rocks; no herds can lie down under my shadow; I am far above
singing birds, that seldom come to rest among my leaves; I am set as a
mark for storms, that bend and tear me; my fruit is serviceable for no
appetite; it had been better for me to have been a mushroom, gathered in
the morning for some poor man's table, than to be a hundred-year oak,
good for nothing."

While it yet spoke, the axe was hewing at its base. It died in sadness,
saying as it fell, "Weary ages for nothing have I lived."

The axe completed its work. By and by the trunk and root form the knees
of a stately ship, bearing the country's flag around the world. Other
parts form keel and ribs of merchantmen, and having defied the mountain
storms, they now equally resist the thunder of the waves and the murky
threat of scowling hurricanes. Other parts are laid into floors, or
wrought into wainscoting, or carved for frames of noble pictures, or
fashioned into chairs that embosom the weakness of old age. Thus the
tree, in dying, came not to its end, but to its beginning of life. It
voyaged the world. It grew to parts of temples and dwellings. It held
upon its surface the soft tread of children and the tottering steps of
patriarchs. It rocked in the cradle. It swayed the limbs of age by the
chimney corner, and heard, secure within, the roar of those old,
unwearied tempests that once surged about its mountain life. All its
early struggles and hardships had enabled it to grow tough and hard and
beautiful of grain, alike useful and ornamental.

"Sir, you have been to college, I presume?" asked an illiterate but
boastful exhorter of a clergyman. "Yes, sir," was the reply. "I am
thankful," said the former, "that the Lord opened my mouth without any
learning." "A similar event," retorted the clergyman, "happened in
Balaam's time."

Why not allow the schoolboy to erase from his list of studies all
subjects that appear to him useless? Would he not erase every thing
which taxed his pleasure and freedom? Would he not obey the call of his
blood, rather than the advice of his teacher? Ignorant men who have made
money tell him that the study of geography is useless; his tea will come
over the sea to him whether he knows where China is or not; what
difference does it make whether verbs agree with their subjects or not?
Why waste time learning geometry or algebra? Who keeps accounts by
these? Learning spoils a man for business, they tell him; they begrudge
the time and m