Every year this question which I have been pressing upon you becomes more and more important. The great colleges of the country are graduating their thousands of students, many of whom will compete with you for the high places in the mechanic arts. So are the public schools of the country sending out hundreds of thousands, many of them having the same aim. Technical schools, teaching the mechanic arts, are multiplying. Great changes have been made recently in our own city in this respect. The Spring Garden Institute is doing a noble work in this way. Our own college is moving in the same direction, and soon it will be sending out its hundreds every year to compete for places in the shops, with this great advantage, that you Girard boys have a school education――the best that you are able to receive, and you must not let any others go ahead of you. Look at the poor, ignorant people from abroad who sweep our streets――look at the stevedores who load and unload the ships――look at the men who carry the hod of mortar or bricks up the high and steep ladders――look at the drivers and the conductors on our street cars, the most hard worked people among us――and are you not sure that most of these people are _un_educated? No one wants to be at the bottom all the time. We may have been there at the first; but those who have made the most progress are generally those who have had the best education. I know that education is not a sure guarantee of success; many other things enter into the consideration of the question; but I am saying that, other things being equal, _he who knows the most will do the best_. There are, alas, many instances of the sons of the rich, who have been well educated, who have everything provided for them, who have no stimulus, no spur; who have no regular occupation, and need not have any; many of whom sink into idleness and dissipation, and their fine education goes for nothing. But you are not of this class. You will have to make your way in the world by your own exertions. I shall fail of my duty if I do not say some words about such boys as sometimes stand at the corners of the streets in large or small companies and amuse themselves by smoking and chewing tobacco, telling bad stories and making remarks upon those who pass by. I am sure much of this arises from thoughtlessness; but I wish to point out the exceeding impropriety of this behavior. I have known ladies to cross the street and, at much inconvenience, go quite out of their way rather than pass within hearing of these boys and young men. What right has any one to make the streets disagreeable to any passenger, to block up the way or make loose or rude remarks, or defile the pavement over which I walk? All this most serious waste of time is probably because no one has particularly called attention to it. The time may come when you will recall the words of advice which you hear to-day, and you may regret when it is too late that you turned a deaf ear to what was said.