 among the students of the enterprises 
 which he origmated and the impetus 
 which he imparted to them. It was his 
 vivid imagination and the prompt execu- 
 tion of its designs which made him the 
 idol of the Army of the Cumberland ; 
 and when his life was ebbing slowly 
 away the whole civilized world awaited 
 the end in sorrow, because it had learned 
 to love a man whose dreams had lifted 
 humanity to a higher plane. 
 
Castles in Spain 187 
 
 It is thus with every great leader. It 
 is the man with a lofty purpose, whose 
 imagination never permits it to fade 
 from his sight, that achieves great ends. 
 
 Cyrus W. Field had in his boyhood a 
 dream of wealth — but only as a means 
 of service. He would be rich, and then 
 he would do somethingr that should ben- 
 efit mankind. He believed that when a 
 man had accumulated a quarter of a mill- 
 ion dollars he should withdraw from busi- 
 ness and devote the remainder of his life 
 to his fellow men. This sum was deemed 
 wealth in those days ; it might not seem 
 so now, but it doubtless appeared a vast 
 sum to him as a country boy. He gained 
 his wealth and was lookino- for a field of 
 philanthropic service, when suddenl}^ his 
 fortune was swept away. He built up 
 another, and again retiring from busi- 
 ness sought an opportunit}^ to contribute 
 his share to the world's progress. He 
 had been a friend of Joseph Henry and 
 Professor Morse, and was glad to be- 
 
1 88 Work and Play 
 
 come interested in the project of an 
 Atlantic cable. One after another the 
 original projectors of the cable with- 
 drew. Discouragements and obstacles 
 multiplied, but his faith never faltered. 
 So long as Field lived it mattered little 
 what other friends of the cable aban- 
 doned it ; for with his enthusiasm and 
 will behind it, the enterprise was sure to 
 succeed. The honors which came to the 
 founder of the Atlantic telegraph, and 
 the contribution which the cable was to 
 the progress of science and civilization, 
 were the fruit of his dreams. There 
 will be no high achrevement if there be 
 no lofty ideal. 
 
 William Lloyd Garrison and Gerrit 
 Smith were dreamers. Men called them 
 impractical, foolish, mad; but posterity 
 will never cease to honor their memory. 
 
 John Howard and Elizabeth Fry were 
 dreaming fanatics, wasting their splendid 
 talents, it was said, on criminals, paupers 
 and imbeciles, worthy only of contempt. 
 
Castles in Spain 189 
 
 But the waves of philanthropy which they 
 set in motion now encircle the globe. 
 The harsh and cruel treatment of the 
 unfortunate classes has been swept away, 
 and Christian nations are learning the 
 lessons of pity and kindness. 
 
 Let us cease to call the dreamer 
 impractical. Milton, Tennyson, Long- 
 fellow and Whittier were dreamers and 
 seers, but who shall say that they were 
 not practical, or that their fair visions 
 have not brought comfort, joy and in- 
 spiration to every lover of English verse? 
 Gutenberg, Columbus, Newton and 
 Franklin were visionaries, and so also 
 were Watt and Fulton and Morse and 
 Faradav, but what would our modern 
 life be without their discoveries and in- 
 ventions? 
 
 And let us be thankful for the recog- 
 nition of the ideal which has come in our 
 day. Half a century ago ** works of 
 fiction " were condemned as dangerous 
 to the moral health of the community. 
 
igo Work and Play 
 
 They created an imaginary world, it 
 was said, peopled with unreal men and 
 women, whose experiences were not 
 those of real life. But before the preju- 
 dice against such books had passed 
 away. Uncle Tom's Cabin appeared, 
 and was read by millions on both sides 
 of the Atlantic. In every intelligent 
 home in England and America, Uncle 
 Tom's scarred and furrowed face was 
 familiar, and had carried an ideal of 
 wrong, of suffering and of patience 
 which had touched the heart of the 
 world. From that hour slavery was 
 condemned and must cease. 
 
 In like manner the stories of Dickens, 
 Kingsley and many other authors have 
 swept away great evils, or fired the imag- 
 ination of youth to desire and to do great 
 things. 
 
 We are told, in the sacred story, that 
 the Lord appeared to Solomon one night 
 in a dream, and said, " Ask what I shall 
 give thee." Men have read this passage 
 
Castles In Spain 191 
 
 for ages, carelessly or wonderingly, and 
 have said it was a miracle. But is not 
 the miracle repeated in the history of 
 every 3^outh ? Does not God thus reveal 
 himself now in the secret wish, and tell 
 us each to ask what we will? Does not 
 each become the arbiter of his own for- 
 tune? 
 
 We also read that God was pleased 
 with Solomon because he suppressed 
 vain and selfish wishes, and asked for 
 broad-minded wisdom and the ability to 
 make his life count for the benefit of his 
 people. And so our lesson would be in- 
 complete if we failed to note how much 
 depends upon the moral character of our 
 dreams. Out of the heart are the is- 
 sues of life. If our imaginings are low, 
 our longings unclean, we will assuredly 
 grow in likeness to the ideals and aims 
 which we cherish. And the student 
 whose enthusiasm kindles for true ex- 
 cellence, for keener intellect, for better 
 work, will no less certainly find his de- 
 
192 Work and Play- 
 
 sires realized. Day by day he will, in a 
 sense, answer his own prayers. He will 
 gain the desired excellence, and, if he 
 really seeks it, the highest type of man- 
 hood and integrity. The dream which 
 he loves to cherish will be fulfilled. 
 Only let him choose wisely, for he will 
 inherit the kingdom of which he is the 
 rightful heir. 
 
XII 
 WHAT IS EDUCATION? 
 
* ' Our pleasures and our discontents 
 Arc rounds by which we may ascend y- 
 
 H. W. Longfellow. 
 
 Cultivate the physical exclusively , and you have 
 aft athlete or a savage ; the moral only, a?id you 
 have ati enthusiast or a maniac ; the intellecttial 
 only, and yoit have a diseased oddity — it may be a 
 7no)istcr. It is only by wisely training all three to- 
 gether that the co?nplete man is formed. 
 
 Samuel Smiles. 
 
XII 
 
 WHAT IS EDUCATION 
 
 TylyTHY are we in college? What do 
 we hope to gain by spending four 
 years in study? Do the benefits justify 
 us in giving so much time to it? College 
 officers are often consulted by students 
 with reference to the choice of electives, 
 or the value of certain studies. In such 
 conversations, doubt is sometimes sug- 
 gested concerning the utilit}^ of a col- 
 lege course or of certain parts of it. 
 Vague or mistaken ideas are disclosed 
 on the subject of education and what it 
 should yield. Fundamental aims are 
 overlooked ; secondary or incidental ben- 
 efits are exaggerated. 
 
 It may interest you to know that ele- 
 mentary education is likewise called in 
 question and that its scope and methods 
 are sharply criticized. President Eliot 
 
196 Work and Play 
 
 declared in an article in the Forum^ not 
 long ago, that there was serious and 
 widespread disappointment at the results 
 of popular education ; that it had failed 
 to promote general contentment and hap- 
 piness, that it did not lead to good mor- 
 als, and that it did not even secure gen- 
 eral intelligence. The daily press has 
 abounded for years with criticisms of the 
 schools which, if less sweeping, have 
 been no less positive. While these at- 
 tacks have been aimed especially at the 
 public schools, they apply in a degree 
 to all education and suggest that we 
 ought to inquire what are the essentials 
 in education. We need not consider 
 these criticisms further than to note the 
 boundless faith which they evince in the 
 power of education. If they are half as 
 important as is alleged, then the school- 
 master holds the destiny of the nation in 
 his hand to an extent which he has 
 scarcely realized. Little is left, it would 
 seem, for the church or the Sunday- 
 
What Is Education 197 
 
 school or the printing-press, or even the 
 home, to do. 
 
 But while the school is only one of the 
 uplifting forces of society, we certainly 
 wish that it should yield for us the best 
 results possible ; and we know that it can 
 only do this when we understand its pur- 
 pose and do our part to promote it. The 
 college is one of the most important of 
 the influences which mould the man. 
 What are the ends which it is designed 
 to promote? What may we expect to 
 get out of our four years in college? 
 
 The best education is the hio-hest de- 
 velopment of the individual in all his 
 powers. The college aims to afford the 
 means and conditions of such a develop- 
 ment. New institutions have arisen in 
 recent years which aim to meet new and 
 specific wants ; the organization and 
 work of the American college have also 
 been changed ; but its spirit and pur- 
 pose have remained constant from its 
 very beginning. Its graduates are to be 
 
198 Work and Play 
 
 the thinkers and advisers of the commu- 
 nities in which they live. They need 
 the best possible preparation for these 
 great responsibilities. They should be 
 men of strength, men of culture, men of 
 character. They should consciously 
 seek in their college days to secure this 
 equipment. 
 
 I. The first requisite in a leader is 
 strength. Strength presses to the front; 
 weakness retreats to the rear. Strength 
 begets courage and confidence ; weak- 
 ness brings distrust and defeat. Even 
 physical strength is universally admired. 
 With what breathless interest and enthu- 
 siasm do great crowds watch a well- 
 fought game of football ! How they 
 applaud every strong, quick dash ! A 
 dozen years ago in a little New England 
 village, a company of workmen were 
 building a house. The timbers had just 
 been raised and the men were walking 
 around on them in their work, when one 
 of them made a misstep and fell. A 
 
What Is Education 199 
 
 fellow workman at his side saw the fall 
 and with marvelous swiftness and 
 strength threw out his hand, caught 
 his comrade and, at the risk of his own 
 life, lifted him to the timber again. It 
 was a noble feat of strength, and the 
 carpenters in that little town tell of it 
 with pride to this day. Every nation of 
 the world cherishes in song and story its 
 brave, strong men. 
 
 If we turn to the realm of mind, we 
 find our admiration rising still higher. 
 Strength of intellect surpasses strength 
 of body as mind outranks matter. Brute 
 force counts for but little in the presence 
 of man's inventions. A crowd of college 
 boys and their friends applaud when one 
 of their comrades breaks through the 
 opposing line or makes a successful run 
 on the football field, but the whole world 
 honors the man of intellectual genius. 
 It cherishes great masterpieces in litera- 
 ture and art and trains its youth by a 
 study of the classics which have come 
 
200 Work and Play 
 
 down to us from andquity. Mental dis- 
 cipline must unite with training of nerve 
 and muscle, if we would secure a robust 
 and wholesome manhood. 
 
 The college is a place where young 
 men should learn to apply themselves — 
 to face and overcome difficulties ; a place 
 to acquire habits of industry, of concen- 
 tration, of earnest work. This college 
 believes, with Cicero, that " more men 
 are ennobled by study than by nature," 
 and that if it is to have alumni whom it 
 will delight to honor in the future, it 
 must give them, while students, courses 
 of instruction and study which will com- 
 pel their respect. Therefore it says to 
 every young man : Find your purpose ; 
 grasp it ; throw heart and soul into it ; 
 train every power, that you may achieve 
 it. Let your life sweep out along the 
 line of highest promise, and the hope, 
 the aspiration, the strength which buoy 
 it will strengthen and enrich every life 
 which it touches. No one can uplift 
 
What is Education 201 
 
 the Hves of other men until he has a pos- 
 itive Hfe of his own. If college-trained 
 men are to be leaders, they must be men 
 of earnest purpose, men of strength. 
 
 2. But no college man may content 
 himself with this. Liberal culture is 
 also necessary. Intensity alone tends to 
 narrowness. Strength of body or of in- 
 tellect does not in itself constitute a sym- 
 metrical manhood. The man of one 
 idea may be impractical ; he cannot be 
 broad and catholic. Education must do 
 more than train specialists. Who has 
 not admired the skill while he has pitied 
 the limitations of such men? Their con- 
 centration of interest disqualifies them 
 for the broader aspects of life. 
 
 *' Beware of the man of one book," 
 says Montaigne. He who reads but one 
 book may be a hard man to encounter ; 
 his precise and positive knowledge may 
 be irresistible along its own line ; but his 
 interest and sympathy will be as narrow. 
 He will run his own little round with 
 
202 Work and Play 
 
 ease and certainty ; outside of it he will 
 be at constant disadvantage. Napoleon 
 appointed Laplace, the great mathema- 
 tician, minister of finance. He failed. 
 Napoleon said of him that he carried the 
 spirit of the infinitesimal calculus into 
 every aff'air of State. He could look 
 at a subject from no other standpoint. 
 Such a man may be an expert in his 
 own department, as quick and as sharp 
 as a needle ; but like the needle, his 
 keenness is the result of his narrowness. 
 You need an education which will broaden 
 your life by enlarging your sympathies 
 as well as your knowledge ; an educa- 
 tion which will bring the rich into sym- 
 pathy with the poor, the employer with 
 the workman, the believer with the 
 doubter. 
 
 Let the college student, then, read 
 many books. Let him explore the treas- 
 ures of all departments of literature, and, 
 rising above selfish aims, deepen his 
 interest in unseen things. Let him catch 
 
What is Education 203 
 
 the spirit of the great masters of thought, 
 and learn to enjoy their companionship. 
 In the graceful words of James Russell 
 Lowell, " Let it be the hope of the col- 
 lege to make a gentleman of every youth 
 who is put under its charge, a man of 
 culture, a man of intellectual resource, 
 a man of public spirit, a man of refine- 
 ment, with that good taste which is the 
 conscience of the mind and that con- 
 science which is the good taste of the 
 soul." When this has been accomplished, 
 my friends, you may safely become *' men 
 of otie book." 
 
 A vigorous mind must have its stor- 
 ing period. You can draw no water out 
 of an empty cistern. In early life the ca- 
 pacity for absorbing knowledge is large. 
 Facts and ideas are quickly incorporated 
 into the habits of thought. The youth of 
 active mind rapidly gathers facts, im- 
 pressions, tastes, which become the 
 foundation of his future work. Better 
 that he should read too many books 
 
204 Work and Play 
 
 than too few. Better that his interest 
 should flit from one subject to another 
 than that he should train himself to indo- 
 lence and apathy. 
 
 Therefore the college says to its stu- 
 dents : Foster your intellectual cravings 
 and minister to them with the best which 
 science and literature afford. Lay broad 
 and deep the foundations of your educa- 
 tional house. Rear it in comely propor- 
 tions. Take time to fashion and finish it 
 in every part. Study the humanities ; 
 learn the lessons of history ; catch the 
 inspiration of grand and noble lives. 
 Add to your strength grace and beauty, 
 and 3^our college days will yield you an 
 ever-increasing revenue of pleasure and 
 of power. 
 
 3. The third essential in a symmetri- 
 cal manhood is character. Strength and 
 beauty will fail of their highest realiza- 
 tion if a worthy motive is lacking. The 
 world is full of people who are seeking 
 high positions instead of fitness to fill 
 
What is Education 205 
 
 them. The true student aims first at 
 good preparation — to become his best 
 self. He does not permit his ambition 
 to fix upon some coveted position when 
 it ought rather to seek capacity to fill it. 
 The young man who diligently makes 
 the most of his opportunities and be- 
 comes fitted for a station of honor and 
 usefulness is the man who will get the 
 place and adorn it. Do not believe the 
 pessimism which would teach you other- 
 wise. The " royal road " to success is 
 through character and manliness. 
 
 By character we mean integrity, moral 
 uprightness, spiritual strength, the reach- 
 ing out of the soul towards God. We 
 also mean that quality in a man which 
 begets confidence and respect. 
 
 College life should foster this tran- 
 scendent power. It trains to self-reliance ; 
 let it also train to integrity and genuine- 
 ness. It teaches a student to be himself, 
 to despise imitations and shams ; let it 
 also teach him to be loyal to his convic- 
 
2o6 Work and Play 
 
 tions, to recognize and obey the voice of 
 dut}^ Let it teach him that the govern- 
 ment of one's self is the only true free- 
 dom. Moral discipline is as necessary 
 as intellectual discipline ; it is simply 
 storing up thought and action into char- 
 acter. It teaches us to rise above im- 
 pulse, to be self-restrained, self-balanced, 
 to bring to the tribunal of reason the con- 
 flicting claims of pleasure and of duty. 
 Moral discipline trains to courage. It 
 teaches a man to dismiss his fears by 
 calmly facing them ; it enables him to 
 see that the path of safety, no less than 
 of honor, lies in straightforward truth- 
 fulness and sincerity, that a man's real 
 danger is in disloyalty to himself. Moral 
 discipline teaches the marvelous power 
 of work. It enables a man to hold the 
 unsolved problems of life patiently in his 
 grasp till their difficulties disappear ; it 
 sends him to his daily task with a joyful 
 mind, the master, not the slave, of his 
 occupation. 
 
What is Education 207 
 
 The highest manifestation of moral 
 growth is the Christlike spirit. Educa- 
 tion fails short of its true end if the 
 learner does not sit at the feet of the 
 great Teacher. Religion does not con- 
 sist in emotion ; it is an upward move- 
 ment of the whole nature. The first and 
 great commandment is to love with all 
 the heart and soul and mind. A full 
 manhood unites worship with work. 
 
 I have thus endeavored, young gentle- 
 men, to outline the educational ends 
 which I would have you set before your- 
 selves. Yours are to be selected lives ; 
 make the most of them. Prepare to be 
 leaders in the fields of opportunity which 
 await you. The future of our country 
 depends upon its earnest, thoughtful 
 men. Our safety will not be found in 
 the genius of some great man, but in the 
 presence in all our communities of trained 
 men, men of strength, men of wisdom, 
 men of character. These are the true 
 rulers of the people. Every free 
 
2o8 Work and Play 
 
 country must be governed by an aristoc- 
 racy ; not an aristocracy of blood or of 
 fashion ; not an aristocracy of talent 
 only ; but an aristocracy of character. 
 This is the true heraldry. 
 
Mar- 16 1901 
 
JUN 29 1900 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
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