eard of a little boy, who,
when asked how old he was, replied, "I am five on the train, seven in
school and six at home." The child is pushed through grade after grade,
and, according to the statistics, a little more than ninety per cent,
of the children drop out of school before they are old enough to decide
educational questions for themselves. They are scarcely more than
fourteen.

Taking the country over, a little less than one in ten of the children
who enter our graded school ever enter high school, and not quite one
in fifty enter college or university. As many who enter college do not
complete the course, I am not far from the truth when I say that only
about one young man in one hundred continues his education until he
reaches the age--twenty-one--when the law assumes that his reason is
mature. I am emphasizing these statistics in order to show that we are
indebted to others more than to ourselves for our education. That which
we do would not be done but for what others have already done. Even
those who secure an education in spite of difficulties have received
from some one the idea that makes them appreciate the value of an
education.

When we are born we find an educational system here; we do not devise
it, it was established by a generation long since dead. When we are
ready to attend school we find a schoolhouse already built; we do not
build it, it was erected by the taxpayers, many of whom are dead. When
we are ready for instruction we find teachers prepared by others, many
of whom have passed to their reward.

How do we feel when we complete our education? Do we count the cost to
others and think of the sacrifices they have made for our benefit? Do we
estimate the strength that education has brought to us and feel that we
should put that strength under heavier loads? We are raised by our study
to an intellectual eminence from which we can secure a clearer view of
the future; do we feel that we should be like watchmen upon the tower
and warn those less fortunate of the dangers that they do not yet
discern? We _should_, but do we? I venture to assert that more than nine
out of ten of those who receive into their lives, and profit by, the
gift of education are as ungrateful as the nine lepers of whom the Bible
tells us--they receive, they enjoy, but they give no thanks.

But it is even worse than this; the Bible does not say that any one of
the nine lepers used for the injury of his fellows the strengt