33. ADVICE TO BOYS.

1. Upon whatever career you may enter, intellectual quickness, industry, and the power of bearing fatigue are three great advantages. But I want to impress upon you, and through you upon those who will direct your future course, the conviction which I entertain that, as a general rule, the relative importance of these three qualifications is not rightly estimated; and that there are other qualities of no less value which are not directly tested by school competition.

2. A somewhat varied experience of men has led me, the longer I live, to set the less value upon mere cleverness; to attach more and more importance to industry and to physical endurance. Indeed, I am much disposed to think that endurance is the most valuable quality of all; for industry, as the desire to work hard, does not come to much if a feeble frame is unable to respond to the desire.

3. Everybody who has had to make his way in the world must know that while the occasion for intellectual effort of a high order is rare, it constantly happens that a man's future turns upon his being able to stand a sudden and a heavy strain upon his powers of endurance. To a lawyer, a physician, or a merchant, it may be every thing to be able to work sixteen hours a day for as long as is needful, without yielding up to weariness.

4. Moreover, the patience, tenacity, and good humor which are among the most important qualifications for dealing with men, are incompatible with an irritable brain, a weak stomach, or a defective circulation. If any one of you prize-winners were a son of mine, and a good fairy were to offer to equip him according to my wishes for the battle of practical life, I should say,

"I do not care to trouble you for any more cleverness; put in as much industry as you can instead; and, if you please, a broad, deep chest, and a stomach of whose existence he shall never know any thing." I should be well content with the prospects of a fellow so endowed.

5. The other point which I wish to impress upon you is, that competitive examination, useful and excellent as it is for some purposes, is only a very partial test of what the winners will be worth in practical life. There are people who are neither very clever, nor very industrious, nor very strong, and who would probably be nowhere in an examination, and who yet exert a great influence in virtue of what is called force of character.

6. They may not know much, but they take care that what they do know they know well. They may not be very quick, but the knowledge they acquire sticks. They may not even be particularly industrious or enduring, but they are strong of will and firm of purpose, undaunted by fear of responsibility, single-minded and trustworthy.

7. In practical life, a man of this sort is worth any number of merely clever and learned people. Of course I do not mean to imply for a moment that success in examination is incompatible with the possession of character, such as I have just defined it, but failure in examination is no evidence of the want of such character.

8. And this leads me to administer, from my point. of view, the crumb of comfort which on these occasions is ordinarily offered to those whose names do not appear upon the prize-list. It is quite true that practical life is a kind of long competitive examination, conducted by that severe pedagogue, Professor Circumstance. But my experience leads me to conclude that his marks are given much more for character than for cleverness.

9. Hence, though I have no doubt that those boys

who have received prizes to-day, have already given rise to a fair hope that the future may see them prominent, perhaps brilliantly distinguished members of society, yet neither do I think it at all unlikely that among the undistinguished crowd there may lie the making of some simple soldier whose practical sense and indomitable courage may save an army led by characterless cleverness to the brink of destruction; or some plain man of business, who, by dint of sheer honesty and firmness, may slowly and surely rise to prosperity and honor, when his more brilliant compeers, for lack of character, have gone down, with all who trusted them, to hopeless ruin.

10. Such things do happen. Hence let none of you be discouraged. Those who have won prizes have made a good beginning; those who have not may yet make that good ending which is better than a good beginning. No life is wasted unless it ends in sloth, dishonesty, or cowardice. No success is worthy of the name unless it is won by honest industry and brave breasting of the waves of fortune.

11. Unless at the end of life some exhalation of the dawn still hangs about the palpable and the familiar; unless there is some transformation of the real into the best dreams of youth, depend upon it, whatever outward success may have gathered round a man, he is but an elaborate and a mischievous failure.

PROFESSOR HUXLEY.

COMPOSITION. Write an abstract from memory, making use of the following heads:

1. Three great advantages; their relative value.

2. Power of endurance.

3. Competitive examinations only a partial test; illustrations.

4. Professor Circumstance; character and cleverness.

DICTIONARY LESSON. Find the meaning of the following words: incompatible, endowed, competitive, indomitable, transforma. tion, compeers, palpable, elaborate. Write each in a sentence.

84. ODE ON THE PASSIONS.

1.

When Music, heavenly maid, was young,
While yet in early Greece she sung,
The Passions oft, to hear her shell,
Thronged around her magic cell,
Exulting, trembling, raging, fainting,
Possessed beyond the Muse's painting;
By turns they felt the glowing mind
Disturbed, delighted, raised, refined;
Till once, 't is said, when all were fired,
Filled with fury, rapt, inspired,
From the supporting myrtles round
They snatched her instruments of sound;
And, as they oft had heard apart
Sweet lessons of her forceful art,
Each-for Madness ruled the hour-
Would prove his own expressive power.

2.

First, Fear his hand, its skill to try,
Amid the chords bewildered laid,
And back recoiled, he knew not why,
E'en at the sound himself had made.

3.

Next, Anger rushed, his eyes on fire,
In lightnings owned his secret stings:

In one rude clash he struck the lyre,

And swept, with hurried hands, the strings.

4.

With woful measures, wan Despair

Low, sullen sounds his grief beguiled:

A solemn, strange, and mingled air;
'Twas sad, by fits, by starts, 't was wild.

5.

But thou, O Hope! with eyes so fair,
What was thy delightful measure?
Still it whispered promised pleasure,
And bade the lovely scenes at distance hail !
Still would her touch the strain prolong;
And, from the rocks, the woods, the vale,

She called on Echo still through all her song;
And, where her sweetest theme she chose,

A soft responsive voice was heard at every close; And Hope, enchanted, smiled, and waved her golden hair.

6.

And longer had she sung;-but, with a frown,
Revenge impatient rose.

He threw his blood-stained sword, in thunder, down;
And, with a withering look,

The war-denouncing trumpet took,

And blew a blast, so loud and dread,

Were ne'er prophetic sounds so full of woe!
And ever and anon he beat

The doubling drum with furious heat;
And though sometimes, each dreary pause between,
Dejected Pity, at his side,

Her soul-subduing voice applied,

Yet still he kept his wild, unaltered mien; While each strained ball of sight seemed bursting from his head.

7.

Thy numbers, Jealousy, to naught were fixed!
Sad proof of thy distressful state!

Of differing themes the veering song was mixed;