The Free lance. (State College, Pa.) 1887-1904, May 01, 1903, Image 32

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    or the train hand of the pruner. After a few years for each the
f'ormer is valuable and the latter is worthless. Such is the relation
of training and development for the muna mind. It requires time,
life or activity, and effort or conformity to the external efforts of
expert supervision.
The butterfly develops from the chysalis, but while this is a
sudden appearance or external phenomenon, the real
,modifica
tions have gradually transpired during weeks and often months
of apparent quietude, yet actual vital activity, made possible by
the proper external conditions. The emergence but marks the
time of arrival of a certain stage or condition. So is it and so
should it be with graduation from an educational institution and
with one's progress through life. The student, yea, the man, who
cannot every night look backward through his closing day and
clearly see just what he has learned or what he has accomplished
for himself or for mankind during the time is not developing,—is
not properly utilizing his time, is, in fact, guilty of the failure to
achieve the possibilities of the present, and consequently will be
unable to fulfill the requirements and obtain the successes of the
future.
The student who rejoices more in the possible luxuries of a
day of vacation than he does in the benefits of recitations, and who
seeks every opportunity to absent himself from classes, and tak
ing no more than a passing interest in his studies, is not develop
ing or qualifying himself for any great life-work. Even though
he may be able to find a way to pull through and receive his di
ploma, he shall have forced a mere artificial condition, and his
scholastic career and record will not stand for the developed at
tainments of the majority of his associates. It is true that just
then he may feel qualified, according to "Mr. Dooley," to "run the
wimmen's collums av th' noospapers and anser all th' questions,"
but with experience the illusion will disappear. He will fail to
wind promotions and will wonder why. Be does not recognize
that when a person passes from a lowly position that he has
creditably filled to one that is higher and which he has also become
able to occupy, it does not mean a mere sudden transition, but it