"The heights by great men reached and kept"
must keep their faculties burnished by constant use, so that they will
unlock the doors of knowledge, the gates that guard the entrances to
the professions, to science, art, literature, agriculture,--every
department of human endeavor.
Industry keeps bright the key that opens the treasury of achievement.
If Hugh Miller, after toiling all day in a quarry, had devoted his
evenings to rest and recreation, he would never have become a famous
geologist. The celebrated mathematician, Edmund Stone, would never have
published a mathematical dictionary, never have found the key to the
science of mathematics, if he had given his spare moments, snatched
from the duties of a gardener, to idleness. Had the little Scotch lad,
Ferguson, allowed the busy brain to go to sleep while he tended sheep
on the hillside, instead of calculating the position of the stars by
the help of a string of beads, he would never have become a famous
astronomer.
"Labor vanquishes all,"--not in constant, spasmodic, or ill-directed
labor, but faithful, unremitting, daily effort toward a well-directed
purpose. Just as truly as eternal vigilance is the price of liberty, so
is eternal industry the price of noble and enduring success.
"Seize, then, the minutes as they pass;
The woof of life is thought!
Warm up the colors; let them glow
With fire of fancy fraught."