lean. I have likewise sent you the Greek roots,
lately translated into English from the French of the Port Royal. Inform
yourself what the Port Royal is. To conclude with a quibble: I hope you
will not only feed upon these Greek roots, but likewise digest them
perfectly. Adieu.

LETTER XXI

LONDON, December 15, O. S. 1747

DEAR Boy: There is nothing which I more wish that you should know, and
which fewer people do know, than the true use and value of time. It is in
everybody's mouth; but in few people's practice. Every fool, who
slatterns away his whole time in nothings, utters, however, some trite
commonplace sentence, of which there are millions, to prove, at once, the
value and the fleetness of time. The sun-dials, likewise all over Europe,
have some ingenious inscription to that effect; so that nobody squanders
away their time, without hearing and seeing, daily, how necessary it is
to employ it well, and how irrecoverable it is if lost. But all these
admonitions are useless, where there is not a fund of good sense and
reason to suggest them, rather than receive them. By the manner in which
you now tell me that you employ your time, I flatter myself that you have
that fund; that is the fund which will make you rich indeed. I do not,
therefore, mean to give you a critical essay upon the use and abuse of
time; but I will only give you some hints with regard to the use of one
particular period of that long time which, I hope, you have before you; I
mean, the next two years. Remember, then, that whatever knowledge you do
not solidly lay the foundation of before you are eighteen, you will never
be the master of while you breathe. Knowledge is a comfortable and
necessary retreat and shelter for us in an advanced age; and if we do not
plant it while young, it will give us no shade when we grow old. I
neither require nor expect from you great application to books, after you
are once thrown out into the great world. I know it is impossible; and it
may even, in some cases, be improper; this, therefore, is your time, and
your only time, for unwearied and uninterrupted application. If you
should sometimes think it a little laborious, consider that labor is the
unavoidable fatigue of a necessary journey. The more hours a day you
travel, the sooner you will be at your journey's end. The sooner you are
qualified for your liberty, the sooner you shall have it; and your
manumission will entirely depend upon the manner in whic