plane that will attract rather
than repel those who would develop the country's resources. At the same
time no effort should be made, for the sake of patronage or for
institutional advantage to influence a student from the calling his
heart honestly indicates as the one for which natural taste and native
ability, quickened by educational training, fits him. The thing to be
avoided, rather, is the inculcation of prejudice against useful
vocations and desirable pursuits as being undignified and consequently
beneath the notice or ambition of a gentleman.

Do scientific inquiry and scientific knowledge generally diffused
augment human greed? Do they tend to promote avarice? Most certainly
they do not. The man of science can see so much beyond--so much of
beauty and design that even the drudgery of toil is forgotten in
contemplation of the forces which he aids or controls.

No thoughts can arise above the thoughts of God as written in the
growing plant or painted upon the bow that arches the sky. To the man of
science, even the raw material which he reconstructs into useful
commodities contains a revelation in every grain and fiber. The swelling
bud, the opening flower, the growing plant, the greeting shower, each is
a chapter from Nature's open book, full of inspiration. Beyond them and
above them he sees the hand and hears the voice of God. And since he
lives and works thus close to Nature's throbbing heart and in close
communion with forces that link the finite to the Infinite, who dares to
spurn the dignity of his toil or characterize his associations as
menial.

To live is man's first duty; to live well his privilege. But the world
has its severe as well as delightful aspects. The divine law which
commands man to subdue and replenish the earth is not less mandatory
than that other law which commands him to "lay up treasure in heaven."
And just as material wants antedate the soul's awakening or reason's
dawning, so throughout all life, physical well-being precedes and
contributes to the growth of the higher life.

But, in the language of Herbert Spencer: "That increasing acquaintance
with the laws of phenomenon which has through successive ages enabled us
to subjugate Nature to our needs, and in these days gives the common
laborer comforts which a few centuries ago, kings could not purchase, is
scarcely in any degree owed to appointed means of instructing our youth.
The vital knowledge--that by which we have grown a