d lain at
the bottom of the sea in sunken frigates.

"Young men," he replied, "I know of a better expedition than this,
right here. Near your own feet lie treasures untold; you can have them
all by faithful study.

"Let us not be content to mine the most coal, to make the largest
locomotives, to weave the largest quantities of carpets; but, amid the
sounds of the pick, the blows of the hammer, the rattle of the looms,
and the roar of the machinery, take care that the immortal mechanism of
God's own hand--the mind--is still full-trained for the highest and
noblest service."

The uneducated man is always placed at a great disadvantage. No matter
how much natural ability one may have, if he is ignorant, he is
discounted. It is not enough to possess ability, it must be made
available by mental discipline.

We ought to be ashamed to remain in ignorance in a land where the
blind, the deaf and dumb, and even cripples and invalids, manage to
obtain a good education.

Many youths throw away little opportunities for self-culture because
they cannot see great ones. They let the years slip by without any
special effort at self-improvement, until they are shocked in middle
life, or later, by waking up to the fact that they are still ignorant
of what they ought to know.

Everywhere we go we see men and women, especially from twenty-five to
forty years of age, who are cramped and seriously handicapped by the
lack of early training. I often get letters from such people, asking
if it is possible for them to educate themselves so late in life. Of
course it is. There are so many good correspondence schools to-day,
and institutions like Chautauqua, so many evening schools, lectures,
books, libraries, and periodicals, that men and women who are
determined to improve themselves have abundant opportunities to do so.

While you lament the lack of an early education and think it too late
to begin, you may be sure that there are other young men and young
women not very far from you who are making great strides in
self-improvement, though they may not have half as good an opportunity
for it as you have.

The first thing to do is to make a resolution, strong, vigorous, and
determined, that you are going to be an educated man or woman; that you
are not going to go through life humiliated by ignorance; that, if you
have been deprived of early advantages, you are going to make up for
their loss. Resolve that you will no longer be h