THE BATTALION.
7
I believe it is Mark Twain who tells us of a man who
had worn out two or tnree consciences and was then using a
thread hare one; what of the man who has come here to get
a character or to hide one that is from ill usage already
threadbare? Plainly, this will be no place for him. Why,
the gray uniform in which he expects to disguise himself,
if he stays here long enough to put it on. will be the very
means to make him known.
But, the studies—the mathematics, the chemistry, the
languages, the mechanics, the agricultural topics and applied
science—now are these to he effectual in developing a man’s
individuality? What have they to do with character? I an
swer again. It is not what you get here that is to make you
a man, but it is the discipline of what you are already and of
what you brings here that will tell upon your wellfare now
and hereafter^ jr>o you think that the putting on of that uni
form, and the gift of a gun, and the learning to move in mili
tary procession at a given command, make soldiers of you?
No, and that is not the intention of those exercises. If they
do not reach the inner life in their efforts, so as to make you
alert in conscience, dignified in temperament, true in motive,
ready for the prosecution of honest arms brave enough to re
treat when moral ruin is ahead, you might drill in them from
now till Doomsday and not possess the first element of the
soldier. Just so, your mental capacities are the tools of
your moral character, and these studies with which you are
now to busy yourselves are the grinding, sharpening, mold
ing, strengthening processes which you apply to those tools.
You bring here with you, for example, an unformed reasoning
power. These instructions show you how to use it in labor
atory work, black-board work, mental work that has stood
the test of experience. As moral agents, fighting for right
ind contending against wrong, you will use that tool reason
hereafter at every turn of life’s pathway. So, again, we try
to harmonize your imaginations, your emotional nature your
likes and dislikes, with what is pure and true and benevo-