Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Baccalaureate Sermon and Oration and Poem: Class of 1869
In the realm of intellect there are not a few who expect success without strenuous endeavor, achievement without ade quate labor, reputation without patient and persevering toil, the high prizes of professional or literary eminence without the self-denial and self-discipline which befit those who strive for the mastery. The really ambitious student sometimes accustoms himself to spasmodic effort, with long intervals of quiescence, and supposes that by intense mental action for short periods he can supply the lack of continuous exertion. I havelived long enough to know from observation, even did I not be lieve in law, that there are no exempts on the arena of honorable competition, that diligence is the invariable condition of permanent success and valuable attainment. Industry can almost create its own instruments. It can quicken the slow, sharpen the dull, and energize the feeble intellect, so that he who starts on the race of life with all the odds against him, c distance those who have everything but persevering industry in their favor. I might, were it fitting, cite well-known names of men regarded as foremost in their respective departments, who were commiserated at the outset for their blindness and fatuity in attempting high intellectual culture, so slender an estimate was placed on their capacity; but who became pre eminently men of talents, in the sense suggested by our Lord's parable, having had but one talent given them, and having multiplied it tenfold by its faithful use. One I knew, Who held with credit the highest o ces in the national cabinet and judiciary, who in his youth was at once the laughing-stock of his fellow-students for the utter hebetude of his intellect, and their wonder for his unprecedented closeness of application and abstinence from amusement and relaxation. Not one of them approached the eminence which he fairly earned.
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