The Great Public School.
The world is a great public school, arid it soon teaches a new pupil his proper place. If he has the attributes that belong to a leader he will be installed in the position of a leader : if not, whatever his own opinion of his abilities may be, he will be compelled to fall in with the rank and file. If not destined to greatness, the next best thing to which he can aspire is respectability; bat tio man can either be truly great or truly respectable who is vain, pompous and overbearing. By the time the novice has found his legitimate social positiou, be the same high or low, the probability is that the disagreeable traits of his character will be softened down or worn away. Most likely the process of abrasion will be rough-per-haps very rough ; but when it is all over and he begins to see himself as others see him, and not as reflected in the mirror of self-conceit, he will be thankful that he has run the gauntlet and arrived, though by a rough road, at self-knowledge. Upon the whole, whatever loving mothers may think to the contrary, it is a good thing for youths to be knocked about in the world-it makes men of them.
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Bibliographic details
New Zealand Mail, Issue 813, 30 September 1887, Page 5
Word Count
215The Great Public School. New Zealand Mail, Issue 813, 30 September 1887, Page 5
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