PREFACE.


Perhaps some may question the wisdom of putting out the Thoughts of
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus to be used as a Reader by children in the
schools. It may appear to them better suited to the mature mind. The
principle, however, that has governed us in selecting reading for the
young has been to secure the best that we could find in all ages for
grown-up people. The milk and water diet provided for "my dear children"
is not especially complimentary to them. They like to be treated like
little men and women, capable of appreciating a good thing. One finds in
this royal philosopher a rare generosity, sweetness and humility,
qualities alike suited to all ages.

Adopting the philosopher's robe at twelve, he remains a student all his
life. The precepts that he would give for the government of others, he
has practised upon himself. In his time, as in ours, there were good
physicians for the mind and body, who could make wise prescriptions for
the government of their neighbors, but were unable to apply them to
themselves. The faults of our fellows are so numerous and so easy to cure
that one is readily tempted to become the physician, while our own faults
are so few and so unimportant that it is hardly worth while to give any
attention to them. Hence we have a multitude of physicians for humanity
in general, and a scarcity of individual healers.

It was the doctrine of Marcus Aurelius that most of the ills of life come
to us from our own imagination, that it was not in the power of others
seriously to interfere with the calm, temperate life of an individual,
and that when a fellow being did anything to us that seemed unjust he was
acting in ignorance, and that instead of stirring up anger within us it