For good, pure ideals, a schoolboy's valedictory is usually hard to beat. Youth is full of good ideals, and the older generation smiles and confidently predicts that they will come down a notch or two by and by. All the more's the pity. Once in a while a man starts out in his youth with a noble ideal and aim which he never relinquishes through sunshine or tempest unto the end. We take off our hats to such a man as that. Many begin with true aspirations and high resolves and excellent ideals, but the pressure of circumstances is too much for them; they compromise their principles, they lower their aim. The light dies out of their hearts and out of their eyes, and a mist falls upon their vision which makes all the world and everything in it look mean. Then they smile at the hopeful youth and talk about what experience will do in a few years. God save us from such experience as that! It is every man's great task to get the right ideal and hold it fast in any case even unto the end.

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