irected his secretary, Charles Lanman, to obtain
several hundred dollars' worth. A day or two after he put his hand in
his pocket for one, but they were all gone. Webster was at first
puzzled, but on reflection remembered that he had given them away, one
by one, to friends who seemed to appreciate their beauty.

A professor in mathematics in a New England college, a "book-worm," was
asked by his wife to bring home some coffee. "How much will you have?"
asked the merchant. "Well, I declare, my wife did not say, but I guess
a bushel will do."

Many a great man has been so absent-minded at times as to seem devoid
of common-sense.

"The professor is not at home," said his servant who looked out of a
window in the dark and failed to recognize Lessing when the latter
knocked at his own door in a fit of absent-mindedness. "Oh, very
well," replied Lessing. "No matter, I'll call at another time."

Louis Philippe said he was the only sovereign in Europe fit to govern,
for he could black his own boots. The world is full of men and women
apparently splendidly endowed and highly educated, yet who can scarcely
get a living.

Not long ago three college graduates were found working on a sheep farm
in Australia, one from Oxford, one from Cambridge, and the other from a
German University,--college men tending brutes! Trained to lead men,
they drove sheep. The owner of the farm was an ignorant, coarse
sheep-raiser. He knew nothing of books or theories, but he knew sheep.
His three hired graduates could speak foreign languages and discuss
theories of political economy and philosophy, but he could make money.
He could talk about nothing but sheep and farm; but he had made a
fortune, while the college men could scarcely get a living. Even the
University could not supply common sense. It was "culture against
ignorance; the college against the ranch; and the ranch beat every
time."

Do not expect too much from books. Bacon said that studies "teach not
their own use, but that there is a practical wisdom without them, won
by observation." The use of books must be found outside their own
lids. It was said of a great French scholar: "He was drowned in his
talents." Over-culture, without practical experience, weakens a man,
and unfits him for real life. Book education alone tends to make a man
too critical, too self-conscious, timid, distrustful of his abilities,
too fine for the mechanical drudgery of practical life, too hi