torrents may often bar the way, look right on, never losing sight
of the light which shines away up in the clear atmosphere of the
mountain peak, and you will ultimately reach your goal.

When the late Horace Maynard, LL.D., entered Amherst College, he
exposed himself to the ridicule and jibing questions of his
fellow-students by placing over the door of his room a large
square of white cardboard on which was inscribed in bold outlines
the single letter "V." Disregarding comment and question, the
young man applied himself to his work, ever keeping in mind the
height to which he wished to climb, the first step toward which
was signified by the mysterious "V."

Four years later, after receiving the compliments of professors
and students on the way he had acquitted himself as valedictorian
of his class, young Maynard called the attention of his fellow-
graduates to the letter over his door. Then a light broke in upon
them, and they cried out, "Is it possible that you had the
valedictory in mind when you put that 'V' over your door?"

"Assuredly I had," was the emphatic reply.

On he climbed, from height to height, becoming successively
professor of mathematics in the University of Tennessee, lawyer,
member of Congress, attorney-general of Tennessee, United States
minister to Constantinople, and, finally, postmaster-general.

Honorable ambition is the leaven that raises the whole mass of
mankind. Ideals, visions, are the stepping-stones by which we rise
to higher things.