THE SCHOOL OF LIFE

Life is a school, and all that tread the earth

Are pupils in it. Its lessons all should learn,

And few there be who escape them — and they are fools.

At birth this school begins, at death it ends,

And many terms there be,— and faithful teachers

Not a few. Necessity is one;

For e'en the babe when first it feels the cool

And earthly air, and sees the light of day,

Shrinks from their touch, and cries aloud — herewith

It doth begin to learn the alphabet

Of life. Then hunger comes; and so to ease

Itself the babe doth learn to love the things

That give it life. Thus hour by hour, and day

By day it gathers knowledge at the school

But knows it not — even as wiser men,

Of knowledge full, know scarcely what they do.

And months pass by — the babe becomes a child,

Eager to learn, to imitate, to know,

Lisping the lessons of a higher grade,

Repeating words of wisdom, gems of truth

That others think the little thing should know;

Until at length in childish innocence

It leaves the kindergarten of the world,

And knocks upon the door of adult life,

And enters there, flushed with the lulling sense

Of something new. The playthings are forgot;

The little bells no longer please the ear,

The little books no longer feed the mind,

The little seats no longer suit the child,

The little friends no longer stir the soul,

For it hath learned the alphabet of life,

And put aside the primer once for all.

There is a longing now for deeper life

That fills the heart to overflow — there is

A tumult now within the swollen veins,

When, for the first, they feel a larger life

In unison close beating to its own —

There is a hatred of authority

And of restraint — a satisfaction now

As of a soul enamoured with itself,

A soul insolvent on the rising tide

Of pure existence, with such a stubborness

As mocks advice and takes a happy pace,

Securer of its own security.

And like the waters of a swollen stream,

That leaves its early channels far behind,

Youth ventures into unknown paths, full fed

By surging hopes, by sudden, deep desires,

By wild ambitions and a thousand things,

Unnamed and nameless — rivulets of life

That ever empty in this stirring stream.

Now would the student leave his school, and play

Among the hills, or in the valley's shade,—

Now would the scholar chafe at books

And knowledge and authority — rough banks

That, like a dyke, hold in life's mighty stream

Until the floods of Springtime can abate,

And in a clearer, safer channel course again.

So, with life's lessons still unlearned

Full many a scholar e'en would graduate

With highest honors, and in his pride

And surety of knowledge be a god

To give advice to those who should advise;

Forth full of wisdom would he quickly go,

And even issue take with all the world,

But when this truant-fever runs its course,

This hey-day of existence has its turn,

Back to the school the skulking scholar comes,

Like a whipped cur, and willing to be taught

By those same teachers he so lately spurn'd,

And left for larger things.

For manhood now

Is here — the errors and the follies, everyone,

By the wise student surely now are seen,

And in the book of life he reads with ready eye

The rules and lessons, and considers well

His bold instructors,— Want,— Adversity,—

And Disappointment, with her heavy hand;

The whip of Scorn, and Sorrow's bitter book,

And Sickness’ long and tedious term,

And all the various teachers of the school.

And if perchance these lessons be forgot,

These, his instructors, will rehearse him well,

Lest he forget in later life these things,

And be a dullard in the school of schools,

A freshman wise in his own foolishness.

So manhood comes — and so it surely goes,

From grade to grade and term to term,

With all the questions and perplexing rules,

And devious methods of the Master-mind,

Who holds the key to all the questionings,

Yet leaves the student to himself alone,

Half puzzled by the figures on the dial

That tell the hour when he shall graduate

Above earth's petty problems, and shall hold

A clearance to that life which is to come,

And whereunto he graduates, perchance,

A better man.

A better man — if not,

So shall he go again in that same grade

Where like a laggard half-asleep in school,

He wakes to find himself a scholar still,

With all the vexing problems yet unsolved,

Which, in his idleness and lust of life,

Were left until the morrow, and the sun

To usher in another dreamless day.

So manhood comes — and so it surely goes,

Till those who here have studied to become

Proficient in the lessons of this life,

Shall be excused from school, and left to play

By running brooks and hills that shout for joy,

And living waters wild in their delight.

So is it meet that all should labor now

To learn these lessons well, so, when the day

Of graduation comes, a Voice will say:—

Well-done; perfect in life, perfect in death;

Receive thy rich reward, for thou hast found —

Perfection is the only key to Heaven.