Sometimes one is bewildered by the sight of men who seem to have all
the material for a good and useful and happy life ready to hand, but
who yet attempt the wrong things, or are pushed into attempting them,
by not taking the measure of their powers. Of course, there is a great
nobleness about people who ardently undertake the impossible; but what
can one make of the people, and they are very numerous, who have not
the ardent quality in their souls? Is it possible to become ardent even
if one does not happen to admire the quality? I fear not. But what
ought to be possible for every one is to arrive at a sort of harmony of
life, to have definite things that they want to do, definite regions in
which they desire to advance. The people whom it is hard to fit into
any scheme of benevolent creation are the vague, insignificant,
drifting people, whose only rooted tendency is to do whatever is
suggested to them. One who like myself has been a schoolmaster knows
that the danger of school life is not that the wicked are numerous, but
the weak; the boys who have little imagination, little prudence, and
who cannot summon up an instinctive motive to protect them against
yielding to any temptation that may fall in their way. These are the
people who get so little sympathy and encouragement. Their stronger
companions use them and despise them, treating them as a convenient
audience, as the Greek heroes in the _Iliad_ treated the feeble,
sheep-like soldiers, who ran hither and thither on the field of battle,
well-meaning, ineffective, "strengthless heads." The brisk and virtuous
master bullies them, calls them bolsters and puddings, loafers and
ne'er-do-weels. What wonder if they do not easily discern their place
in the scheme of things! Indeed, if it were not for tender fathers and
mothers who believe in them and encourage them, their lot would be
intolerable. How is such a boy to make an effort? His work wearies and
puzzles him--it does not seem to lead him anywhere; he has no gift for