| OCR Text |
Show stored wisdom and power of your race. It is that storehouse which you are seeking; so, my student, "follow the cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night" and by and by you will come to the Promised Land of comprehension. You may wander for forty years in the wilderness of fact. Some of you may travel in hopeless circles. To some of you it may be given only to see "afar off." But persevere. The Promised Land is well worth all the toil.Good theory, you say, and sound. But the practice-what of that? To you I say-faint-hearted. Have you ever delved painstakingly for an evening or a week, along the barren pathway of facts, in pursuit of a principle-of a comprehension of what it all means? And then when you have caught a glimpse of that for which you sought, have you closed your books and laid aside your pen with a sigh of relief that "That job is done?" Of course you have. We all have. But, faint-heart, your task was really but half done. It was your duty to pursue the principle-the truth-to grasp it, to conquer it, to make it wholly your own. Then it would have been your servant. Now it is but the shadow of what might have been. So, when a principle is within grasping distance it is your bounden duty to yourself to reach out for it and to clutch it strongly-to drive it home to your understanding, and there fairly to clinch it on the other side. With each principle thus clinched you have made a stride toward the goal of education-the power to use facts-the power to think.Away, my students. The sermon is over. The ancient pedagogue has told his tale, and bids you hasten to the feast of good things which the Juniors have prepared for you. He asks only that you hold fast to his text.Prop. B. R. Howells.163 |
