uality of
loyalty to his own word, herdsmen of the Pennine Alps, Aleuts, Indians
and Negroes, each race has its noblemen and through these humanity is
ennobled. It is worth while to go far from Boston to find that such
things are true.

And we may look not alone among primitive folk who have never envied us
our civilization or ever cared that we possessed it. Badalia Herodsfoot,
in Kipling's story, lived and died in darkest London. Gentle hearts and
pure souls exist among our own unfortunates, those to whom our society
has shown only its destroying side. All misery and failure as well as
all virtue has its degrees, and our social scheme is still far from the
demands of perfect justice.

Some one has said that "the wise young man will wear out three dress
suits in a year." This is a playful way of saying that he will not shun
men and women, even those bound by the conventions of society. All such
association can be made to pay--not in money--but in getting the point
of view of other people. This is worth while if not costing too much of
time and strength. There is another maxim which can offset the first. It
is from Lorimer's Chicago pork packer: "You will meet fools enough
during the day without trying to roundup the main herd of them at
night." But even the main herd of fools may teach its lesson to the
student of human nature. It gives at least a point of departure in the
study of wisdom. To study men or to kill time. What is your motive? The
poorest use of time is to kill it. This is the weakest and most cowardly
form of suicide. Moreover it is never quite successful. That "time which
crawleth like a monstrous snake, wounded and slow and very venomous" is
sure to take its own revenges.

It is therefore good to look on the cheerful side of life. A touch of
humor is necessary to the salvation of the serious man. It is a gift of
the men of America to see droll things and to express them in droll
fashion. To see the funny side of one's own accomplishments is the
highest achievement of the American philosopher and there is hope for
the land in which the greatest wits have been the most earnest of moral
teachers. Who was more earnest than Oliver Wendell Holmes, who more
genuine than Mark Twain? Without the saving grace of humor our Puritan
conscience which we all possess would lead us again into all
extravagance, witch-burnings, Quaker-stoning, heresy trials, and
intolerance of politics and religion. From all these we a