Books are the voices of the dumb,
The tongues of brush and pen;
The ever-living kernels from
The passing husks of men.
It is from good books as well as from living personages that boys will receive much of the good advice which they must follow in order that they may make the most of life. Life is too short for a boy to investigate everything for himself. There is much that he must accept as being true. He has not the time to follow every road to its end and ascertain if the sign-posts have all told the truth. Strive as we may we are still dependent for much of our information upon the hearsay of others. No one person can begin to know everything.
If instead of a gem or even a flower, we could cast the gift of a lovely thought into the heart of a friend, that would be giving as the angels give.—George MacDonald.
What must of necessity be done you can always find out, beyond question, how to do.—Ruskin.
When I hear people say that circumstances are against them, I always retort: “You mean that your will is not with you!” I believe in the will—I have faith in it.—Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
Every thinking boy clearly understands that he knows much more to-day than he did a year ago. And he has good reason for thinking that if he shall remain among the living he will know many things a year from now that he does not know to-day. To live is to learn. Hence it is that youth should be modest in the presence of age, for silver hair and wisdom are more than likely to dwell together. No youth should think too lightly of his own mental endowments and his fund of information, neither should he permit his very lack of knowledge to lead him to think that he has acquired about all the secrets that nature and the great world have to divulge. Every boy should be cool-headed, clear-headed, long-headed, level-headed, but not big-headed. Should he become afflicted with a serious attack of “enlargement of the brain” it is more than likely that when he has reached the years of soberer manhood he will look back with a sense of good-humored humiliation to