IRRESOLUTION.
Of students who begin a term with high aims how many year after year fail to fulfil them, not from want of ability or opportunity, but from want of resolution ! The poet Cowper was once consulted by his friend, Mr Unwin, about gome man's character. " All I kuow," he wrote, "about him is, that I saw him once clasp his hands upon a rail, meaning to leap over it; but he did not think the attempt a safe one, and so took tbem off again." This story typifies the career of not a few who promised something better. Let me counsel you to keep your hand upon the rail even if you fail to clear it at the first leap, or, at all events, only to remove it in order to try a humbler height. You are often exhorted to aim high that you may secure a lower mark " Who aimeth at the sky Shoots higher much than he that means a tree."
But I am not sure that it is not wiser to select for the immediate mark, however ambitious your ultimate hopes ma/ be, something fairly within your power, and pertinaciously to strive uutil you hit it.— Essays and Addresses, by Professors of Owen's College.
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Bibliographic details
Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 1516, 22 January 1886, Page 3
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208IRRESOLUTION. Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 1516, 22 January 1886, Page 3
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