In these days of elaborate education in all lines, the fact has been forgotten that the mental faculty called 'judgment' is one that is inherent and congenital, and can neither be induced nor improved by education. Of the many thousands that annually graduate from the world's collegiate and technical institutions but a minute fraction are ever heard of again, while of the men who attain celebrity as capables in all lines, more than 90 per cent, statistically, have never had an education in their youth in anything but the fundamentals, but have attained success because of the possession of an inherent capability in their line and because they were gifted from birth by that invaluable quality we call 'judgment.' This is not an argument against education but against an unwarranted dependence upon it. The world is beginning to find out that not only poets but all kinds of notables are born and not made.-MINING REPORTER.

The Education of a Man of

Business

THE essential qualities for a man of business are of a

moral nature; these are to be cultivated first. He must learn betimes to love truth. That same love of truth will be found a potent charm to bear him safely through the world's entanglements-I mean safely in the most worldly sense. Besides, the love of truth not only makes a man act with more simplicity, and therefore with less chance of error; but it conduces to the highest intellectual development. The following passage in The Statesman gives the reason: 'The correspondence of wisdom and goodness are manifold; and that they will accompany each other is to be inferred, not only because men's wisdom makes them good, but also because their goodness makes them wise. Questions of right and wrong are a perpetual exercise of the faculties of those who are solicitious as to the right and wrong of what they do and see; and a deep interest of the heart in these questions carries with it a deeper cultivation of the understanding than can be easily effected by any other excitement to intellectual activity.'

What has just been said of the love of truth applies also to other moral qualities. Thus, charity enlightens the understanding quite as much as it purifies the heart. And indeed knowledge is not more girt about with power than goodness is with wisdom.

The next thing in the training of one who is to become a man of business will be for him to form principles; for without these, when thrown on the sea of action, he will be without rudder and compass. They are the best results of study. Whether it is history, or political economy, or ethics, that he is studying, these principles are to be the reward of his labour. A principle resembles a law in the physical world; though it can seldom have the same certainty, as the facts which it has to explain and embrace do not admit of being weighed or numbered with the same exactness as material things. The principles which our student adopts at first may be unsound, may be insufficient, but he must not neglect to form some; and must only nourish a love of truth that will not allow him to hold to any, the moment that he finds them to be erroneous.

Much depends upon the temperament of a man of business. It should be hopeful, that it may bear him up against the faintheartedness, the folly, the falsehood, and the numberless discouragements which even a prosperous man will have to endure. It should also be calm; for else he may be driven wild by any great pressure of business, and lose his time, and his head, in rushing from one unfinished thing, to begin something else. Now this wished-for conjunction of the calm and the hopeful is very rare.

It is, however, in every man's power to study well his own temperament, and to provide against the defects in it.

A habit of thinking for himself is one which may be acquired by the solitary student. But the habit of de

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ciding for himself, so indispensable to a man of business, is not to be gained by study. Decision is a thing that cannot be fully exercised until it is actually wanted. You cannot play at deciding. You must have realities to deal with.

It is true that the formation of principles, which has been spoken of before, requires decision; but it is of that kind which depends upon deliberate judgement: whereas, the decision which is wanted in the world's business must ever be within call, and does not judge so much as it foresees and chooses. This kind of decision is to be found in those who have been thrown early on their own resources, or who have been brought up in great freedom.

It would be difficult to lay down any course of study, not technical, that would be peculiarly fitted to form a man of business. He should be brought up in the habit of reasoning closely and to insure this, there is hardly anything better for him than the study of geometry.

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In any course of study to be laid down for him, something like universality should be aimed at, which not only makes the mind agile, but gives variety of information. Such a system will make him acquainted with many modes of thought, with various classes of facts, and will enable him to understand men better.

There will be a time in his youth which may, perhaps, be well spent in those studies which are of a metaphysical nature. In the investigation of some of the great questions of philosophy, a breadth and tone may be given to a man's mode of thinking, which will afterwards be of signal use to him in the business of everyday life.