George Smith

“ Truth is ever young ; she ages not though the world gets wrinkled. There are truths of beauty and of grace which grow along the wayside of life; there are truths bearing richer fruit which grow among the briers and thorns by little frequented paths; there are truths, the most priceless of all, which grow on slippery and rocky places, whose golden fruit can be plucked by those alone who search for it by sweat and toil. ”

“ But wisdom is his meek-eyed lady-love, Whom if he wins not he is nothing worth— Now casting down, her modest eyes on earth, Now heavenward, trustful, she herself doth try, And broodeth o'er her own heart silently, Timid, but constant, patient, as a dove. ”

“ Many are the temptations which are likely to beset your path in life; Guard against temptations. temptations from temptations from without, temptations from within, to resist which will require the energetic action of all the better elements of your character. Walk therefore the path of life warily, wisely; recognize the weakness of self, and never for a moment forget the golden saying of the brave Duke John of Saxony, "the straight line is the shortest road." ”

“ An erroneous principle once assumed has the power of misleading even the strongest and best informed minds, and of binding them in chains of iron. All history and experience prove this. Beware especially of the tyranny of prejudice, than which nothing is more certain to warp and distort the mind. Prejudice is the very cancer of the soul. ”

“ But the race itself is yet before you, and he alone in that Isthmian struggle will win the nobler than pine-leaf crown, who, to culture and discipline of the mind adds culture and discipline of the heart. ”

“ Study all your life. Select with care not only your professional studies, but also the pursuits of your leisure hours. Love them and reduce their cultivation to a system. Diligently map out your time, and form with care your mental habits. Do everything at its proper season, and you will have time to do everything carefully and well. "Have a duty for every time, and you will have time for every duty." ”

“ The groups of Science now alluded to deal, not so much with abstractions, as with external and sensible objects ; their study quickens the faculty of observation, the powers of comparison and generalization, and the mental habit of method and arrangement. They familiarize the mind with the deeper philosophies of seeing, hearing and touch, and, in the close interrogation of Nature by actual experiment, they shew the value of the processes of analysis and synthesis. ”

“ Above all, you may find that your mental training is defective, not from lack of capacity, but from some remediable or irremediable weakness of the will which robs you of the power of controlling your own minds. Never let it be forgotten that with steady effort, aided by the cumulative power of habit, the processes of the intellect can be brought under the control of the will. ”

“ The greatest philosophers the world has ever seen have spoken of the pursuit of knowledge as but a course between two ignorances, and the acceptance of this truth is itself an evidence of true knowledge, and true knowledge is the parent of humility and of wisdom. ”

“ Heaven grant that the closing page may be found to bear the assuring words "Action and duty were the guides of his life," and now—
"After life's fitful fever he sleeps well." Your future career and character will be mainly of your own making, for the mould of a man's fortune is in his own hands; pause therefore and reflect how and after what pattern you will mould yourselves. Your mental training has fitted you more or less as Athletes to run the race of life with fair prospect of success. ”

“ Let the profession of your choice be emphatically your life-work. Direct to its study the best powers of your mind. In your professional career propose to yourself an exalted aim and put in its service a persevering fidelity. ”

“ In Man there is nothing great but Mind."
The study of human nature on the large scale is as grand and elevating as the study of it on the small scale is petty and debasing. The science of man's nature; Psychology. the science of his physical peculiarities and geographical distribution; and the sciences which indicate the laws that govern men when grouped in cities and nations deserve your careful study. History, too, "a quarry well worth the hawk," offers to you philosophy illustrated by examples, and the wondrous lessons of mind which moves the mass, of ideas more potent than bayonets. ”

“ The rest of that solemn volume, the record of a useful and well-spent or of a useless and mis-spent life, each of you must con for himself. Often in joy, often in sorrow, often in hope, often in fear, often in perplexity, often in disappointment will the leaves of that book be turned over. ”

“ Many an educated man passes through life the possessor of a mind of more than average power, which, because unmastered by the will, is useless and dangerous in proportion to its power and impulse. The frivolous, the wandering, the prejudiced, the uncertain, the impulsive, and the vitiated, not to speak of the diseased, are examples among many of minds which have escaped from the necessary autocracy of the will. ”

“ Materials of thought collected and recalled by memory alone too frequently fail to pass further into the mind. They are consequently neither digested nor assimilated. The bare materials of knowledge may be accumulated, but it is thinking alone which makes what we read ours. ”

“ The classification of Languages is the classification of mankind. A scientific analysis of language proves the unity of the human race. "One blood"! What a wealth of brotherhood and kindness lies hid in that short phrase. ”

“ I wish I could indicate to you some manly exercise, not altogether foreign to your habits and customs, Games. some noble game like that of cricket which elevates at once the moral and physical tone, which calls forth energy and promptitude, which, with muscular force develops judgment, watchfulness, endurance, courage, generous emulation, appreciation of the merits of others, manly acceptance of defeat and manly modesty of success. More battle fields than those of war have been gained on British cricket grounds. He who braces his muscles, braces his mind. ”

“ In these sciences reason guides observation, observation corrects theory, and truth can be proved by means cognizable by the senses. "To unite observation and reason, not to lose sight of the ideal of science to which man aspires, and to search for it and find it by the route of experience,—such," according to Victor Cousin, "is the problem of philosophy."
These sciences are valuable not only as training grounds for the intellect, but as store-houses of necessary information on matters of practical importance in life ”

“ Truth will not always be found on the side of the world's majorities. The sheep principle is strong in humanity, and it is not every combatant who has the courage, even if he have the will, to ally himself with the world's minorities in upholding the good and true. ”

“ Let the world see that with informed heads you have reformed hearts, and that your intellectual training has been no one-sided system which has done all that is possible to be done for the mind, while it has left untended and untrained the heart, whence are the very issues of moral life. Good example is a language all can understand. ”

“ If there exists, not only in radical words, but even in what may appear as the work of an exclusively peculiar coinage—the formative words and inflections which pervade the whole structure of certain families of languages—and are interwoven, as it were, with every sentence pronounced in every one of their branches. All nations which, from the dawn of history to our days, have been the leaders of civilization, in Asia, Europe, and Africa, must consequently have had one beginning. ”

“ Let your professional character, in short, be the real patron to which you manfully and confidently look for ultimate success in life. Every one knows full well that the busiest men, if methodical, have always leisure time for studies and pursuits other than those directly connected with their profession ”

“ Flowers droop and die in the stillness of noon. Labour is glory! The flying cloud lightens; Only the waving wing changes and brightens; Idle hearts only the dark future frightens; Play the sweet keys, wouldst thou keep them in tune." Apollo, however, as we are told in classic song does not always keep his bow bent, and you too will require intervals of relaxation from professional studies and kindred pursuits. ”

“ By careful observation alike of the strong and of the weak points of your mental organisation, you will be able to select such lines of study as shall tend to develop the weak and to corroborate the strong. Whatever of mental training your antecedent studies may have effected for you, you may rest assured that you have intellectual faculties which stand in need of further exercise and discipline. In the earnest effort to "know thyself" you may find, for example, that the faculty of imagination is stronger than that of reasoning ”

“ It is true that this world is full of errors, but it is equally true that it is full of the correctives of error. Modestly, therefore, but firmly and faithfully set out on the holy quest of truth. Use aright the reason which has been given you, and honestly exercise your birthright, the inalienable birthright of every man, to prove all things. ”

“ Let all knowledge which bears upon it directly or indirectly claim your closest attention, and thus prove to the world, by acts as well as by words, that you are earnest men engaged in an earnest work, and that you are resolved to ground your claims to advancement, not on smiles and favors, not on patrons and friends, but on the extent and value to the community of your professional acquirements. ”

“ Man, however, has been endowed with perceptions specially fitted for the contemplation, enjoyment and imitation of all this beauty; but as other powers of the mind require to be evoked and educated, so does the power of appreciating the beautiful. ”

“ Rest not, however, in mere knowledge polished, selfish and sterile, but gird your loins like men to translate that knowledge into action, Translate knowledge into action. alike for your own good and for the weal of your brother-man. Life demands of us not knowledge only, but action. Appreciate then your position as the teachers of India of the future, and fulfil as well as recognize the responsibilities which that position involves. ”

“ Gentlemen, the broad fields of thought lie before you all unfenced, and the golden time of youth is yours. Choose your plot of ground with nice discrimination, let its tillage be within the compass of your strength ”

“ He who does not earnestly exercise it, but who allows his mind to wander, as it may be led by its own incidental images or casual associations, or by the influence of external things to which he is continually exposed, endangers his highest interests both as an intellectual and moral being. ”

“ Daily is it becoming more and more apparent that the position of nations in the scale of civilization depends, mainly, upon their greater or less acquaintance with, and employment of, natural forces as aids to production, and, if this be true, then how deep must be the interest felt by all classes of society in understanding the laws and facts of Physics. ”

“ Such national industries you, as sons of India, should learn to appreciate and to cherish, for if you do not, they are little likely to remain your inheritance, or to be improved by Western taste or by Western science. ”

“ These and many other of the manufactures of this land exhibit remarkably that instinctive— let me add hereditary—artistic taste, and that artistic eye for form, ornament and bloom of colour which have gained for Indian arts the admiration of the world. ”

“ And here I may be permitted to observe that the remarkable power of memory which most native students undoubtedly possess is frequently rather a hindrance than a help to them in making the results of study their own. ”

“ Under this earnest cultivation and discipline of the mind labour itself will be transmuted to pleasure, and the symbol of the curse will become the secret of the blessing:—
"Labour is life! 'tis the still water faileth; Idleness ever despaireth, bewaileth ”

“ The philosophic Locke puts this truth forcibly thus,—"We are of the ruminating kind, and it is not enough to cram ourselves with a great load of collections; unless we chew them over again, they will not give us strength and nourishment." ”

“ If there be entirely different beginnings of speech, as philosophical inquiry is allowed to assume, and as the great philosophers of antiquity have assumed, there can be none but stray coincidences between words of a different origin. ”

“ Gentlemen, whatever may be lacking in these and other sciences of Mind to give extension and intension to the intellectual faculties, you will not fail to find in one or other of the remaining classes under which the sciences and arts are grouped. ”

“ The Statesman in Parliament, the Judge on the Bench, the Educationist, the Man of Letters, the Lawyer, the Soldier, the Sailor, the Merchant, the Manufacturer, and the Farmer have, each in his own sphere, a special interest in the momentous questions emerging from or colligated with Physical Science. ”