How often has one seen boys who are immodest, idle,
frivolous, mean-spirited, and ungenerous attain to the opposite
virtues? Not often, I confess. Who does not know of abundant
instances of boys who have been selfish, worthless, grasping,
unprincipled, who have yet achieved success intellectually and
athletically, and have also done well for themselves, amassed
money, and obtained positions for themselves in after life. Looking
back on my own school days, I cannot honestly say that the prizes
of life have fallen to the pure-minded, affectionate, high-
principled boys. The boys I remember who have achieved conspicuous
success in the world have been hard-hearted, prudent, honourable
characters with a certain superficial bonhomie, who by a natural
instinct did the things that paid. Stripped of its rhetoric, the
Bishop's address resolved itself into a panegyric of success, and
the morality of it was that if you could not achieve intellectual
and athletic prominence, you might get a certain degree of credit
by unostentatious virtue.
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