I do not at all forget Aristotle's saying that "life is practice and not theory;" that men are born to do and suffer, and not to dream and weave systems; that conduct and not culture is the basis of character and the source of strength; that a knowledge of Nature is of vastly more importance to our material comfort and progress than philosophy, poetry, and art. This is not to be called in question; but in this country and age it seems hardly necessary that it be emphasized, for what is the whole world insisting upon but the necessity of scientific instruction, the importance of practical education, the cultivation of the money-getting faculty and habit, and the futility of philosophy, poetry, and art? Who is there that denies the worth of what is useful? Where is there one who does not approve and encourage whatever brings increase of wealth? Are we not all ready to applaud projects which give promise of providing more abundant food, better clothing, and more healthful surrounding for the poor? Does not our national genius seem to lie altogether in the line of what is practically useful? Is it not our boast and our great achievement that we have in a single century made the wilderness of a vast continent habitable, have so ploughed and drained and planted and built that it can now easily maintain hundreds of millions in gluttonous plenty? Is not our whole social and political organization of a kind which fits us to deal with questions and affairs that concern our temporal and material welfare? What innumerable individuals among us are congressmen, legislators, supervisors, bank and school directors, presidents of boards and companies, committee-men, councilmen, heads of lodges and societies, lawyers, professors, teachers, editors, colonels, generals, judges, party-leaders, so that the sovereign people seems to have life and being only in its titled representatives! What does this universal reign of title and office mean but the practical education which responsibility gives? If from the midst of this paradise of utility, materialism, and business, a voice is raised to plead for culture, for intelligence, for beauty, for philosophy, poetry, and art, why need any one take alarm? While human nature remains what it is, can there be danger that the many will be drawn away from what appeals to the senses, to what the soul loves and yearns for? If the Almighty God does not win the multitude to the love of righteousness and wisdom, how shall the words of man prevail?