some people would declare that it had been thought out in half an hour,
but that really he had put fifty years of his life into it. The sharper
and better the tools, the finer the character of the work. If experience
has been observed and retained, and previously acquired knowledge is
ready for service, and hand and mind know how to use books, and the
student is in good condition physically, then the excellence of that
girl's work in the class and out can be guaranteed.

And now what are the uses of the work which these tools can accomplish
for us? Coleridge wrote in his poem, "Work Without Hope,"

"Work without Hope draws nectar in a sieve,
And Hope without an object cannot live."

The only hope that can last is hope that is not wholly centred in
ourselves, but has some thought for others and our service to them. Work
devoid of inspiration and ideals, work done merely for one's self, study
pursued with only a degree as an end or for the sake of "pay" as a
teacher, turns school and college into a market-place, a place of
barter, where in exchange for so much energy and so much money we may
acquire a certain position and livelihood. Only that work in which one
has the consciousness of being, or becoming, useful to others, brings
joy that will endure. What do we think of the minister who is without a
sense of consecration? The responsibility of the student or the teacher
is quite as large, the opportunity for service quite as wonderful. One
of our greatest English poets, William Wordsworth, exclaimed: "I wish to
be considered as a teacher, or as nothing!" The calling of the teacher,
of the student, has through all time been thought a high one,--one that
has drawn to itself fine and unselfish spirits. The life of the student,
no matter how necessary to the world its market-places are, never has