your brain, and while doing so store up knowledge, silently
develop taste and acquire style.

3. Again, how are vacations consumed? The student who does not
read at least two hours a day is letting a golden opportunity
pass and wasting a precious gift of God--time. It may be said
that this after all is a rather slow process; it will only mean
about a volume a month. Yes, but that means twelve in a year, or
at least eighty-four in your course, not a bad stock to start
life with.

4. In the training of the future priest the recreation hour can
be converted into the most important item on the day's programme.
He plunges from the silence of the study hall into the vortex of
the world, for it is the world in miniature; its passions, its
pride, its meanness, as well as its gentleness of heart and
heroism of spirit are all flowing around him. If properly
utilised, the recreations can be minted into veritable gold. In
the term "recreation" I include all those occasions of free
intercourse where students meet to interchange thought--the hall,
the club, &c.--and the more numerous these are the better. Here
the student is his natural self, unrestrained by a master's
presence. The young minds are free to wrestle, and opposing
thoughts to clash. The fire of contradiction will test the
genuine ore: the same fire will consume all that is worthless in
his opinions and principles: the clay and alloy of his character
too will go.

He learns to cast away many a cherished notion now dinged and
broken in the war of minds; he is taught to distrust himself and