of Science, and to translate Science into Virtue is the goal of
civilization.

The third question which Science may ask is the direct one. In what part
of the universe are you, and what are you doing? Thoreau says that
"there is no hope for you unless this bit of sod under your feet is the
sweetest to you in this world--in any world." Why not? Nowhere is the
sky so blue, the grass so green, the sunshine so bright, the shade so
welcome, as right here, now, today. No other blue sky, nor bright
sunshine, nor welcome shade exists for you. Other skies are bright to
other men. They have been bright in the past and so will they be again,
but yours are here and now. Today is your day and mine, the only day we
have, the day in which we play our part. What our part may signify in
the great whole we may not understand, but we are here to play it, and
now is the time. This we know, it is a part of action, not of whining.
It is a part of love, not cynicism. It is for us to express love in
terms of human helpfulness. This we know, for we have learned from sad
experience that any other course of life leads toward decay and waste.

What, then, are you doing under these blue skies? The thing you do
should be for you the most important thing in the world. If you could do
something better than you are doing now, everything considered, why are
you not doing it?

If every one did the very best he knew, most of the problems of human
life would be already settled. If each one did the best he knew, he
would be on the highway to greater knowledge, and therefore still better
action. The redemption of the world is waiting only for each man to
"lend a hand."

It does not matter if the greatest thing for you to do be not in itself
great. The best preparation for greatness comes in doing faithfully the
little things that lie nearest. The nearest is the greatest in most
human lives.

Even washing one's own face may be the greatest present duty. The
ascetics of the past, who scorned cleanliness in the search for
godliness, became, sometimes, neither clean nor holy. For want of a
clean face they lost their souls.

It was Agassiz's strength that he knew the value of today. Never were
such bright skies as arched above him; nowhere else were such charming
associates, such budding students, such secrets of nature fresh to his
hand. His was the buoyant strength of the man who can look the stars in
the face because he does his part in the Universe as