sometimes meets students who would admit the truth of that statement very reluctantly if at all. A well-disciplined and well-furnished mind is one of the chief satisfactions of life. Changing fortune cannot take from us our mental treasure. Its value never diminishes, but increases, and never seems greater than when other things upon which we relied have been snatched from us. If we place reliance upon money, it may take to itself wings and fly away. We cannot be sure of keeping health. Our friends may be taken from us. Is it not the part of wisdom, in looking forward and preparing for what one hopes may be a successful and happy future, to ask what are the “durable satisfactions” of life? These should not be sacrificed for ephemeral pleasures.

The ability to focus a well-trained intelligence upon any problem in hand is one for which we should be willing to pay a high price. Intellectual capacity and a cultivated mind are not acquired without effort, and cannot be secured by merely sitting through lectures or recitations. The student who has a true sense of values will plan her life in so systematic and orderly a way that her use of time will be determined by something more than present inclination. You must remember that in order to have this, you must give up that. One of the hardest things for the inexperienced to learn is that some very good things have to be sacrificed in order that we may not miss better things. All through life this is so, and there is no advantage in deferring the time when it must be learned. To your daily work, then, give your best self, realizing that if you fail in that, you will derive but little comfort from the fact that you have had some success in other things. Mental concentration and correct methods of work should be the first lessons learned, and they should be learned with thoroughness.

Lastly, we have a moral and spiritual nature. One might have superb intellectual powers and brilliant social gifts, yet if he lacked character, these would bring him neither content nor success in any large sense. Character is the foundation upon which all success worthy the name must rest. If the foundation be insecure, it matters little how fine the superstructure. When the writer of old said, “With all thy getting, get wisdom,” he meant something more than knowledge. Wisdom means insight into life and into human nature. Still more, it implies some comprehension of “the ways of God with men,” that is, of the profound laws which underlie the government of the moral and spiritual universe. The greatest struggle of all, to the student, should be the struggle for the ideal life. In moral and spiritual stature, are you small? Then it is your sacred duty to become large. Where will there ever be a better opportunity than under the ideal conditions that surround you, with stimulating lessons, inspiring teachers, understanding and appreciative friends and leisure to use all of these for the attainment of personal power?

Remember that character is not something that will take care of itself. You do not really expect to acquire knowledge for which you do not work. You admit that if you would have intellectual capacity you must study and train the mind. Yet it is hard for you to comprehend that you have anything to do with the development of your own character. Do not believe that honor, courage, generosity and courtesy come by chance.

There is this to be said, however, about the development of character. It is, to use Woodrow Wilson’s phrase, “a by-product.” As he says, it comes whether you will or not as a consequence of a life devoted to duty. You do not deliberately say, “I will improve my character.” What you do say is, “I will do the duty that plainly lies before me. I will not shirk it. I will not defer it.” In this way, and perhaps only in this way, does character grow.

There is no royal road to high character any more than there is to learning. Indeed, there