"The discourse of the new Lord Rector squared very well with the
occasion. There was no novelty in it. New truths are not the gifts
which the old offer the young; the lesson we learn last is but the
fulness of the meaning of what was only partially apprehended at
first. Mr. Carlyle brought out things familiar enough to everyone who
has read his works; there were the old platitudes and the old truths,
and, it must be owned, mingled here and there with them the old
errors. Time has, however, its recompenses, and if the freshness of
youth seemed to be wanting in the address of the Rector, so also was
its crudity. There was a singular mellowness in Mr. Carlyle's speech,
which was reflected in the homely language in which it was couched.
The chief lessons he had to enforce were to avoid cram, and to be
painstaking, diligent, and patient in the acquisition of knowledge.
Students are not to try to make themselves acquainted with the
outsides of as many things as possible, and 'to go flourishing about'
upon the strength of their acquisitions, but to count a thing as known
only when it is stamped on their mind.
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