TER III.

THE LOVE OF EXCELLENCE.

Why is this glorious creature to be found One only in ten thousand?
what one is, Why may not millions be? what bars are thrown By
Nature in the way of such a hope?

WORDSWORTH.

He teaches to good purpose who inspires the love of excellence, and who
sends his pupils forth from the school's narrow walls with such desire
for self-improvement that the whole world becomes to them a
God-appointed university. And why shall not every youth hope to enter
the narrow circle of those for whom to live, is to think, who behold
"the bright countenance of truth in the quiet and still air of
delightful studies." An enlightened mind is like a fair and pleasant
friend who comes to cheer us in every hour of loneliness and gloom; it
is like noble birth which admits to all best company; it is like wealth
which surrounds us with whatever is rarest and most precious; it is like
virtue which lives in an atmosphere of light and serenity, and is itself
enough for itself. Whatever our labors, our cares, our disappointments,
a free and open mind, by holding us in communion with the highest and
the fairest, will fill the soul with strength and joy. The artist, day
by day, year in and year out, hangs over his work, and finds enough
delight in the beauty he creates; and shall not the friend of the soul
be glad in striving ceaselessly to make his knowledge and his love less
unlike the knowledge and the love of God? Seldom is opportunity of
victory offered to great captains, the orator rarely finds fit theme and
audience, hardly shall the hero meet with occasions worthy of the
sacrifice of life; but he who labors to shape his mind to the heavenly
forms of truth and beauty beholds them ever present and appealing. Life
without thought and love is worthless; and to the best men and women
belong only those who cultivate with earnestness and perseverance their
spiritual faculties, who strive daily to know more, to love more, to be
more beautiful. They are the chosen ones, and all others, even though
they sit on thrones, are but the crowd.

Without a free and open mind there is no high and glad human life. You
may as well point to the savage drowsing in his tent, or to cattle
knee-deep in clover, and bid me think them high, as to ask me to admire
where I can behold neither intelligence nor love. All that we possess is
qualified by what we are. Gold makes not the miser rich, nor its lack a
tru