Their improvement depends not on their ability but on their effort. So be in earnest; throw vitality into your work. And while you thus gain strength and alertness of intellect, you will acquire and assimilate much that you will hereafter be glad to know. You will not be "ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth;" you will see facts and laws in their relations and weave them unconsciously into your habits of thought. Such study will send you to the library and you will read, as you ought, with a purpose. The true love of reading, if not acquired in youth, is seldom gained at all. If the object of education is to make men and women cultured, it surely involves the copious reading of books and reading with real interest. And we may rest assured that while the great ends of mental discipline are thus incidentally attained, the treasures of knowledge, of sympathies and interests, thus secured, will prove of in

estimable value. Is there any true man who does not rejoice for all he knows and wish that he knew more? How many there are who wish that they had learned more in youthful hours which were wasted in idleness or misdirection!

But let us not carry our elective system too far. There are students who seem to stretch it from studies to life. They elect not only what they will do but also when they will work. As they always try to elect the easiest subjects and seldom elect to work, they get very little out of their student life, and it is apt to come to a premature end. Extreme cases of this kind are, fortunately, rare; but a tincture of this weakness pervades the lives of too many. Let every true student make sure that he selects his studies because he values them, not because they are easy; and let him prove that he can work not only because he is attracted by the subject but also because it is his duty to work. College life ought to train

him to buckle down to a disagreeable job, to stick to it till it is finished; to distrust cleverness and put his faith in industry and earnestness. Let the student elect this course or that course, but let his work be vital. The college is made up of youth of superabounding life; let their work illustrate and embody it. The atmosphere of college work, no less thar of college play, should be life, life!

College students may be divided into four groups. The first consists of men without intellectual aspiration and without positive convictions or purpose.

They drift with the tide. They "cram to pass, they "crib" to pass; their only ambition is to get through. What little moral influence they have is bad.

The second group is the middle class intellectually, morally and socially. They are not without self-respect and ambition, but their aims are low and their work is commonplace. They would gladly stand high as students and as

men, but their interest is weak and fickle. They do not often rouse themselves to earnest work.

The third group consists of men who toil with fidelity and often with painstaking assiduity. They rank high in scholarship and are regular at all college exercises. No one can speak of them but with respect. Their failure is in not reflecting on what they learn and the lack of an absorbing interest. History is to them only history, literature is only literature; the lessons in character and life which these teach are overlooked.

The fourth class is also made up of earnest workers. But, while they may not surpass all others in intellectual endowments nor in exact scholarship, they are distinguished from them by broad sympathies and an enthusiasm which vastly enrich their work. They seek knowledge, definite and exact information. The effort to obtain it not only yields mental discipline, but they work

with minds so open to truth in its completeness and in its relations that they gain not merely information, learning, intellectual strength, but also that higher grace and power-culture.

When Professor Tyndall was asked to name the formative influence which had been strongest in shaping his life, he quoted Nelson's appeal to his men just before the battle of Trafalgar-"England expects every man to do his duty"— and said that the thought of duty had outweighed all other motives in determining the work of his life. He could do what he believed he ought to do. No education is complete which does not teach one to be loyal to his convictions-obedient to the voice of duty. Religion cannot be taught; it is a matter of personal choice and experience. But the persuasions to a religious life, "the forces which make for righteousness," are nowhere stronger than in the Christian college. The student who neglects these claims makes a