Thy noonday twilight cool and dim,
For this dull round of use and care,
Of need and toil and sultry glare!

But, as I walked, a better mind
Began the parable to find.

For men must live and good is wheat;
We all may dream, but all must eat.
I wonder if the gods ordain,
That, just as rainbow and the rain,
That beauty and the use combine,
So dreams and strength shall intertwine.
The visions that our boyhood led,
Dissolve upon the hills of youth,
To feed some secret fountain head,
That bursts in man to strength and truth.
Here, age on age, the mighty wood
Drank deep the sun's exhaustless flood;
Then dropped its million flaming leaves.
The dull, cold earth below receives
The kindling bath of lambent fire,
Aerial gold and warm desire,

And stores the general wealth and heat,

To burst at last in golden wheat.

Oh, friends, take home the parable,

Oh, tell it to thyself, my soul!
Let friend to friend repeat and tell

It to the child and boy; and toll

It like a mighty bell in street
And crowded mart and dark retreat

Of grimy labor's toiling host;

And breathe it like the Holy Ghost

On hearts of pain and loss and shame;
The soul ne'er dreamed a dream; no flame
Of pure desire dropped from the boughs
Of heaven; no secret hints that rouse

The wondering spirit to the call

Of deep on deep of mystery;
No trumpet shout of prophecy;
No swarming, meteoric fall

Of blinding truths and errant stars
Adown the somber inner night;
No sudden breaking of delight
Out of the frozen earth; no bars
Of ignorance burst at one bound
Of the uprising soul; no lust
Hurled by one wrathful blow to dust;
No grace up-sprung from common ground;

No subtle hint or cleansing thought
Shot from a flower's eye to thine;
No secret by the pine tree taught;

No challenge dashed with white sea brine;
Not one; or any of their kind,

This fugitive God's-host, who find

The soul alone, and make their swift

Impress and cast their lighting spell;

Then, fleeter than an echo, drift

Away to silence; none can tell

Their mystic coming or their going;

The devious trail of the winds blowing;

Not one is lost; not one forgot;

Nor life nor time shall ever blot

Their record; seed invisible,
Cast by the mighty hand that sows
The stars; the leaves invincible
Of that eternal tree whose leaves
Are for the healing of the woes
Of time. The waiting soul receives
The pentecostal gift of dreams
And stores the spirit's vital beams
Against the burden and the heat;
Against the flowing fields of wheat;
And the dull round of use and care;
The naked skies, the sultry glare.

Oh, mother, on your sacred hill,
My heart dilates, my eyes o'er fill
With grateful tears, that here I can
Record my vows as boy and man.
Forth marched your boy, armed cap-a-pie
With dreams and faith and chivalry
To thought and truth and grace and art;
And that high fealty of heart

To God and Christ which holds, as holds
The great down sweeping law that folds
The earth in its almighty arms
Ask you, with mother love, what harms
Befell your boy, so armed and sent
Against the world? Dost ask what rent,
What seams this mail celestial bears?
What hidden scars the fighter wears?

How stood thy shield aerial?

How smote thy spear Ithuriel?

Behold me, whole, as on the day

With song and shout I marched away,
The fight has been full long and sore,
Wiser am I in the dread lore

Of war; that craft of soul, that still,
Hard patience in the endless drill;
That dumb resolve; the slow retreat;
The swift attack; the rage, the heat;
The Armageddon of the world,
Whose blood-red flag is never furled;
I know it all; yet here I lay
My tribute down; and here I say,

As at a consecrated shrine,

That crown of laurel leaves of thine

Has kept my head, as brazen casque
Ne'er kept the head of knight; as masque
Of steel ne'er kept the warrior's face.
Thy silken vest of classic grace

Has kept my heart from hostile spear,

As never iron armor kept

The warrior's soul. My spirit leapt

Into the fray without a fear;

My light, ærial shield has laughed

Against the deadly flying shaft.

And when my own right arm has sent

An arrow flying home, the bent

Bow twanged with that keen wrath and scorn

As twanged Apollo's silver bow.

In every rout and hope forlorn,

I've heard the Gods their trumpet blow.

And when at night beside the spoils,

We counted o'er escapes and toils,

And weighed our gains and praised the fray,
We thanked old Homer for the day.

Oh, mother, fear not thou to send,
As forth their youthful footsteps bend,
Thy sons against a mailed world,
Armed sole with dreams and chivalry,
No blow e'er struck, no shaft e'er hurled,
Shall pierce celestial panoply.

"Behold, this dreamer comes." So saith
The word. And Inspiration's breath
Has blown his story thro' all time.
Star-gazing boy, whose visions chime
With the eternal harmony.

The sun, the moon, the stars eleven
Bend to him from the hight of heaven;
His innocence, sweet majesty,
On reapers and on harvest fell;

The conscious sheaves obey the spell,
And make, as down the gleaming field
In shining rank they meekly kneeled,

Observance to the sheaf his hand

Had cut and bound. When Egypt's land
Is split with drought and swart with blight;
The fat kine eaten by the lean;

The full ears swallowed by the thin;
Whose word the future touched with light?
Whose hand unlocked exhaustless stores;
Who banished famine from the doors
Of king and slave? Not Pharaoh's hand;
Not statesmen, courtiers, warrior band,
Not toilers delving in the soil!

Not shepherds with their pasture's spoil:
But this boy dreamer fed them all.
He holds his head to heaven and sows
The wind with viewless seeds that fall
Into the tilth of God, and goes
His way; but after him the fields
Flow like the sea in yellowing wheat.
This world's huge noise is but the beat
Of flails that thresh his harvest-yields.

So when life's boughs are all blown bare
Of dreams, and in the empty air
A sound of wail is heard; as cold,
The winds of age shall whirl away
The last fair leaf of red and gold;
My faith shall never lose its hold,
But take the hand of death, and say:
These fallen dreams are full of light
And air. They seek the darkened mold,
And for a cycle hide from sight,
To feed the roots of growing grain.

They carry secrets of the rain,

The wind, the dew, the conquering sun.

They fold the deed that shall be done.
Up, death, we must away! They come,
The reapers, singing harvest-home!

A COLLEGE EDUCATION FOR THE MAN OF BUSINESS.

THE

SUCCESSFUL PRUYN MEDAL ORATION.

HE true test of the worth of anything is its utility. Superficial observers, seeing nothing in the quiet meditation of the scholar akin to the bustling activity of the man of business, decry the practical value of a college training. But as the strength of certain natural forces can be measured by no material standard, so the value of the information, discipline and culture received in college can not be estimated in terms of finance.

Business and college represent different, but successive phases of life. The practical is but the abstract applied. The specialist builds best who rears his superstructure on a foundation of broader information and culture. College seeks to give men, not a "universal smattering," but that mastery of fundamental principles which alone enables one to understand a specialty in all its relations to other branches of knowledge. "Know something of everything:" then can you learn “everything of something."

To draw out the mental powers, rather than to store the mind with information, is the purpose of education. Yet the curriculum ranges through the whole field of knowledge, continually presenting serviceable facts. The practical value of French and German is conceded. If certain colleges fail to teach them, they nevertheless afford their graduates the means of easily acquiring them. "The mastery of Latin," says John Stuart Mill, "makes it easier to learn five of the continental languages than one without it." Familiarity with the classics is essential to a perfect acquaintance with our own mother tongue. Its germs are in these dead languages, and much of our word stock is a legacy from them. A knowledge of the sciences prepares man to enjoy the material blessings of life. Physics teaches him to apply the forces of nature. Chemistry reveals the subtle combinations of the elements, and their effect upon life. Geology tells the story of the ages, and discloses hidden mines of wealth. Every American business man is necessarily a member of two corporations-the government of the state and of the