d schools of
public instruction. If a young man, in spite of every effort to fit him
with blinkers, will insist on getting rid of them, he must do so at his
own risk. He will not be long in finding out his mistake. Our public
schools and universities play the beneficent part in our social scheme
that cattle do in forests: they browse the seedlings down and prevent the
growth of all but the luckiest and sturdiest. Of course, if there are
too many either cattle or schools, they browse so effectually that they
find no more food, and starve till equilibrium is restored; but it seems
to be a provision of nature that there should always be these alternate
periods, during which either the cattle or the trees are getting the best
of it; and, indeed, without such provision we should have neither the one
nor the other. At this moment the cattle, doubtless, are in the
ascendant, and if university extension proceeds much farther, we shall
assuredly have no more Mrs. Newtons and Mrs. Bromfields; but whatever is
is best, and, on the whole, I should propose to let things find pretty
much their own level.

However this may be, who can question that the treasures hidden in many a
country house contain sleeping beauties even fairer than those that I
have endeavoured to waken from long sleep in the foregoing article? How
many Mrs. Quicklys are there not living in London at this present moment?
For that Mrs. Quickly was an invention of Shakespeare's I will not
believe. The old woman from whom he drew said every word that he put
into Mrs. Quickly's mouth, and a great deal more which he did not and
perhaps could not make use of. This question, however, would again lead
me far from my subject, which I should mar were I to dwell upon it
longer, and therefore leave with the hope that it may give my readers
absolutely no food whatever for reflection.

HOW TO MAKE THE BEST OF LIFE {4}

I have been asked to speak on the question how to make the best of life,
but may as well confess at once that I know nothing about it. I cannot
think that I have made the best of my own life, nor is it likely that I
shall make much better of what may or may not remain to me. I do not
even know how to make the best of the twenty minutes that your committee
has placed at my disposal, and as for life as a whole, who ever yet made
the best of such a colossal opportunity by conscious effort and
deliberation? In little things no doubt deliberate and