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ACADEMIC OPPORTUNITIES

THOMAS STARR KING

THOMAS STARR KING (1824-1864) was an American preacher and lecturer. His book, "The White Hills," opened the eyes of many people to the beauties of New Hampshire.

The preparatory school and the college lay the basis of the power and the satisfaction with which in after years the work of life will be discharged.

Young men do not go to college to complete their education, but to draw the ground plan of it, and to lay the under courses of a future building deep and firm. To 10 use the words of St. Paul in a secular sense, they are then "laying up for themselves a good foundation against the time to come."

And the years are profitably used just to the extent that habits of mental industry are formed, loyalty to 15 truth confirmed, and the principles which underlie and support knowledge and culture are laid and cemented imperishably by the masonry of application.

Nobody can become wise, in the best college on this planet, between twelve and twenty. But a youth of 20 capacious powers can do more in those years toward enlarging the resources and ennobling the proportions of his mental character and influence than in twice eight years after he shall have taken up the tasks of life.

It is no time to look to the lower tiers of the edifice after the rafters are up and the roof is on. It is no time to be attending to a crack in the basement or a leaning wall after the builder has moved into the house with his family. The best he can do is to move out of it and buy 5 another, or spend largely to have it put in friendship with mathematics and gravitation.

But a student cannot remove from his mental house in his busy years, although he may see that the ground tier of stone is not based right, and that the walls are not 10 thick enough for the weight they must bear.

And then the misery that comes! To be obliged to apply principles and not to be sure of them! To feel the need of fundamental instruction, which might once have been thoroughly acquired, while the mind must act, and 15 in responsible callings too, as though it felt secure!

To be under the necessity of being student and worker, journeyman and artist, in the same hour, without the satisfactions that belong to either branch of toil, and with the burden of practical duty upon the hands and con- 20 science, this is a species of refined and exquisite agony which many a professional man in our day experiences, and which is the penalty either of an enforced adoption of the duties of a profession without ample preparation, or of wasted academic hours.

Do not be so eager, young men, to advance in knowledge as to become masters of elementary knowledge, so

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that it can never slip from your grasp, but becomes incorporated with your mental substance. There is no intellectual wretchedness more keen than conscious inadequacy of the mental furniture to the mental duties, 5 especially in the grasp of primal truths.

And there is no intellectual pleasure more sweet than the assurance, tested in arduous labor, of being grounded in truth, of finding that you have built your house upon a rock, than the repose that comes when you know some10 thing positively and know that you know it, and feel the mastery of a practical field because of that consciousness.

Do not fail, then, to use carefully the months, the days, the hours, in which as yet you are secluded from all cares. Do not be in a hurry to reach responsibility. 15 Strive to be furnished for it. And in every line of inquiry that you open, be eager for the facts that belong to the substructure rather than for those that belong to the finish of culture. The deeper you go now into principles, the higher you will rise in results in the years to 20 come, when the bulk of your powers must be pledged to work, and only the uncertain leisure can be devoted to further acquisition.

THE YELLOW VIOLET

WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT

NOTE. This was Bryant's second poem. His first was one of his most famous ones, 66 Thanatopsis." Compare with this Wordsworth's

"To the Small Celandine."

When beechen buds begin to swell,

And woods the bluebird's warble know,
The yellow violet's modest bell

Peeps from the last year's leaves below.

Ere russet fields their green resume,
Sweet flower, I love, in forest bare,
To meet thee, when thy faint perfume
Alone is in the virgin air.

Of all her train, the hands of Spring
First plant thee in the watery mold,
And I have seen thee blossoming

Beside the snow bank's edges cold.

Thy parent sun, who bade thee view

Pale skies, and chilling moisture sip,
Has bathed thee in his own bright hue,

And streaked with jet thy glowing lip.

Yet slight thy form, and low thy seat,

And earthward bent thy gentle eye,

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Unapt the passing view to meet,
When loftier flowers are flaunting nigh.

Oft, in the sunless April day,

Thy early smile has stayed my walk
But midst the gorgeous blooms of May
I passed thee on thy humble stalk.

So they who climb to wealth forget
The friends in darker fortunes tried.
I copied them- but I regret

That I should ape the ways of pride.

And when again the genial hour
Awakes the painted tribes of light,
I'll not o'erlook the modest flower

That made the woods of April bright.

The yellow violet: the flower commonly known as the yellow violet, the dogtooth violet, or the yellow adder's tongue, is not properly a violet, but belongs to the lily family.-ape: to mimic, as an ape does. -painted tribes of light: the flowers.