e with his ability. To be conscious
that one has ability to realize eighty or ninety per cent of his
possibilities, if he had only had the proper education and training,
but because of this lack to be unable to bring out more than
twenty-five per cent of it on account of ignorance, is humiliating and
embarrassing. In other words, to go through life conscious that you
are making a botch of your capabilities just because of lack of
training, is a most depressing thing.

Nothing else outside of sin causes more sorrow than that which comes
from not having prepared for the highest career possible to one. There
are no bitterer regrets than those which come from being obliged to let
opportunities pass by for which one never prepared himself.

I know a pitiable case of a born naturalist whose ambition was so
suppressed, and whose education so neglected in youth, that later when
he came to know more about natural history than almost any man of his
day, he could not write a grammatical sentence, and could never make
his ideas live in words, perpetuate them in books, because of his
ignorance of even the rudiments of an education. His early vocabulary
was so narrow and pinched, and his knowledge of his language so limited
that he always seemed to be painfully struggling for words to express
his thought.

Think of the suffering of this splendid man, who was conscious of
possessing colossal scientific knowledge, and yet was absolutely unable
to express himself grammatically!

How often stenographers are mortified by the use of some unfamiliar
word or term, or quotation, because of the shallowness of their
preparation!

It is not enough to be able to take dictation when ordinary letters are
given, not enough to do the ordinary routine of office work. The
ambitious stenographer must be prepared for the unusual demand, must
have good reserves of knowledge to draw from in case of emergency.

But, if she is constantly slipping up upon her grammar, or is all at
sea the moment she steps out of her ordinary routine, her employer
knows that her preparation is shallow, that her education is very
limited, and her prospects will be limited also.

A young lady writes me that she is so handicapped by the lack of an
early education that she fairly dreads to write a letter to anyone of
education or culture for fear of making ignorant mistakes in grammar
and spelling. Her letter indicates that she has a great deal of
natural ability.