atience, it is said, changes the mulberry leaf to satin. The giant
oak on the hillside was detained months or years in its upward growth
while its root took a great turn around some rock, in order to gain a
hold by which the tree was anchored to withstand the storms of
centuries. Da Vinci spent four years on the head of Mona Lisa, perhaps
the most beautiful ever painted, but he left therein an artistic
thought for all time.

Said Captain Bingham: "You can have no idea of the wonderful machine
that the German army is and how well it is prepared for war. A chart
is made out which shows just what must be done in the case of wars with
the different nations, and every officer's place in the scheme is laid
out beforehand. There is a schedule of trains which will supersede all
other schedules the moment war is declared, and this is so arranged
that the commander of the army here could telegraph to any officer to
take such a train and go to such a place at a moment's notice."

A learned clergyman was thus accosted by an illiterate preacher who
despised education: "Sir, you have been to college, I presume?" "Yes,
sir," was the reply. "I am thankful," said the former, "that the Lord
opened my mouth without any learning." "A similar event," retorted the
clergyman, "happened in Balaam's time."

A young man just graduated told the President of Trinity College that
he had completed his education, and had come to say good-by. "Indeed,"
said the President, "I have just begun my education."

Many an extraordinary man has been made out of a very ordinary boy: but
in order to accomplish this we must begin with him while he is young.
It is simply astonishing what training will do for a rough, uncouth,
and even dull lad, if he has good material in him, and comes under the
tutelage of a skilled educator before his habits become fixed or
confirmed.

Even a few weeks' or months' drill of the rawest and roughest recruits
in the late Civil War so straightened and dignified stooping and
uncouth soldiers, and made them manly, erect, and courteous in their
bearing, that their own friends scarcely knew them. If this change is
so marked in the youth who has grown to maturity, what a miracle is
possible in the lad who is taken early and put under a course of drill
and systematic training, both physical, mental, and moral! How often a
man who is in the penitentiary, in the poorhouse, or among the tramps,
or living out a miserable existen