homely, to express the strongest quality in the make-up of the Admiral. He knows that the use of common sense in all acts is the greatest influence for success, and he never fails to employ the good stock of it he possesses. After all, in life, that is what a man needs more to meet every emergency than any · thing else. COMMON SENSE. OMMON sense is the most uncommon kind of sense," said Dr. Emmons; and a truer remark was never made. It is the kind of sense for which we have the most use; and, therefore, it ought to be more common than it is. But the schools cannot furnish it. Teachers cannot teach it. Pupils must possess it in the natural way, by birthright, or cultivate it by sharp observation. It is what some writers call "tact," or is closely related to it. It is told of four men who met in Australia, that three of them were college graduates who worked on a sheep farm for the fourth, who was too ignorant to read and write, or to keep accounts. One of the three employees had taken a degree at Oxford, another at Cambridge, and the third at a German university; and here they were, at last, on a sheep farm! College educated to take care of brutes! Evidently they had missed the mark. Educated to be leaders of thought, they became drivers of sheep. They had failed in every undertaking for want of common sense, and finally became the servants of a man who knew as little about school as they did about the common affairs of life. But the ranchman had a practical turn of mind, and had become wealthy by his business. Without an education, he had accomplished more by his common sense than his employees had, though drilled in the curriculum of famous universities. The fact shows "that education does not create common sense. It was a born quality in the ranchman, but left out of the students' make-up, and the best university could not supply the deficiency. Culture against ignorance, the college against the ranch; and the ranch beat every time; not because the ranchman knew more, nor because he knew less, but because of the practical use he made of what he did know. It is no argument against the highest education, but it is an argument for the culti vation of common sense. All the knowledge in the world is of little use to him who does not know how to use it. A professor of mathematics in a New England college was called a "bookworm." Books were all he knew. His knowledge of common things was very limited indeed. One day, as he was going out, his wife asked him to call at the store and get some coffee. Before returning he called for the coffee. "How much will you have?" inquired the merchant. The inquiry was unexpected by the professor, and related to a practical matter about which he knew nothing, so he answered, after a little, "Well, I declare; my wife did not say, but I think a bushel will be enough." The fact does not discount mathematics, but it does plead eloquently for acquaintance with common things. Dr. Emmons, who made the wise remark quoted at the beginning of this paper, had very little knowledge of the common affairs of life. He did not know how to harness or unharness a horse. He was never known to attempt to harness one; but, on one occasion, in peculiar circumstances, he did unharness the faithful old family horse, but in doing so took the harness entirely to pieces, unbuckling every strap, so that it took his hired man some time to put it together again. The hired man said, "That horse was too much unharnessed." How can we account for such lack of common sense? The author could scarcely credit a fact like the foregoing had he not seen it with his own eyes. How can it be explained? In this case, another incident will answer. We were getting the doctor's best hay into the barn. There were three loads of it. On reaching the barn with the second load, the hired man observed a shower coming up very rapidly, and he said to the doctor, who was near by, "The other load will get wet unless the boy has some one to help him take it away." The doctor took the hint, but answered promptly, "Making hay is your business, and making sermons mine." He went to his study, and the hay got wet. Here was singleness of purpose with a vengeance. Dr. Emmons did not believe in knowing how to do but one thing, so he gave common sense no show at all. Such examples illustrate the importance of becoming familiar with common things, and the process of doing so. cultivates common sense. In this way men become practical. They learn, thereby, not only what to do, but how to do it; and the former is of little value without the latter. The schools give learning, but experience in the daily business of life gives wisdom, and wisdom is better than learning. Abraham Lincoln's hard experience in the backwoods, and his struggles to enter the legal profession, were of more value to him than a college diploma. These qualified him to conquer secession, and steer the ship of state through the roughest political waters ever sailed over. A well-trained mind, rather than learning, makes a great statesman, and his was well trained by the stern necessities and experiences of early life Gibbon says, “Every person has two educations,— one he receives from others, and the other he gives to himself." Doctor Emmons had only one, that he received "from others," -the college. Lincoln had only one, that which he gave to himself in the practical things of life. Both might have accomplished more by the two educations combined. General Grant was a "matter-of-fact man"- that is, a man of sound common sense. General Sherman recognized this dominating quality in him when he wrote that famous letter that contained these words: "My only point of doubt was in your knowledge of grand strategy, and in books of science and history; but I confess your common sense seems to have supplied all these." Common sense did more for Grant and the country than whole libraries of military science and tactics. It studied "details." In like manner, the wisdom of Napoleon and Wellington compassed the smallest matters," shoes, camp-kettles, biscuit, horse-fodder, and the exact speed at which bullocks were to be driven." Common sense adapts men to circumstances, and makes them equal to the occasion. Without it, they "may say even their prayers out of time," and may aspire to take the second step before the first has been taken. For this need, Dean Swift nearly starved in an obscure country parish, while Stafford, his blockhead classmate with practical sense, reveled in wealth and popularity. Beethoven, the great musical composer, exposed himself to ridicule when he sent three hundred florins to the store to pay for a pair of shirts and six handkerchiefs. He lacked common sense in common affairs. When a merchant acts like a statesman, it is proof that he |