For study, be it remembered, is not dreaming awake, though we sit through the live-long day, in the student's posture, with our eyes fixed upon a book. It, is not much preparation and bustle about the means of knowledge. It is the grappling of the entire mind with a subject, as if for life, until it yields the blessing we seek. It is an effort, compared with which, the hardest toil of the day-laborer is play and pastime. And this, we need not say, is self-work.
None can do it for another.
None can carry us up the hill of learning. All this, thus stated, is very plain, and will be readily admitted. And yet there is nothing, in point of fact, more frequently forgotten. There is a vague notion, as has been justly remarked, widely prevalent, that schools and ampler seminaries are able, by a power inherent in themselves, to fill the mind with learning, or that it is to be received inertly, like the influences of the atmosphere, by a mere residence at the place of instruction. Put this is a sad mistake.