Proceed, John!" Quoth the Parson, good-humouredly, "I will adapt my style to the taste of my critic.

When a fellow is at the age of sixteen, and very fresh to life, the question is whether he should begin thus prematurely to exchange the ideas that belong to youth for the ideas that properly belong to middle age,--whether he should begin to acquire that knowledge of the world which middle-aged men have acquired and can teach.

I think not.

I would rather have him yet a while in the company of the poets; in the indulgence of glorious hopes and beautiful dreams, forming to himself some type of the Heroic, which he will keep before his eyes as a standard when he goes into the world as man.

There are two schools of thought for the formation of character,--the Real and the Ideal.