tion to him. It matters little to me whether my pupils be
designed for the army, the pulpit, or the bar. Nature has destined us
to the offices of human life antecedent to our destination concerning
society. To live is the profession I would teach him. When I have
done with him, it is true he will be neither a soldier, a lawyer, nor a
divine. Let him first be a man. Fortune may remove him from one rank
to another as she pleases; he will be always found in his place."

In the great race of life common sense has the right of way. Wealth, a
diploma, a pedigree, talent, genius, without tact and common sense, cut
but a small figure. The incapables and the impracticables, though
loaded with diplomas and degrees, are left behind. Not what do you
know, or _who_ are you, but _what_ are you, _what can you do_, is the
interrogation of the century.

George Herbert has well said: "What we are is much more to us than what
we do." An aim that carries in it the least element of doubt as to its
justice or honor or right should be abandoned at once. The art of
dishing up the wrong so as to make it look and taste like the right has
never been more extensively cultivated than in our day. It is a
curious fact that reason will, on pressure, overcome a man's instinct
of right. An eminent scientist has said that a man could soon reason
himself out of the instinct of decency if he would only take pains and
work hard enough. So when a doubtful but attractive future is placed
before one, there is a great temptation to juggle with the wrong until
it seems the right. Yet any aim that is immoral carries in itself the
germ of certain failure, in the real sense of the word--failure that is
physical and spiritual.

There is no doubt that every person has a special adaptation for his
own peculiar part in life. A very few--geniuses, we call them--have
this marked in an unusual degree, and very early in life.

Madame de Stael was engrossed in political philosophy at an age when
other girls are dressing dolls. Mozart, when but four years old,
played the clavichord and composed minuets and other pieces still
extant. The little Chalmers, with solemn air and earnest gestures,
would preach often from a stool in the nursery. Goethe wrote tragedies
at twelve, and Grotius published an able philosophical work before he
was fifteen. Pope "lisped in numbers." Chatterton wrote good poems at
eleven, and Cowley published a volume of poetry in his