But the boys had
the best of it; "lassies" were not deemed worthy to touch the classics,
and the classics were everything to him. In America it is reported that
the best specimens of university students often come from remote schools
in which no external advantages have been available; but the tough
unyielding habit of study has been developed in grappling with
difficulties without much support from a teacher.
With those who are more gently brought up the problem is how to obtain
this habit of independent work, that is practically--how to get the will
to act. There is drudgery to be gone through, however it may be
disguised, and as a permanent acquisition the power of going through it
is one of the most lasting educational results that can be looked for.
Drudgery is labour with toil and fatigue. It is the long penitential
exercise of the whole human race, not limited to one class or
occupation, but accompanying every work of man from the lowest
mechanical factory hand or domestic "drudge" up to the Sovereign
Pontiff, who has to spend so many hours in merely receiving,
encouraging, blessing, and dismissing the unending processions of his
people as they pass before him, imparting to them graces of which he can
never see the fruit, and then returning to longer hours of listening to
complaints and hearing of troubles which often admit of no remedy: truly
a life of labour with toil and fatigue, in comparison with which most
lives are easy, though each has to bear in its measure the same stamp.
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