The English
lake country had given him this happy inheritance, with everywhere
its sound of running water and its wealth of greenery. There is
a close connection between the marvellous unbroken line of English
song, and the passionate love of the Englishman for a home in the
midst of birds, trees, and green fields.
"The world is so full of a number of things,
That I think we should all be as happy as kings,"
is the opinion of everybody who knows nature as did Robert Louis
Stevenson. And so our college student may begin to know it. Let
her enter the laboratories and investigate for herself. Let her
make her delicate experiments with the blowpipe or the balance;
let her track mysterious life from one hiding-place to another;
let her "name all the birds without a gun," and make intimates
of flower and fish and butterfly--and she is dull indeed if breezy
tastes do not follow her through life, and forbid any of her days
to be empty of intelligent enjoyment. "Keep your years beautiful;
make your own atmosphere," was the parting advice of my college
president, himself a living illustration of what he said.
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