A Talk To Students

Mr. James T, Fields visited Exeter Academy oii the 21st ot' May and (nade the following capital speech to the students. Atter a few well chosen introduotory words he said : There never was a greater chance for first-rate men ia all professions than just now, now in our own era. And this you, who are 6tudying that you may be successful, ought to know. Eemember, I say the great chance is for inen who are A No. 1, not for those who are only Z No. 26, but tor thoroughbred, accurate scholars. When a young gradúate once coniplained to Daniel Webster that the protessions were all i'ull and that there was no room lelt tor him, the great lawyer and statestnan simply replied, " There is always room at the top young man !" Now the difficulty in our America is, that whilewe are all " pretty well" educated, very few of us are first-raters and carry all the guns we might. We t'orget that it' a man does not know a thing accurately he does not know it at all. It is only now and thee that we launch a really solid, substantial acholar, complete in all points, into the world. Look at Congress to-day ! Look anywhere ! At long intervals, Wayland, Webster, Bancroft, Everett, Choate, Prescott, Chanuing, Longfellow, Sumner, Motley, Lowell - and then a whole parterre of semi-inteilectual peacocks only strutting iibout on exhibition, with a few fine feathers sweeping along the dusty highways of learning. Is it not amazing that since 1855 there has hardly graduated from any American college a man who bas yet inade any great mark either as a lawyer, orator, a statesman, a poet, a preacher, an essayist or an historian 'i In all the science3 we have dono nobly, bul it is really time for us to show better results in other departments of learning. Did it ever occur to you, my friends, that you never hoar out of your own country those every day phrases so common among us, - " pretty near," " about right," " near enough '(" All over England the word Right is always sounding in your ears, and it goes into their scholarship as well as their railroads. You may depend upon it, we never shall truly get on in politics, in moráis, in govrn inent, uu til we also can cry out ' Right!" much oftener than we can now. Inacouracy in everjthiny is our rock ahead, and it is especially marked in our scholarship. Why, there js not a thirdrate town in Protestant Germany to-day that could not easily beat any of our larger cities in the nuinber of accurate, thoroughly informed scholars. We are contented with smatterers. They demand thoroughness ! When I hear it said of a man that he is a " pretty good soholar," I can't help thinking of a " pretty good" egg. TJnless an egg is absolutely perfect we send it away from the table. Ignorance is hateful, and simply to veneer oureelves with learning is a deadly mistake. I think it a great piece ot good fortune for any one to be bom in America, the gruatest good luck in the world ; but how we dare to be ignorant of so many things is to me unaccountable. Just see how simple the whole matter of acquiring information is. Given brains (and we always claim the privilege of knocking a man down if he dis putes with us the fact of this possession), and all we can require, and must acquire are these three - Attention, Perseverance, and Memory. These can all be had for the asking ; they can all be streugthened if they happen to be weak in any special case. You notice I do not reckon in moráis, for I cannot conceive of a real student, a young man of brains or common sense, who loves learning, and tneans to be a firstrater, by and by; I cannot conceive of his having any time or inclination for those idiotie immoralitios which turn a man into a brute. I take it, that sort of thing is not in our line, and so I do not intend to insult you by mixing up baser matter with the things needful, which we are all striving for, viz. : the great truths of lifc. Go in for fun and genuine enjoyinent. It is a capital rule to play a. little every day of our live. Heaven knows our faces are long enough, naturally, in such a climate as this, but we have only just so niany years for real study, and youth won't stretch much bevond the twenties in a country so full of wear and tear as the one we aro bom into. I plead with you then for accuracy. Bo sure of everything you know. A half baked scholar is inerely an underdone goose. He is simply a quack in every sense. Don't go about in this world of ours, that sorely needs completeness in character, like so many lockg without keys or keya with misaing locks. And don't be afraid of " lions in the way." Nine times out of ten the reported lions do not exist at all ; or if they do, and can't be glain, go around them aud thus avoid danger. The diificulty is that many of us are too indolent to keep out of harin's way. I am immensely fond of that plucky reply of a man to an indolent, titnid friend. " Suppose," said the person who was always borrowing trouble, " suppose, now, somebody should teil you that you were going to die next Tuesday in a certain street in Boston. What would you do P" " Do V" said the other, " why, I wouldn't be there !" All our dictionaries contain at least one very foolish word. When Mirabeau's secretary once said to him, " Sir, what you require is impossible." " Impossible," cried Mirabeau, starting from bis chair, " never name to me again that blockhead of a word." Now, downright accurate scholarship is impossible nowhere, and here in America we must come to it very soon. We have already delayed it too long. It will not do to s'hrink it any longer. Wheu you hear a student reply to a question in mathematics, or Greek, or hiatory, " I know the answer very well, but I can't find words to expreas it," don't you believe him. He does not know the answer. He may think that he does, but the poor old chap is mistaken in his knowledge ; if he knew definitely, and this is the only way to now anything, the words would somelow twist themselves out of his mouth, ;hough they maimed his reluctant jaws 'or life. It is a great thlng to start right. If we begin wrong, the chances are we shall never arrive at the point proposed. We shall go on and on in the wrong direction tnat leads nowhither. We have a storyof a traveler, who, wishing to reach Taunton, in the State of Massachusetts, had somehow got turned round and was trot ting very composndly in the opposite direction from the right one to that town. Meeting a farmer in the road he drew up and asked, " How far is it to Taunton, if I keep straight on ?" ' Well," said the farmer, with a twinkle in his intelligent eye, " if ye keep straight on the way ye're going uow, it's about 25,000 miles; but if ye turn right round and go t'other way, it's about half a mile." And now God bless you, my dear fellows, and show you the straight road to knowledge and wisdom and virtue. Your great eipanding, vigorous, native country has a first-rate place waiting for every first-rate man Exeter has to send her. Don't, I pray you then, waste a single hour of youth ; don't squander a moment of thia golden gift of time. Eemember : The heights by great men reached and kept Were not attained by sudden flight ; But they, while their companions slept, Were toiling upward in the night.