iciency, and knowledge from cultivation, if he will to know
that the distinction between academic morals and human morals is not so
deep as some believe, and if he will to believe in the unity of
character, the student has the primary help for securing a sound idea
and a right practice.

XI

I write to you, my boy, out of the experience and observation of
thirty years in which I have followed as best I could the careers of
graduates of many of our colleges. The other afternoon I set down the
names of some of these graduates of the two colleges which I know
best. Among them were men who, fifteen or thirty years after their
graduation, are doing first-rate work. They are lawyers, editors,
physicians, judges, clergymen, teachers, merchants, manufacturers,
architects and writers. As I have looked at the list with a mind
somewhat inquisitive I have asked myself what are the qualities or
conditions which have contributed to the winning of the great results
which these men have won.

The answers which I have given myself are manifold. For it is always
difficult in personal matters to differentiate and to determine
causes. In mechanical concerns it is not difficult. But in the
calculation of causes which constitute the value of a person as a
working force one often finds oneself baffled. The result frequently
seems either more or less than an equivalent of the co-operating
forces. The personal factor, the personal equation counts immensely.
These values we cannot measure in scales or figure out by the four
processes of arithmetic.

Be it said that the causes of the success of these men do not lie in
their conditions. No happy combination of circumstances, no windfall
of chance, gave them what they have achieved. If those who graduated
in the eighth decade had graduated in the ninth, or if those who
graduated in the ninth had graduated in the earlier time, it probably
would have made no difference. Neither does the name, with possibly a
single exception, nor wealth prove to be a special aid. Nor have
friends boosted or pushed them. Friends may have opened doors for
them; but friends have not urged them either to see or to embrace
opportunities.

These men seem to me to have for their primary and comprehensive
characteristic a large sanity. They have the broad vision and the long
look. They possess usually a kind of sobriety which may almost be
called Washingtonian. The insane man reasons correctly from false
prem