nounce every man over
five-and-forty who does not happen to agree with our opinions an old
fogey. It is the time when we are confident that we could, if we
chose, single-handed and with ease, accomplish tasks which generations
of men have struggled with in vain. Only in the meantime we, for our
part, are not disposed to commit ourselves to any creed or to champion
any cause, because we are engaged in contemplating all.

This period occurs, I say, in the history of all men of the abler
sort; but in students, on account of their peculiar opportunities, the
symptoms are generally exceptionally pronounced. Students are the
chartered libertines of criticism. What a life professors would lead,
if they only knew what is said about them every day of their lives! I
often think that three-fourths of every faculty in the country would
disappear some morning by a simultaneous act of self-effacement. Of
course ministers do not escape; ecclesiastics and Church courts are
quite beyond redemption; and principalities and powers in general are
in the same condemnation.

Such is the delightful prerogative of the position in which you now
stand. But, gentlemen, the moment you leave these college gates
behind, you have to pass from your place among the critics and take
your place among the criticized. That is, you will have to quit the
well-cushioned benches, where the spectators sit enjoying the
spectacle, and take your place among the gladiators in the arena. The
binoculars of the community will be turned upon you, and five hundred
or a thousand people will be entitled to say twice or thrice every
week what they think of your performances. You will have to put your
shoulder under the huge mass of your Church's policy and try to keep
step with some thousands whose shoulders are under it too; and the
reproaches cast by the public and the press at the awkwardness of the
whole squad and the unsteadiness of the ark will fall on you along
with the rest.

Seriously, this is a tremendous difference. Criticism, however
brilliant, is a comparatively easy thing. It is easier to criticize
the greatest things superbly than to do even small things fairly well.
A brief experience of practical life gives one a great respect for
some men whom one would not at one time have considered very
brilliant, and for work which one would have pronounced very
imperfect. There is a famous passage in Lucretius, in which he speaks
of the joy of the mariner who has