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Show B STUDY IN THE SCHOOLS. B Again in some regions there is a cry that too B many students throng the so-called higher educa- B tlonal institutions and too few the trades schools. B It is pointed out that the learned professions are B overcrowded, while there is a scarcity of artisans. B Wo suspect that the wrong dates from false ideas B that lie behind and in a measure make up public B opinion. Mothers, especially, are prone to think B It would be a great thing to have their boys law- B yers or doctors or clergymen or professors in"" B great institutions of learning. That, too, is a nat- B ural ambition. But the deep, underlying truth be- B hind everything else is that in this world man B must earn his bread by the sweat of his face, and B the thought ought to be "what is the best way in B which to earn the bread?" The answer is as B varied as are the natural intellectual attributes B of men. If we go back to Mother Nature for ex- B amples, we find that of all mechanics, the Creator B Is not only the foremost, but the most striking B a"nples of his infinite wisdom and majesty are B found in studying the mechanlcism of the unl- B verse. Look at the processions of the stars and B try to comprehend the sublimity of the thought B that set them in motion, that holds them in their B spheres, and without jar or friction or a single B hot box keeps up their eternal round in the orbits B and along the planes on which they were designed H to roll, B Again, the design was that the earth should B sustain animal life. All the needed elements were B Placed in the soil, but they are all contingent upon B the soil being moistened. To provide this mois- B ture think of the penomenon we witnessed last B Saturday night. The sunbeams were converted B toto pumps to draw the water up from the hot B Bea, perhaps around Hawaii. They were drawn B UP and loaded upon clouds, then the passing B trade winds were called into service, and they, as B though indignant at the 'continuous servitude to B which they have 'of late been subjected, in a fury B smote ur northwestern coast, unroofing houses H antl Mattering trees, sweeping on until a counter B JJlrrent from Manitoba was met which caused B them to veer to the southeast and, striking the H Cold alr of our mountains, the clouds were seized B and compressed by the cold as the hand com presses a wet sponge and the contents which a week before were warm waters in mid-Pacific were percipitated in snow upon us, that the valley might be saturated and the springs in the hills might be fed, and as if to give U3 notice that it was the Infinite who was working for us, His blazing lightnings set the heavens aflame, and His thunders rolled even amid the descending snow. But God is as great a chemist as He is mechanic. If any one doubts it, let him watch how the acorn can draw what is needed from the soil, the air and the light to create the oak, or how the rose and lily can take on their shining garments, or how the tree "brings forth fruit after its kind," or how while the f Jations of the world were laid in adamar .he properties were supplied to rend the re oks when men learned how to combine them. He is, too, as great a physician as He is chemist, chem-ist, for knowing that under Nature's laws, malaria ma-laria would be brewed, that from the needed cold and the gentle dews there would follow the chill, that from the intense heat of summer, needed to mature the harvest, fevers would be engendered, He placed antidotes for every evil in the earth only leaving to man "born in his image," to find the remedies. From all this we find that all useful labor Is alike honorable, that work instead of belnga penpal pen-pal ty is a mighty blessing, and that man should seek the honorable work which he is best capacitated capa-citated to perform. Our belief that when full enlightenment en-lightenment shall come, the most sought and highest high-est prizes prerogative of a teacher of youth, will bo the faculty to direct students along the paths they are the best filled to follow, impressing upon them the fact 'that the highest honors attach to the best work, and that the occupation is not what counts, but the perfected achievement. Of all the men who live only a few are long remembered and the man who called up the first respiration of the first steam engine, or the first answering click of the magnetic telegraph, or discovered the anesthetic which kills pain, or who built the first Monitor, or first caught and held the human voice in the phonograph, or from the viewless and subtle elements around us kindled kin-dled the steady electric light or placed electric power under man's control, or made It possible for man, through the telephone to talk, as if face to face, with men a thousand miles away, will be remembered as long as he who made the greatest speech or wrote the loftiest poem that ever thrilled the souls of men. |
