nderstand that to live for
money is to lead a false and vulgar life, to rest with complacency in
mere numbers is to have a superficial and unreal mind. To form a right
judgment of a people, as of individuals, we must consider what they are;
not what they have, except in so far as their possessions are the result
of work which at once forms and reveals character. And we must know that
work is good only in as much as it helps to make life human,--that is,
intelligent, moral and religious. And what we have the right to demand
of those to whom we give a higher education is, that they shall body
forth these principles in their lives and become leaders in the task of
spreading them among the multitude. We demand, first of all, that they
become men whose hearts are pure and loving, whose minds are open and
enlightened, whose motives are benevolent and generous, whose purposes
are high and religious; and if they are such men, it shall matter
little to what special pursuits they turn, for whatever their
occupation, honor, truth, and intelligence shall go with them, bearing,
like mercy, a blessing for those who give and a blessing for those who
receive. The spirit in which they work shall be more than what they do,
as they themselves shall be more than what they accomplish.

A right spirit transforms the whole man, and the first and highest aim
of the educator should be to impart a new heart, a new purpose, which
shall bring into play forces that may oppose and overcome those faults
of the young of which I have spoken, and which, if not corrected, lead
to failure.

And here we come to the causes of ill success which lie within
ourselves. We have our individual qualities and defects, and we have
also the qualities and defects of the people whence we are sprung, and
of the time-spirit into which we are born. It is the aim of education,
as it is the aim of religion, to lift us above the spirit of the age;
but in attempting to do this, they who lose sight of what is true and
beneficent in that spirit, commit a serious blunder. A national spirit,
too, is a narrow, and often a harsh and selfish spirit; but when culture
and religion strive to make us citizens of the world and universally
benevolent, a care must be had that we retain what is strong and noble
in the character we inherit from our ancestors.

The lover of intellectual excellence, however, is little inclined to
dwell with complacency either upon his own qualities, or upon