In these days of specialists and artists and architects and
upholsterers, anyone who has money can possess himself of the material
surroundings of taste and culture. His house may be "a poem in stone"
exteriorly, and a "symphony in color" in its interior adornments. This
much of the products of genuine culture he may buy with money. But no
money can buy the pearl of great price, the cultured spirit in the
individual or family, without which the most palatial mansion is but a
dead and lifeless shell. Lacking this moral sentiment and culture, how
many a handsomely appointed home is the abode of rudeness, unkindness,
selfishness, and misery! The rude speech or cutting retort or selfish
act are doubly and trebly incongruous when pictured walls and frescoed
ceilings and luxurious surroundings of artistic beauty are the silent
witnesses of the vulgarity. On the other hand, there is opportunity for
the display of the best and kindest and most cultivated manners in the
humble home where lack of suitable furnishings and dearth of
conveniences puts everyone's unselfishness to the test.

I have frequently heard wise parents and teachers speak of the
perplexity of spirit which they feel when they see that in so many
instances the acquirement of accomplishments, as they are termed, fails
to add any moral strength or beauty to the character of the young people
in whose welfare and advancement their hearts are so entirely absorbed.
This young girl sings and plays beautifully, paints and draws in a
genuinely artistic manner, speaks French and German like a native, and
yet she is ill-tempered and shrewish if circumstances happen to cross
her inclination. Here is a young man who is possessed of a fine
collegiate education, and who is also an excellent musician. Yet he can
be rude and disrespectful to his mother, insolent to his father,
overbearing and arrogant towards servants and subordinates, and a
perfect boor to his younger brothers and sisters. Both these young