THE BEST LESSON THE HARDEST.
SOMETIMES the things that seemed hardest for us to bear, will prove our greatest help when we become men or women. The writer, when twelve years old, wanted a dress of a certain kind. The woman who acted the part of mother to her told her she could have it if she would make it. Such a proposition staggered her, and all thought of the dress was given up. During the week she was sitting under a tree making a polonaise for her doll; she thought, "If I can make clothes for my doll that fit and look pretty, why should I not make clothes for myself?" She ran into the house at once and announced that she would make the dress if she could have the materials. They were bought, and carried to her room, and there was fought a tremendous battle. The skirt of the dress was sewed on and ripped off thirteen times before it was pronounced right. During the week the little girl cried oceans of tears, it seemed to her, and she felt that all kindness and goodness had gone out of life. Years after, when she was a woman, it became necessary for her to earn money, and the first money she earned was for making a dress for a rich, kind woman. If she had not learned to work for herself, depend on herself, she would have been helpless when necessity came. Like Miss Alcott, she says, "Good drill, but very hard."157 Men testify again and again that it is the learning to do the things that seemed hard and unnecessary that fitted them to be men in the business world. Doing drudgery is the best way to master any business, any profession. A. T. Stewart knew how to sell goods over a counter before he built up a business that supported hundreds. The founder of one of the largest publishing houses in this country learned to set type. There is an apprenticeship that must be lived and studied before there is a mastery that commands respect. Not the boy or girl who scorns this period becomes master, but the one who sees in it the stepping-stone to higher things. How you would laugh at the little child who, crying, protesting, or scorning, refused to learn how to add because he wanted to work problems in algebra! There are first steps out of school as well as in school.—Christian Union.