d, almost required, to throw themselves into the breakers of
controversy, to discuss the hundred political, social, religious,
financial, sanitary, and educational problems which are ever waiting to
be solved. Let them enter the lists, let them take sides, let them
strive to see clear in an atmosphere of smoke and fog; and not to do
this is, in the estimation of the many, to be a dreamer, a dilettante, a
thinker to no purpose. But this is precisely what those who seek to
cultivate themselves, who seek to learn and communicate the best that is
known, ought not to do. They should live in a serene air, in a world of
tranquility and peace, where the soul is not troubled by contention,
where the view is not perturbed by passion. They should have leisure,
which is the original meaning of school and scholar; for the mind, like
the soul, is refreshed and strengthened by quiet meditation. Its
improvement is slow, is imperceptible often; its training is the result
of delicate methods which require patience and perseverance, faith in
ideals, and a constant looking to the all-perfect Infinite; and to throw
it into the noise and confusion of the busy excited world of practical
affairs is to stunt and warp its growth. We do not hitch a race-horse to
the plough, nor should we ask the best intellects to do the common work
of which every man is capable. They render the best service, when living
in communion with the highest and most cultivated minds of the past and
present, they learn and teach the way of looking and thinking, of
behaving and doing, which has been followed by the greatest and noblest
of the race. Political and social questions are forever changing; views
which commend themselves to-day will in a few years seem absurd;
measures which are thought to be of vital importance will grow to be
inapplicable. To talk and write about such things is well,--may help to
prevent stagnation and corruption in public life; but they exercise
altogether a higher office, who live in the presence of what is
permanently true and good and beautiful, who believe in ideal aims and
ends and prevent the masses from losing sight of what constitutes man's
real worth. They do what they alone can do, whereas the practical and
the useful may be any one's work. They may not, of course, isolate
themselves; on the contrary they must live closer than other men not
only to God and Nature, but also to the past and present history of
their country and of mankin