Thoroughness is all right to talk about, but there is nothing
that has been thoroughly done in this world, and it will be a
good many years before anything will be thoroughly done. Talk
about absolute thoroughness! It is nonsense! We may attain unto
it as we attain unto perfection, but we might as well attempt to
shoot the moon as to reach thoroughness or perfection in this
world. Is there a single college graduate who knows thoroughly
anything that he had studied in his college course? Take Latin,
which the average college student studies seven solid years.
What does he know when he gets through? Can he talk it? Can he
even read an author which he has never before seen, with any
degree of fluency and acceptability? Then take mathematics.
How many students are thorough in it? We venture that the
roll-call of college graduates who could be counted thorough in
mathematics would be called in an extremely short space of time.
Our ideals should be high. This is all right. We should aim at
never doing anything in a half-way manner. But the tasks half
done, the studies half learned, the books half read, and the
work half accomplished constitute by far the largest portion of
our lives.--_School Journal._
(3232)