These are to be sought for either in the circumstances which surround us or in ourselves. We are to such an extent the creatures of circumstances that, when these are unfavorable, it is almost impossible that we should make great head-way.

As occasion makes the thief, it is also required to make the scholar. In the first place, leisure is essential to mental culture, since education is a work of time and of labor. We therefore look for little or no cultivation of mind in those who lead lives of manual toil, and who, during the brief moments allowed for recreation, are so fatigued as to be incapable of sustained mental effort.

Here and there an individual from this class, of remarkable gifts, and endowed with great energy and will, surmounts the obstacle, and, having risen to a higher level, succeeds, by perseverance and industry, in making very considerable intellectual progress. But, as a rule, all will admit that it would be absurd to look for much mental training in men who work ten or even eight hours a day in factories and mines, or in tilling the soil.

Intercourse with educated men is of the greatest advantage in the work of self-education; and where this is wanting, intellectual progress will rarely be found. The presence of highly developed and gifted minds has a magnetic power which creates emulation, awakens admiration, and stimulates to effort. Hence we find the great men of the world, whether philosophers, poets, statesmen, orators, or artists, in schools and historic groups.

Books, too, are required; but to this part of the subject we shall return.

The obstacles to mental growth within ourselves are of various kinds. Some have their origin in the body, some in the intellect, others in the will.

Infirm health, the love of ease, and excessive fondness of eating and drinking are generally incompatible with intellectual growth; and yet some of the greatest minds have wrought through feeble bodies, whilst many literary men have indulged to excess in the pleasures of the table, though always to their own injury.

The literary man, it may be well to remark, is not necessarily the thoroughly educated man; very often, indeed, he has nothing of the true man except the talent for letters. Vain, selfish, conceited, restless, a fickle friend, an unfaithful husband, the mere man of letters, poet, novelist, or scribe, is too often a caricature on human nature.

There are in the mind itself obstacles to mental progress which vary with the peculiarities of the individual. There are weak minds, slow minds, inattentive minds; in fact, all minds are in different degrees subject to these defects, and it is only relatively and by comparison that some are said to be feeble, whilst others are strong. Education supposes these weaknesses, and it is its aim to correct them. Obstacles to intellectual growth may exist also in the will; since the mind, under the influence of inordinate passion, is incapable of the deliberation and sustained attention which are required for calm and serious thought.

These, briefly and imperfectly stated, are, it seems to me, the chief difficulties with which those who seek to improve their minds have to contend.

They are not imaginary, but they are not so great as to frighten men in your condition of life. For you, young gentlemen, the obstacles of circumstance do not, I may say, exist. Your occupations leave you a few hours out of the twenty-four, which you are free to devote to study; you may enjoy, if such be your desire, the conversation of men of thought and learning, whilst books of all kinds are within your reach. I may add that, in a great metropolis like this, you possess special advantages. Here you have the best of everything. Where there is the greatest demand for the most perfect, thither will it gravitate by a law as universal as that of attraction. To this city, from two worlds, come the best orators, the most learned men of science, the finest singers, the most accomplished actors, for the same reason that the fattest beeves, the choicest wines, and the most costly fabrics are sent hither—that is, because there is a demand for them. On the other hand, life in great cities has its intellectual dangers. There is here so much of the mere noise of life that most men find it difficult to dwell within themselves, to receive as welcome guests thoughts that do not concern the business or the pleasure of the hour—difficult not to be drawn into the whirlpool of human passion, where men eddy round and round, shouting, rushing, struggling, in wild confusion, forgetful of themselves, forgetful of truth. In a great commercial centre, too, we are apt to become the victims of the prevailing opinion which attaches honor and respect to wealth before all things; and I know of nothing more hurtful to intellectual growth than the absorbing pursuit of riches or that narrow disposition of soul which causes men to fawn upon the rich, even though they have nothing but money. That it is of importance to every one to think correctly, to possess a trained and cultivated mind, I need not attempt to prove. The harmonious development of our faculties in accordance with the principles of eternal wisdom is, I may say, the great work of life; for the proper training of the intellect necessarily involves the cultivation of the moral faculties. Of the necessity and priceless value of such education there can be no diversity of opinion among enlightened, men. Nor wealth nor place can give to man the dignity which is derived from the perfection of his own powers. We are greater than whatever ministers to our wants and vanities.

Another consideration which you will permit me to present to your attention, as suggestive of salutary thought in connection with the benefits to be derived through an association like yours, is this: no man who has done nothing more than go through a college course, it matters not how brilliant he may have been, can rightly be called educated. Education is the work of the man, and not of the boy. The best that school-training can do is to teach the boy how he should study when he has become a man. Though there will generally be found a certain refinement, correctness of expression, and intelligent appreciativeness in those who have made a collegiate course, yet, if this be not followed up by the study of the man, they will be found to possess neither mental strength nor logical accuracy.

We should prepare the mind for the reception of truth by freeing it from all those opinions which rest upon no other foundation than prejudice. There are personal prejudices, family prejudices, national prejudices, prejudices of childhood, prejudices of old age, prejudices of men, prejudices of women, all of which tend to prevent the view of things as they are in themselves, by directing the mind, in an undue manner, to their relations to ourselves.

Personal prejudice inclines each one to think too well of himself, his talents, his acquirements; it is that, in a word, which makes it almost impossible that any power should

It is the great obstacle to self-knowledge and the fruitful source of error, warping the judgment and perverting the will. It creates within us a tendency to deceive ourselves concerning whatever we love or hate.

“Nothing,” says Cicero, “is so injurious, so baneful, as lust, which, were it stronger or of greater duration, would extinguish the very light of reason. It prevents thought, blindfolds the eyes of the mind, and can have no society with wisdom.”

“I will simply express my strong belief,” says Faraday, one of the greatest men of science of this century, “that that point of self-education which consists in teaching the mind to resist its desires and inclinations until they are proved to be right, is the most important of all, not only in things of natural philosophy, but in every department of daily life.”

The assent of the mind is, in a marvellous manner, subject to the power of the will. How readily we give credence to what flatters our vanity, or is, from whatever cause, agreeable to us!

We easily persuade a man that what he wishes to do is right, but usually labor in vain when passion pleads against us.

In this undoubted psychological fact is found the hidden cause of the infidelity of many young men. They do wrong, and passion seeks to justify their conduct to their intelligence, which becomes the tool of the perverted will.

Or, if you prefer to take another view of the subject, I will say that what the French call l'interiorité—the habitual dwelling with one's own thoughts—is an essential condition of mental growth. But this is painful to the sensual man, who has violated the sanctuary of his soul, and can consequently no longer dwell there in peace.

What pleasure can the father find in the bosom of his family, when he has betrayed the wife whom he swore to love, and has brought shame upon the name which his children have received from him?

To him, then, who wishes to begin the life-work of self-improvement I would say: Seek to have a large mind, from which no narrowing prejudice shuts out the full light of truth; have a pure heart, with the strength to love all that is right.

Then, I ask of him the will to work and to persevere in labor. Labor is the great law of progress, the necessary condition of all improvement. He who wishes to be an educated man must have courage; he must consent to see himself forgotten for a time, overshadowed by the easy-won reputations of those of his own age, who will wear their honors full-blushing, whilst all his life is still concentred in the bud that wraps it close and nurtures it.

I have heard the question—you have asked it yourselves—Where are the young men who go forth year after year from our colleges? What becomes of them? We never hear of them. Is not something wrong? They cease to study, they cease to grow, and are lost in the crowd.

But your presence, young gentlemen, assures me that you have not ceased to labor, and that you do not intend to cease to grow.

Permit me, then, to present to you a few suggestions concerning the proper method of study. We do nothing well except what we do with system and order. Set apart, therefore, stated times for the improvement of your minds, and suffer not a slight circumstance to interfere with this arrangement. And now I feel that I must be brief, when the subject which I am treating most requires development. How to study and what to study are problems which engage the attention of the profoundest thinkers of our age, the adequate solution of which can be found only in a perfect philosophy of education, which possibly has not yet been written. Without aiming, then, to be either deep or thorough, I shall strive to be practical. To study, as I have already intimated, means to work with the mind. The mind grows by union with truth, by the assimilation of knowledge, which never takes place except by direct application of the thinking subject to the object thought. This continued application—in other words, attention—is difficult; it wearies the mind, it fatigues the body. To read is not to study. Some of the most indolent men I have ever known, intellectually indolent, were passionately fond of reading. To read requires no mental effort, and demands merely that sort of attention necessary to form a vague notion of each sentence as it passes through the mind. A man may read all the books in the Astor Library, and acquire hardly more knowledge than there will remain water in a sieve through which a stream has been pouring. Indiscriminate, inattentive reading confuses the mind, and, if persevered in, begets a mental habit incompatible with clear and accurate thinking; and the important thing, from an educational point of view, is not so much to get knowledge as to strengthen and develop the intellect, that it may be prepared to grapple intelligently and successfully with the problems which greatly concern or interest us as rational beings.

“I confess,” said S. Augustine, “that by writing I have learned many things which nothing else had taught me.” You will recall to mind the apothegm of Bacon: “Reading makes a full man, talking a ready man, and writing an exact man.”

I have no hesitation in saying that, of all means of mental culture, writing is the best, as well for extending and deepening the intellectual faculties, as for giving them justness and polish.

Do I propose to you to go back to the drudgery of task compositions? Such is not my thought.

I suppose you to be interested in certain subjects, of which you wish to get at least a tolerably thorough knowledge. You take the authors who have treated most exhaustively of these matters; you read them, you study them; you apply your own minds, in sustained thought, to the facts and principles which they give you. And here precisely lies the difficulty; for you will find that, when you will have acquired the power of sustained thought, you will be able to master almost any subject.

Now, to get this mental habit, nothing will aid you like writing. I do not believe that any man who has never translated his thoughts into written language is able to think profoundly or correctly. Do not, however, misunderstand me. One may write negligently and thoughtlessly, as he may read with indolence and inattention. Put your hand to the pen, and begin to meditate upon the thoughts that fill your mind. Should you, for weeks and months, not write one sentence for every hour you hold the pen, do not be discouraged, and, above all, be persuaded that this time has not been lost. Think neither of style nor of the reader; give all your attention to truth and to your own soul. The style is the man. Write out the life that is within you. Keep what you have written, and after months and years, in looking back, you will perceive that you have grown steadily, increased day by day in intellectual vigor and refinement; and there will always be special worth in words written, not to please the vulgar crowd, not to propitiate a false and intolerant public opinion—written to gain neither applause nor gold, but for God and truth, and the dignity of the human soul.

“There is nothing,” says Seneca, “however difficult or arduous, which the human mind cannot conquer, and assiduous meditation render familiar. Whatever the soul demands of itself it obtains.” But how are you to learn the secret of assiduous meditation, to acquire the habit of retaining difficulties in mind, to be considered and reconsidered, to be taken up at the leisure moment, and laid down as deferred but not abandoned?

As the soldier takes the sword, the painter the brush, the musician his instrument, the mechanic the tools of his trade, each to perfect himself in his art, so he who wishes to learn how to think must take the pen and do honest work.

The student, I have said, should cultivate a fondness for intelligent and thoughtful reading; for in books chiefly all human knowledge is treasured up.

“Many a man lives a burden to the earth,” says Milton; “but a good book is the precious life-blood of a master-spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life.” But only a few books are good. The great mass of those that are written fall upon the world dead, or at best survive but a short time.

We are about to celebrate the centennial anniversary of our national existence, and, in the hundred years of our life, we have made many books. How many of them will be read in the next century? A dozen? Hardly.

There is the Augustan age, the age of Leo X., the Elizabethan age, the age of Louis XIV., the age of Queen Anne, all remarkable for literary excellence and the number of great writers whom they produced, and yet you can count on your fingers the really good books that each has bequeathed to us. And this, too, is worthy of remark: a considerable portion of the books that survive are saved by style alone, and not on account of more solid worth. Books which have the inductive sciences as their object can, from the nature of things, live but a short time, since these sciences, being in a state of continuous development are constantly outgrowing their own conclusions, and the treatises of even the ablest observers are superseded by those of men who, with less genius, have more certain and numerous data.

Works of imagination, poetry and romance, may meet with temporary success, without possessing the higher qualities, from the fact that they describe a mental, moral, or social phase of existence whose chief interest lies in its actuality. When this is past, the literary efforts called forth by it die. In fiction, only the very best is worthy of study.

And here is a case in point, in which we should know how to rise above prejudice—the vulgar prejudice of the insipid and intellectually indolent society of our day, in which it is considered the proper thing for a man of culture to read each worthless production that happens to have a run.

Persons of intellectual aspirations should, as far as possible, associate with their superiors in knowledge and elevation of thought, and should exclude the common herd from intellectual companionship.

There is at least an aristocracy of mind, to which neither gold nor title can give admission, but only kinship of spirit, smitten with the love of high thinking. What Tennyson has written of a different union may be applied to that of mind with mind:

A book can wait for success; the best books have not been understood by the generation for which they were written; but a newspaper or magazine must succeed at once, or fail utterly, since its life is necessarily ephemeral. Hence the great probability is that it will be guided, not by principle, but by policy; that it will aim, not to uphold truth, but to flatter the prejudices of its readers. If it is the organ of a party, it must defend its interests blindly; and hence, whenever argument is attempted, it will be found to consist of little else than special pleading and sophistry. But since the average newspaper-reader is not fond of logic, the partisan organ will deal rather with men than with principles; and the whole basis of this procedure is double-dealing—untruth erected into the dignity of a principle. Its business will be to whitewash its friends, and besmear its enemies. When its party is out of office, it will swell with indignation at the public corruption, and will use what are called the argus eyes of the press to discover things which do not exist; but when the spoils are in the hands of its friends, it will devote itself to covering up their misdeeds. There is also what is called the independent press, which generally has less of principle than that which is avowedly partisan. It in turn affirms and denies everything, plays fast and loose, palters in a double sense, and, with a seeming honesty, is most unfair, lending all its influence to persuade men that there is no such thing as truth, and that morality is only cant.

There are yet other heads of indictment that may be brought, without injustice, against the press. Its columns are filled with details, more or less minute, of all the horrible and disgusting crimes which disgrace society, with sins against the decencies of life, with coarse personalities, and advertisements which are an opprobrium to human nature.

This, I must confess, is a one-sided view of the question; it is, however, the view which my subject forces me to take in treating of the means of self-education.

Though it would be absurd to ask you not to read newspapers, it would, in my opinion, be wholly unwise to counsel you to make use of them to any great extent as aids to true cultivation of mind. We grow, morally and intellectually, by association with that which is above us, and not by contact with what is low; and it is not by filling the mind day by day with what is startling, corrupt, sensational, or at best only of passing interest, but by lifting it up into the higher and serener atmosphere, from which the trivial and transitory value of these things is perceived, that it will gain in depth and power.

Except in the line of study which belongs to one's profession, the wisest rule is to confine ourselves to the works of really great minds, which we should not merely read, but study.

I know that the value of mere intellectual cultivation may be exaggerated, and that, in point of fact, the men who, in our day, deny God, insist most upon the developed mind's self-sufficiency.

Older men than you might say that my words smack something too much of the savor of youth, which is “a bubble blown up with breath, whose wit is weakness.” But with you, enthusiasm, I am sure, need not plead for pardon. Even to have dreamed of deeds of high emprise and noble endeavor, of victories won on the foughten field, is something; and to the young should belong hope, which is not only the charm of life, but also its strength.

Without the living hope of something better, man falls back upon himself, in impotence, like a bird whose wing is clipt. He who wishes to do much must hope for still more.

Hope gives the conviction of strength; it is confidence, and confidence is power. Have faith and hope in God and in yourselves; and, above all, believe that the highest wisdom consists in tender love for the religion of Jesus Christ. Guard yourselves against a life of indulgence, which is incompatible with generous ambition and is destructive of character. Yield not to the fascinations of a literature which flatters human weakness and pays court to the senses instead of speaking to the soul. Be not cynical, be large-hearted, since the true view is the generous view. Give the homage of admiration to every great man, whether he be a hero, a genius, or a saint.

When you see Napoleon on the battle-field, and look into his eye, and behold there the soul of the war-god that looks and conquers, forget for the moment his tyranny and selfishness, and let your soul shout unto his presence a shout of living enthusiasm, even as the war-cry of his own unconquered veterans when, in the battle, he rode amongst them in strength and majesty, like unto the archangel when he beat into hell the rebellious powers of heaven. When you stand in the Roman forum, and see Cicero arise and take into his hands the enchained hearts of his hearers, and play upon them, as the harper sweeps his fingers over the trembling chords of the lyre, till it shouts or laughs or wails, sighs like the zephyr, sings like the seraph, curses like the demon, let your soul also be attuned to the thrilling accents of his divine eloquence.

When you behold young Xavier, surrounded by the most brilliant audience that fame could attract, suddenly, after a burst of applause, stop, reflect a moment, then quit that scene of triumph, and, clothed in simple garb, turn his eager steps toward the East, where millions dwell who have never heard the name of Jesus, and there, strong in the power of divine love and super-human self-sacrifice, cause every knee to bend to Jesus and every tongue to bless his holy name, until at last, still seeking for some soul in darkness lying, on a barren isle, far from man or beast, alone, with the ocean before him, the desert around him, and God within him, he breathes out his great soul in the words of a confidence certain of itself: “In thee, O God! have I hoped; I shall not be confounded for ever”—when you behold all this, lift up your hearts to God, and ask him to give you, too, the strength to be Christians.