are all tested as to their worth. What we term education is made up of a few antecedent suggestions which we are to verify in experience; a few of the most general forms of knowledge, like the knowledge of numbers, which we are to employ in experience. The quicker we get, fairly well equipped, at work on the world itself, the more actual and substantial our knowledge will be. The failure of education, so far as it has failed, has been that it has kept the mind back too long from the very facts with which it must learn at length to deal. We arm the young soldier so carefully that we forget to teach him his manual of arms; or we suppose that this manual will be an adequate substitute for the clear eye, the active thought, the firm mind, which are developed in conflict itself. We ma hasten to the battle without arms, or we may be so long in arming that the battle may be over before we reach it. The true test of our preparation and our promptness-that which teaches us what preparation and promptness are-is the very struggle itself.

Experience, like all schools, has its defects, its difficulties. The man who has been taught by experience is very likely to be overconfident. To know how to do a thing, to be able to follow up the knowledge at once by doing it successfully, seem so certain and undeniable a power that its possessor may well enough pride himself upon it; may easily enough have a little scorn for one who, with apparently wider knowledge, hesitates and trips in its use. Experience readily begets a confidence that is closely akin to conceit.

The difficulty lies, not in the thing known, but in the fact that it is only one among many things that should be known. Knowledge won in experience is liable to be narrow. Overconfidence arising out of the clearness, and, at the same time, restrictedness of one's observation, is the danger of the man who is taught by experience only. We must broaden our thought through and with our fellow men. Our own experience must be corrected and completed by their experience. The world, therefore, in which we are all taught, in which we

turn floating impressions into knowledge which gives power, must be the human world, quite as much as the physical world. The man of business must deal with men and not with products merely; not with men in relation to products alone, but in the full range of their personal experience. This is the true world, the large world, the spiritual world, in which we are. One may fatally mistake men, touching them exclusively on the side of self-interest. He may win a shrewd, cunning form of sagacity that is very far removed from wisdom, and is by no means the truth which experience was ready to teach him. Simply because experience is so great a school, we must come to it with some greatness of mind, ready to be taught many things; and ready to review the things we have learned many times, that we may apprehend them more completely.

Looking on experience as a school, the first requisite is that we should take a liberal course in it, that the studies we pursue shall be fitted to correct, extend, and sustain each other. If we add, for instance, to the desire to obtain wealth or office or social position, the desire to attain and impart large and secure happiness, the schooling of the world will be instantly altered immensely thereby. Though the presence of the two things, we will say wealth and happiness, may in many respects concur, they will constantly modify each other; and the lessons which we should have wholly lost, or fearfully perverted, with the one notion, will be, by means of both notions, bound up in a fortunate, harmonious whole of truth. The world has many stands, and many wise men are rehearsing its varied instructions from them. If we would be well taught, we must listen to more than one speaker. The world is a broad world, and we must enter broadly into it.

We have said also that it is a world in motion; hence we can apprehend it well only as we see and share its movement. We must inquire not simply what are existing facts, but what those facts are fitted to bring forth. signally comes short of wisdom. most telling and real experience,

Here, a narrow experience Many men, sharpened by a nevertheless fail grievously

by virtue of their very successes. They have thought that the getting of something was sufficient, and have never once asked the world what would come of it when it was won.

Somehow or other, we seem to think, in a vague way, that it is faith alone that asks the question of fruits, and then gives us a remote and doubtful answer to it. Experience, observation, also ask this question, and give it a very immediate and final answer. We must study the world in motion if we would understand what is of real worth in it, what will abide in it, whither it and we are going.

We may well fellowship each other, and strengthen each other, for we are all in one school, and what we learn singly will be as nothing compared with the success of our common effort to render the world as a school of human life in terms of reason. A wide, penetrative, far-reaching outlook over the world is the labor, joy, and crown of our lives.

"Fie upon it, that experience should be so long in coming!"

Requisites for a Business Education.

HOMER MERRIAM, Springfield, Mass.

Pres. G. & C. Merriam Co., Publishers Webster's International Dictionary.

I

WOULD recommend at least a good common school education backed by good deportment and strict integrity. Then select a business with reference to natural fitness and preferences, not taking into account present wages so much as the probabilities of the future, whether it is a business that means only day wages all one's life or whether there will be opportunity for growth and expansion.

To bring out all there is in a man, he needs the planning, the thought, the mental training, involved in conducting a business for one's self. There are advantages in a college education if properly utilized; too often, however, the college graduate has not learned that close application of ten hours a day or more is needful to success, and he is not as a rule quite flexible enough to fall readily into full sympathy with beginning at the bottom and thoroughly learning the details from the foundation. After over fifty years of business experience and close observation, I think that as a rule, for education for business, the four years spent in college could be more profitably applied in mastering the details of come business.

Before selecting a business or securing a position, take a careful inventory of the moral surroundings, business integrity, and general character of employers and those in authority. These factors are essential to mental and moral growth, and also essential to true success in business.

If a desirable opening does not present itself, endeavor to secure a situation more or less akin to your choice, constantly watching for an opportunity for improvement. Thus employed,

habits of application are formed and all that is learned will be more or less useful all through life.

A business selected and a place secured, then strictly begins the business education. It is generally best to take one of the lowest places in the establishment, giving mind and hand earnestly to the learning and doing the duties involved; doing all that is required and more if opportunity affords. While doing this, watch the places that are above you in the business, and learn all you can of the duties of such positions without neglecting your own, so that you may be ready to step up higher when opportunity offers. Then, when one above you is laid aside by sickness or otherwise, the employer will be much pleased if he finds that you are qualified to step into the place, and well perform the duties of the higher position. If you will follow this line, keeping to one kind of business, keeping your breath free from strong drink and tobacco, keeping your mind and body pure, you will be well educated for business, and will be likely to become a prosperous and successful business man.

Many years ago a publisher in New York having established a profitable business, not having firm health, wanted a partner as a worker. Among his customers was a young man in a comparatively small business in western New York, a diligent worker, with moral, religious, and business character all correct. For these, he was invited to become a partner with the New York publisher. The business grew until another partner was needed. A young man in a comparatively small business, selected for same reasons as the first, became a partner. The senior member of the firm died, and another partner was wanted. Some years before this, a firm in a small western city had failed and gone out of sight. Some of the creditors of that firm were now surprised at receiving from its junior partner an inquiry whether they would release him from the old obligations, on his paying ten per cent. of the same, saying that he had no means for paying, but had friends who would advance the ten per cent. if he could be released. The proposition was accepted and he at once became a member of the New York