to him an event, this
turning-point in the career of what he feels to be an important and
immortal being. His entrance is public and with some dignity of display.
For a day the world stops to see it; the newspapers spread abroad a
report of it, and the modest scholar feels that the eyes of mankind are
fixed on him in expectation and desire. Though modest, he is not
insensible to the responsibility of his position. He has only packed away
in his mind the wisdom of the ages, and he does not intend to be stingy
about communicating it to the world which is awaiting his graduation.
Fresh from the communion with great thoughts in great literatures, he is
in haste to give mankind the benefit of them, and lead it on into new
enthusiasm and new conquests.

The world, however, is not very much excited. The birth of a child is in
itself marvelous, but it is so common. Over and over again, for hundreds
of years, these young gentlemen have been coming forward with their
specimens of learning, tied up in neat little parcels, all ready to
administer, and warranted to be of the purest materials. The world is not
unkind, it is not even indifferent, but it must be confessed that it does
not act any longer as if it expected to be enlightened. It is generally
so busy that it does not even ask the young gentlemen what they can do,
but leaves them standing with their little parcels, wondering when the
person will pass by who requires one of them, and when there will happen
a little opening in the procession into which they can fall. They
expected that way would be made for them with shouts of welcome, but they
find themselves before long struggling to get even a standing-place in
the crowd--it is only kings, and the nobility, and those fortunates who
dwell in the tropics, where bread grows on trees and clothing is
unnecessary, who have reserved seats in this world.

To the majority of men I fancy that literature is very much the same that
history is; and history is presented as a museum of antiquities and
curiosities, classified, arranged, and labeled. One may walk through it
as he does through the Hotel de Cluny; he feels that he ought to be
interested in it, but it is very tiresome. Learning is regarded in like
manner as an accumulation of literature, gathered into great storehouses
called libraries--the thought of which excites great respect in most
minds, but is ineffably tedious. Year after year and age after age it
accumulates--this