fit them for
it; many of you know well enough what it is and know what help they need.

You have read, all of you, a good many times probably, this marvelous
passage from Isaiah: "They that trust in the Lord shall renew their
strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not
be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint." I never thought what that
meant until one morning in college chapel our president turned to us and
said: "Most of you think that is an anti-climax," and we would say: "Why,
of course, for a man cannot fly like the eagle. He can walk down hill, what
is the use talking about that walking down hill." The old man shook his
head and said: "No, no. Anybody can fly like an eagle in his imagination;
when we are beginning any new work or any new study or anything new, we
fly; but after a time we cannot fly any more, we come down to a run; and
the man who wins out is not the man who can run, but the man who can 'walk
and not faint,' for that man has the endurance that we want."

There was a time some years ago--that has gone by too, thank fortune--when
we used to paraphrase things; that is, turn very good English into very bad
English. You wish to have a boy or girl catch the spirit of the poem, do
you not, to find in it inspiration and power, to find a beauty in life that
never was on sea nor land? A sweet voice is a very excellent thing in a
woman, and a very unusual thing in a man. The eye is not the grandest sense
organ we have; the ear is the path-way to the heart, and that is what you
want to understand. Did you ever try reading a beautiful poem or story
aloud to your children at your fireside or to the class and put your very
life's blood into it? I remember some things that a little girl teacher in
Massachusetts read to me a great many years ago, and there is a dent in my
old heart still. Try it some day. They cannot understand the poem, but they
feel it. It has gone deeper than the intellect. It has gone into the heart
and through the heart, it has got hold of the will and it has transfigured
the spirit and the whole being. In this way you are certainly teaching
literature; nobody can deny that. You have awakened a new interest. You
lead and inspire the adolescent to share your very best and highest
enthusiasm. After you have done that a few times your pupils will demand
the best; they won't be content with anything poor.

The highest human thing in the end is character, and cha