Page:Logic Taught by Love.djvu/104

100 old. Original work is healthful exercise for the young; but the work of preparing one's own work for a public wears out the immature brain. Juvenile Genius is impatient, and clothes its own impatience in a disguise of devotion to Truth; but it would be better if that devotion took the healthy and unexhausting form of studying how to complete and preserve the work of predecessors. The consequence of impatience to be original is that the work of genius is done without experience; and that those who have genius comparatively seldom live to gain experience. There are, however, always a few who, though aware of their own original power, are willing to bide their time; and, few though they may be, natural selection always puts the balance of influence into their hands at last. But the feverish and impatient who rush forward to early success despise them for wasting time. And, unfortunately, many of the so-called reforms of modern education are taking the direction of encouraging young persons to expend their mental energy on original investigation, and discouraging reverent attention to the imperfect work of predecessors and teachers, the completing of which would be excellent preparation for more entirely original investigations. " Honour thy predecessors, that thy days may be long in the land," is the true secret of intellectual vigour. It would seem that, in the Eastern Schools of Prophecy, the younger Prophets were employed as messengers and interpreters between their elders and the outside world. This is excellent preparation for becoming, later on, Interpreters of the Unknown Truth to Mankind. The true pulsation of the intellectual life of an individual would appear to be, to utilize