Victories, toc, are by-products, not the ends of athleticism.
Principle, not policy, will lead to such an attitude of thought. A
victory fairly won is glorious because fairly, bravely played, not
because it is won. To win at any price is a false ideal, and if it
be given lodgment in civic, industrial or athletic life it will emas
culate and devitalize all life. The man of principle, as has been
grandly said, needs not to succeed. Only to the man of policy is
success the goal sine qua non. E. W. R.
OF MAKING MANY BOOKS.
The
. question, What shall I read, will always be of importance
as long as there are young people. Not only our information and
our good taste, but also the very fibre and tone of our lives de
pend to a large degree on what we read.
Our spare moments will give us the only opportunities of mak
ing our lives better or worse, and such moments will come to us
but seldom and in meagre installments. Most men are prodigal
of their spare time. When the day's work or the job is done they
give the free time to listlessness, or to things which make both
their money and moral strength leak away and leave them less effi
cient for the next job. Others spend their vacant time 'with a
book, magazine or newspaper, but in such a way that they also
are made worse rather than better.
If we had the spare moments that wealth offer we could travel
and learn a hundred-fold what we could in boOks, and learn it
better. If it were our privilege to command the attention and in
terest of men skilled in the professions we are seeking to follow
we could make inspired progress. If—but we have no alternatives.
The storing'of the mind, the training of the eye and hand, ~a re to
be our only sources of revenue and reputation, and these the spare
moments are to give us. Books also are to be our most constant
instruments.
Some years ago, Sir John Lubbock, now Lord Avebury, recom
mended to a body of young people to whom he was delivering