onesty in the matter of marks, for
instance, and cheating in order to gain an undue advantage over one's
fellow-schoolboys. A boy who was guilty of such an act at school would
probably end by being a criminal when he went out into the larger world.
The seeds of depravity were already sown; the tree whose early shoots
were thus blemished would probably be found to be rotten when it grew
up; and for such trees and for such noxious growths there could only be
one fate--to be cut down and cast into the unquenchable fire!

In Hart Minor's half-term report, which was sent home to his parents,
it was stated that he had been found guilty of the meanest and grossest
dishonesty, and that should it occur again he would be first punished
and finally expelled.

THE STAR

He had long ago retired from public life, and in his Tuscan villa, where
he now lived quite alone, seldom seeing his friends, he never regretted
the strenuous days of his activity. He had done his work well; he had
been more than a competent public servant; as Pro-Consul he proved a
pillar of strength to the State, a man whose name at one time was on
men's lips as having left plenty where he had found dearth, and order
and justice where corruption, oppression, and anarchy, had once run
riot. His retirement had been somewhat of a surprise to his friends, for
although he was ripe in years, his mental powers were undiminished and
his body was active and vigorous. But his withdrawal from public life
was due not so much to fatigue or to a longing for leisure as to a lack
of sympathy, which he felt to be growing stronger and stronger as the
years went by, with the manners and customs, the mode of thought, and
the manner of living of the new world and the new generation which was
growing up around him. Nurtured as he had been in the old school and the
strong traditions which taught an austere simplicity of life, a contempt
for luxury and show, he was bewildered and saddened by the rapid growth
of riches, the shameless worship of wealth, the unrestrained passion
for amusement at all costs, the thirst for new sensations, and the
ostentatious airs of the youth of the day, who seemed to be born
disillusioned and whose palates were jaded before they knew the taste
of food. He found much to console him in literature, not only in the
literature of the past but in the literature of his day, but here again
he was beset with misgivings and haunted by forebodings. He felt
th