valueless all steam machinery and special plant
for its manufacture, and will be the crown and
complement of the'discovery of induced currents,
and the invention of the electro-magnetic tele
graph, the telephone, and the dynamo, that have
signalized the early and middle parts of this cen
tury. This discovery will come before the nine
teenth century closes. Results already obtained
and experimental researches in progress at the
present time point to this with certainty. A
man with some scientific ability, with the resources
of some of our best equipped institutions at his
service, and five years to devote to it, should
be willing to pul himself under bonds to make
it before the expiration of that period.
A TALK WITH THE STUDENT
In the pursuit of a college course,the student
is attended by danger. So obviously hurtful are
the effects of college life upon some persons, that
it may be justly questioned whether the taking of
a college course of study does not, in some cases,
lead the student to mental bankruptcy, and pave
the way for a discontented life. Such a result,
however, is not to be attributed to the plan of
the curriculum, but follows rather from the
wrong relation which the student may set up
between himself, his studies and what he intends
to make of himself.
It may not be out of place to notice a few of
his mistakes, recollecting that so short a discus
sion must necessarily be fragmentary. Many
students look upon the question of assigned duties
much as some hired men do a day’s work. Both
have a mercenary end in view. Some men wolf
ishly exact a lien from their employers after
having had their lean on the pick-axe : some stu
dents very sheepishly ask for a sheep-skin, after
leaning all through their course, to cover
up their leanness. The sheep-skin of the grad
uate makes a very good sporting garment, but it
is not worth the money he pays for it, as a work
ing garment; it catches the dirt. It may be
THE FREE LANCE.
worth something as a representative, if the rela
tion of the student to his course has had strict
reference to the laying of that base from which
he can best act his particular part as a citizen.
The abstraction of college life may mislead
the student. The young aspirant, shut off from
practical realities, is required by means of ab
stract thought to formulate a certain scheme of
knowledge, the application of which must take
place in a wholly different sphere from that in
which he has been acting; this makes the amalga
mation of theory and practice difficult. Further,
on leaving college, having been reared in the soil
of protection, the soil of look-oui-for-yourself is
often paralyzing. A kind mother has been re
placed by an unrelenting tyrant; you must re
verse your tactics and prepare to contend. Note
the difference between a college of. books and the
college of life: in the one a faculty regulates
your actions ; in the other, you should have the
faculty of regulating your own actions. Should
you not have this, there is one consolation—you
can always find some one who is willing to regu
late them for you,
Let the student be careful to guard bis own
originality. There is a possibility of his becom
ing a product of books, instead of a product of
nature. The plastic mind may be so moulded
by a systematic course of instruction, as to enslave
those characterictic powers which nature
had been trying to establish ; and, when he
comes to face practical surroundings, he sadly
discovers that he belongs to the order of parrots.
Many have memorized their way through college,
graduating with honors; but, when through, set
tled back into oblivion ; while others, far lower in
standing, having thought their way through, have
become a blessing to the world. The one starves
on the dry husks; the other grows strong on the
nutritious substance. The one dwells on the let
ter which kills; the other on the spirit which
gives life.
The- successful student keeps in mind the re-