The present age no doubt can boast of greater progress in science and learning than can be claimed by the past generation, and yet it cannot be denied that the wish for mental superiority, and the industry necessary to attain it, is only possessed by the comparatively few, and that far too many persons are content with a kind of dead-level of existence--without ambition or desire to excel in any way. It is nevertheless true, and a fact for which we ought to be thankful, that the means for intellectual cultivation are now more than ever within the reach of all, and are eagerly taken advantage of by vast numbers; that schools of art, music, science, &c. are established in many places, and every encouragement given to study. And yet there are hundreds who voluntarily and systematically neglect every opportunity, and are content to spend their lives in ignorance and uselessness. It is curious to note the line of demarcation that always seems to exist between those who habitually waste their lives and those who endeavour to redeem the time, and are ambitious of cultivating and improving their talents to the utmost of their opportunities. The former often allude to the latter with a kind of pitying scorn, and declare that 'life would not be worth having, in their opinion, if they had to spend it in that way.' There is also a numerous class of persons who appear to consider that intellectual pursuits, and a desire to excel in them, ought to be left to those who prefer to spend their time in such (to them) laborious and uninteresting occupations, and that there is no law, human or divine, which requires them to fulfil the duties of existence in any other way than that which is recommended to them by their own frivolous inclinations. Their argument is probably one which they consider unanswerable--namely, that their parents 'got on very well without all those ideas, and why should not they.' Certainly, if living day after day in one hum-drum round of existence, without one spark of ambition, or one idea elevated above the most ordinary intelligence, can be called 'getting on,' such persons succeed admirably. Surely, however, the promptings of Nature are sufficient to prove that life is given us for some better purpose than to be spent in contented ignorance and mental inactivity, or in a hollow round of gaiety and amusement?