unit, were to maintain its character. The law of selfrestraint, of deference to authority; the inertia of compressed as well as perfected details, became exponents of the value of your experience as cadets of the public schools of your native city.

Trace back, at some wakeful hour hereafter, the experiences of your school-days here. Recall the tough places and the innocent jokes of the "awkward squad;" then the emulations, perhaps the jealousies, of successful competition; and then, the movements of unwilling subordination when your task was to obey, and pride resented the restraint! When life's real battles shall demand similar selfrestraint, similar regard for authority, and perhaps a more complete abnegation of self, in the higher welfare of the State, you will see how you have earned, yes, have won, that which a diploma may emblem, but can never reward. Add to the well-trained mind and the disciplined body the crowning grace of soul-virtue, such as the Man of Nazareth expressed in life and precept, and you will be blessed in life, and receive the plaudit, "Well done,” in the Great Hereafter.

23. AIM HIGH.

Extract from Address before the graduating class of the Peirce School of Business and Shorthand, Philadelphia, Penn., December 20th, 1893.

You are about to go into business. That is a very broad word in the dictionary, but narrowed in its present use. In the street it has only to do with transactions that can be represented in figures. Addition, subtraction, and division are its elements, and the successful man is he

who works all his problems by addition, and leaves subtraction and division to his competitors.

But the word has a wider meaning. "Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?" This was spoken of mighty concerns; but not such as can be expressed in shekels or talents. The first qualification is character. A good character for integrity, for truthfulness, for fairness, is the strongest lifting power that any young man can carry into and through his business life. I do not mean to say that dishonesty and lying and trickery never lead to wealth. They do! The Psalmist found that out, and our observation is larger than his. But the natural and ordinary fruit of vice and fraud is failure, even by the money test. The criminal is not always revealed before the fact, or caught after it, but the pawnbroker gets the stolen jewels, and the thief becomes a fearsome fugitive. If you want to get the full use of your money, the comfort of it, then be careful that no tainted dollar gets into your till. There is more good in a moderate accumulation than in great riches, more time for good thoughts and good company, for wife and child and neighbors, and for God.

The highest places are peaks. Men are not made happy or prosperous in the mass, but singly. There is a duty to one's self, to one's family, as well as to society. You do not injure any man if, in the competitions of life, by fair methods, by greater skill or thrift, you go to the front. There is nothing more wholesome, more helpful to the striving, than the illustrations which every community affords of the triumphs of pluck and thrift over hard and discouraging conditions. The presence of a man on the peak, who was but lately in the gorge, is conclusive evidence of a path, and it is much wiser to give our strength to climbing than to stone-throwing. He should send his "Hail, brother!" down, and we should send ours up. His

elevation should not chill his human sympathy, nor excite our envy. He can be, he will be, if he is a true man, more helpful to us up there than down here.

Let fidelity be your watchword! However simple the task, let it be done with scrupulous faithfulness. However small the trust, let there be no default. Settle it now, as an inflexible purpose, that you will never, for a moment, use for your own purposes one cent of another's money in your keeping, without his consent, however desperate your need. The temptation to use for a little while, and then return, is full of subtilty and danger, and "many there be that go in thereat." A cheerful face and spirit has a large commercial estimation. The man who mumbles protests over his work will not survive the first reduction of the force.

To make one's self the most valuable man in the shop, the store, or office, is the best assurance of advancement. If you have a way to make in life, the place to begin is where you stand. If it happen to be rock excavation there, do not run forward to find a soft place. It is a waste of time! Life is not like a railroad that can be surveyed from end to end before construction begins. What is not within your reach, is clearly not this day's work for you. Aim high, but have regard to the range of your gun. And, above all, do not forget that the man whose plans take account of every hour of life, except the supreme hour, is unspeakably foolish !

BENJAMIN HARRISON.

AIM AT PERFECTION.

AIM at perfection in everything, though in most things it is unattainable; however, they who aim at it, and persevere, will come much nearer to it than those whose laziness and despondency make them give it up as unattainable.

LORD CHESTERFIELD.

24. CULTURE OF THE MORAL VIRTUES.

From Address, July 7, 1892, before National Teachers' Association at Saratoga, N. Y.

As we go to the Spartans to learn the possibilities of physical culture, and to the Athenians to learn the possibilities of æsthetic culture, so we go to the peoples who have exalted the moral virtues to learn the possibilities of ethical culture. History and biography present marvellous object-lessons in point. The savage is a savage from habit, for savagery is in the line of least resistance. The unthinking masses move round and round in the treadmill of custom, for this is easier than independent action. The Jew teaches fidelity. He is a Jew from conviction as well as duty. For many centuries it has cost much to be a Jew, but their history is a striking lesson of the virtue of fidelity to enlightened conviction. Fidelity grows into a fixed habit. Through all the centuries the profound belief in Jehovah, and in the Hebrew scriptures, has made the Jewish people a perpetual miracle.

The Scotch teach us integrity. Go to the homes, the schools, and the kirks of Scotland, and you find that integrity in things great and small is every way inculcated. They are a living object-lesson in the practical culture of the moral virtues.

The Quaker teaches us truthfulness. His word stands for more than the oaths of other men. Early and always, the Quaker child and youth learns to love truth, and speak and act truth.

The world's moral heroes teach us the moral virtues. We study the life of Jesus as the one perfect life. We study the lives of the best women and men, that we may discover how they grew into moral greatness; and herein sacred and classic literature must be counted at

their highest value. A moral atmosphere conditions the growth of the moral virtues. A sturdy moral manhood is almost impossible in the midst of moral pestilence. Our first care should be to remove alluring temptations and degrading influences. Moral pest-houses are very necessary. The second care should be to throw around the child and youth all favoring influences. Helpful environments, helpful literature, helpful society, helpful work are of incalculable value. Our third care should be to incite high purposes and earnest work. The idle classes, rich and poor, are our moral lepers.

Moral ancestry tends to morality, and practical ethics may gain valuable lessons from the study of heredity. The little child realizes that it ought to obey its parents. This impulse to obey because it ought, is conscience. The child thus early gains the intuition of right, and begins to do moral acts. The greatest thing in education is the development of the habit of doing what we believe we ought to do. This is the education of conscience. The key-note in moral culture is love and duty. The millions pitch the tune of human conduct too low. Will it give me pleasure? Will it pay? Is it good policy? The consequent moral degradation is appalling. But duty is the key-note of every grand life. Conscience stands for duty, for it is our capability to feel dutyimpulses. Find right, choose right, do right, enjoy right, are the immediate mandates of conscience. As the needle points to the pole, so conscience impels each one to do duty as he understands it. Here all vital, moral culture has its root. From infancy to age, the greatest thing in education is so to foster the ethical impulses that they shall become practically imperative in controlling human conduct. The noblest work of God is a man who, from principle and from habit, does what he deems is right. The highest work of the educator is the development of such men and women.

JOSEPH BALDWIN.