imposed from without. Indeed, such a course may be a hindrance rather
than a help to a man entering on a business career. No young man on the
verge of life ought to be in the least discouraged by the fact that he
is not stamped with the hall mark of Oxford or Cambridge.

Possibly, indeed, he has escaped a grave danger; for if, in the
impressionable period of youth, attention is given to one kind of
knowledge, it may very likely be withdrawn from another. A life of
sheltered study does not allow a boy to learn the hard facts of the
world--and business is concerned with reality. The truth is that
education is the fruit of temperament, not success the fruit of
education. What a man draws into himself by his own natural volition is
what counts, because it becomes a living part of himself. I will make
one exception in my own case--the Shorter Catechism, which was acquired
by compulsion and yet remains with me.

My own education was of a most rudimentary description. It will be
difficult for the modern English mind to grasp the parish of Newcastle,
New Brunswick, in the 'eighties--sparse patches of cultivation
surrounded by the virgin forest and broken by the rush of an immense
river. For half the year the land is in the iron grip of snow and frost,
and the Miramichi is frozen right down to its estuary--so that "the
rain is turned to a white dust, and the sea to a great green stone."

It was the seasons which decided my compulsory education. In the winter
I attended school because it was warm inside, and in the summer I spent
my time in the woods because it was warm outside.

Perhaps the most remarkable instance of what self-education can do is to
be found in the achievements of Mr. J.L. Garvin. He received no formal