The Gavelyte, May-June 1914

2 n -IE GAYELYT£ I l. doc well in thus l'c;lpin ,:; me•a tihe n els of many thowiand males o;hcrwise unprovid ed. 1t (lo 'ti its work in the spirit of f'hrist and for the building of Christian charac ter. 'In its more th•an a hundrecl cours s, i,ts broad and g1·o wing work may roughly b divided into •wo Jin s- those features whi c:h are calcullatedi to increa!' a man's effi– ci ncy, and those which a r e intended to 1br'oaden a man'S' horizon. The la,tt r in•clud , ·ours• s iOr cullu re. I ,am glad this wo,rk is so clo!' ly r - Joated to that of Bibl e t udy, [or the·re i-s no other book comparable w1~'lh the Bi·ble a::: a m dium or broad human culture. In– deed, the man who has been throu·gh a hundred high schools or a hund1 ed unive rsities, and does not know the Bible, i not an educa ted man in the bEst sense, and nev r can 1be. 'I'here have Leen n-o r eally girea.t men in the 1h 1 istory of the An– glo-S•axon race who b•a ve not been farruiliia,r with the Biob1'e. From ChaucEr and ....,bakes 1 peare do•\\ n to Tennyson ,an'd Brolwnin,g; or from Alfred tte Grnat, down lo Vn,shington, 1Ji'ncoln and to our own Presi– dent Wil ,~n o'f the UniU.d S tates-they are all men who have known their Bibles. The Richest Man. "E<mers,on said, 'If you learn to do one thing ·better th.an •anybody els 1 e, and d·o it, the world w'. 11 make a patJh to your door, though you live in a log cabin.' That is true. But tihe 1 object of l1ivin,g is not to have the worM make a path to your door. The object of your life is to be as much of a rua.n aP you c•an, to 1have ,as large and higih and fine a mind, to be able appreciate what i<s best iru the wiorld, to 'be ruble to know a really good thing, r c,al,y fine ithirug 'When y,o u •see it, tn kruo,w tihe ditreren,ce 1 between lioterature an 1 d rpopy,oock; •betweeru s-tuff a'ILd guff. R-espectaible wcrds won',t dE.•scribe •it. To •be able to kno,w what is grand and why. ·To .have a mind tlhat ylO'u can handle as a ma;n would handle a good boat, or a good automobil1e, it.hat you •can make go, .that you can steer and direct an.d turn. To have faculties t:Jhat are •at your conitrO'l, a.nd ·to b,ave constantly flung in upon y,ou from the ·outstl'de world,, which is so •beautiful around you, and fro,m the who-le of human inter-cour::1e in •which there are so :man,y fine ,thi'll1g,s, no,twithsitanding wJm1t the peis.simi'st,s, s•a.y to the contrary, and from the wo,rlid of things, from the world of art, a.nd the wo,r1d o.f muSJic, to be able to appreci-ate the fine thin.gs 1:lbat 00,me to ·you and· 1Jo all of u s ir-re,srpe·ct ive ·of what our wealth or s1ocial pos'itio-n. may be--:this i·si , some:tilili.nog of the real meantng o,f 1 cu1ltural educaUon. I hope there will a1'wiays be many IDen an:d •boys who are takinig cou,rs1es, not meirely for the sake of the money it.hey get out of thE:m, but f·or the S'ake •of tJbie re-al rewaird they b.Mrrg in a la1'ger and fuller and r icher life-. You know what Ruskin said, 'There is no real wealth in the world but life, and the richest nation is that which has the greatest amount of life, the largest number of strong, fine, rich, well-developed human souls, and the richest man is he who has the greatest power of appreciation.' You cannot get courses of thait kind in a hurry; you cannot make on extract •of liteTature as