of all genuine growth in the
individual; and, exhibited in the lives of many, it constitutes the
true source of national vigor and strength. Help from without is
often enfeebling in its effects, but help from within invariably
invigorates. Whatever is done _for_ men or classes, to a certain
extent takes away the stimulus and necessity of doing for
themselves; and where men are subjected to over-guidance and over-
government, the inevitable tendency is to render them comparatively
helpless.

The privileges of a superior education, like the inheritance of a
fortune, depends upon the man. It should encourage those who have
only themselves and God to look to for support, to remember that
self-education is the best education, and that some of the greatest
men have had few or no school advantages.

Daily experience shows that it is energetic individualism which
produces the most powerful effects upon the life and action of
others, and really constitutes the best practical education.
Schools, academies, and colleges give but the merest beginnings of
culture in comparison with it. Far more influential is the life-
education daily given in our homes, in the streets, behind counters,
in workshops, at the loom and the plough, in counting-houses and
manufactories, and in the busy haunts of men. This is that finishing
instruction as members of society, which Schiller designated "the
education of the human race," consisting in action, conduct, self-
culture, self-control--all that tends to discipline a man truly, and
fit him for the proper performance of the duties and business of
life--a kind of education not to be learned from books, or acquired
by any amount of mere literary training. With his usual weight of
words Bacon observes, that "Studies teach not their own use; but
that is a wisdom without them, and above them, won by observation;"
a remark that holds true of actual life, as well as of the
cultivation of the intellect itself. For all experience serves to
illustrate and enforce the lesson, that a man perfects himself by
work more than by reading--that it is life rather than literature,
action rather than study, and character rather than biography, which
tend perpetually to renovate mankind.

No matter how humble your calling in life may be, take heart from the
fact that many of the world's greatest men have had no superior
advantages. Lincoln studied law lying on his face before a log-fire;
General Garfield drove a mu