boy of your age and strength ought certainly to be able to do that.'

"'I _could_ do it, I suppose,' said the child, 'but it's heavy, and I
don't like the _trouble_. The servant can open it for me just as well.
Pray, what is the use of having servants if they are not to wait upon
us?'

"The servant was sent to open the gate. The boy passed out, and went
whistling on his way to school. When he reached his seat in the academy,
he drew from his satchel his arithmetic and began to inspect his sums.

"'I cannot do these,' he whispered to his seat-mate; they are too hard.'

"'But you _can try_,' replied his companion.

"'I know that I can,' said John, 'but it's too much trouble. Pray, what
are teachers for if not to help us out of difficulties? I shall carry my
slate to Prof. Helpwell."

"Alas! poor John. He had come to another closed gate--a gate leading
into a beautiful and boundless science, 'the laws of which are the modes
in which God acts in sustaining all the works of His hands'--the science
of mathematics. He could have opened the gate and entered in alone and
explored the riches of the realm, but his mother had injudiciously let
him rest with the idea, that it is as well to have gates opened for us,
as to exert our own strength. The result was, that her son, like the
young hopeful sent to Mr. Wiseman, soon concluded that he had no
'genius' for mathematics, and threw up the study.

"The same was true of Latin. He could have learned the declensions of