The Educational Attitude


The man whose life is intelligently ordered is always preparing himself
for the highest demands of his work; he is not only doing that work with
adequate skill from day to day, but he is always fitting himself in
advance for more exacting and difficult tasks.

If a man is to become an artist in his work, his specific preparation for
particular occasions and tasks must be part of a general preparation for
all possible occasions and tasks. It is not only impossible to foresee
opportunities, but it is often impossible to recognise their importance
until they are past. It is well to know by heart Emerson's significant
lines,--

"Daughters of Time, the hypocritic Days,
Muffled and dumb like barefoot dervishes,
And marching single in an endless file,
Bring diadems and fagots in their hands.
To each they offer gifts after his will,
Bread, kingdoms, stars, and sky that holds them all.
I, in my pleached garden, watched the pomp,
Forgot my mourning wishes, hastily
Took a few herbs and apples, and the Day
Turned and departed silent. I, too late,
Under her solemn fillet saw the scorn."

The Days, which come so unobtrusively and go so silently, are
opportunities in disguise, and to enable a man to penetrate that disguise