him free. He had no flatterers to pervert his mind and his heart. His Counselors in the Realms of Gold were always sincere, always at their best, and always the chosen of the earth. They never obtruded their attentions upon him; and yet they were his constant companions, wherever he was. They delighted him at home, wrought him no ill anywhere, stayed with him through the watches of the night, multiplied the joys of his good fortune, and in adversity afforded him a refuge and a solace. Because of them his courage was higher, his religion deeper, his sympathy broader, his vision clearer, his action more sane, his self-control greater.

Thus it was that he lived life ever and ever more abundantly. He was possessed of real royalty, and of real riches. You would not rightly call rich him who possesses many things; more rightly he lays claim to the title of the rich who knows how to make wise use of the gifts of the gods, who knows how to endure poverty, who fears dishonor worse than death, who is not

afraid to die for his dear friends or for his country. Every person he met, every lecture he heard, every book he read, every painting, statue, or edifice he saw, every scene he looked on, every emotion he felt was more vivid to him because of the Realms of Gold. He had found wisdom there, and got understanding. His eyes saw, his ears heard, his spirit apprehended an infinity of things not visible nor audible nor sensible. His low-vaulted past had gradually grown into a dome more vast, wherein the glories of the world of art were displayed for his profit and his delight, and where the voices of time were echoing and re-echoing in grand diapason.

Happy destiny! The Professor's duties were ministers to his profit and to his pleasure; he best served his own ends in serving the ends of others. He looked forward with pleasant anticipation: he was to continue in the delights of possession and acquisition. All the days of his years he was to travel on, seeing the

cities and learning the minds of men, increasing in understanding of men and things,

Till old experience did attain

To something like prophetic strain.

And, greatest of all, he was to continue in the delight of showing his realms to others, and in the blessedness of helping them also to possess. That was his exceeding rich reward.

He was a beneficent Monarch. He dispensed no favors of the ordinary kind. He had no minor posts to bestow, no little tridents and sapphire crowns to confer. These would have seemed to him but petty rewards. He had nothing but Thrones to offer. He created nothing but Monarchs, and there was no limit to the number of his Crowns.

CHAPTER VIII

THE PROFESSOR LAUGHS AT

EDUCATION

THE Professor's heart was inditing a good matter. Go to, he said to himself, I will speak of the things which I have thought touching education: my tongue is the pen of a ready writer.

But Himself rose in objection: what right have you to speak touching education? You are not a specialist in education: you haven't written a history of pedagogy, or books on adolescence. You haven't edited an educational journal. You are not an institute conductor, or an inspector, or a superintendent. You aren't even a professor of education. You are only an old fogy professor of classical literature. Who's going to listen to you?

Yes, you are right, replied the Professor. I

am not a professor of education, nor any other of the functionaries you mention. Worse than that, I have never had a course in normal school, I haven't published suggestions regarding the enrichment of the curriculum or the correlation of primary education with practical experience, nor subscribed to the spelling reform, nor written textbooks, nor proposed a single revolutionary or sensational plan, nor done any of the things which make men known and adored in educational circles, and get them called to positions of greater usefulness and higher salaries. I am only a professor of classical literature, and an old fogy one at that. I don't suppose anyone will listen to me; but I am going to talk, if my words are wasted on desert air.

And besides, your implication isn't justifiable. I may not be the kind of specialist you have in mind, but I maintain that I am a specialist in education, nevertheless. I've studied it, and practised it, and lived it-handled the real thing-for years and years, and I know what it is and