Though I have used the term “map of life,” map is hardly a happy analogy. For maps presuppose that a land is become known and familiar. And life cannot be foreknown and charted, if life it is to be, as every life ought to be, a great adventure into the unknown rather than the acceptance of a programme, a hazard of the spirit rather than a body of prescriptions and ordinances. We are to fare forth upon the seas of life,—without chart. But some of us attempt to sail the sea rudderless, helmless, starless. Men and women embark upon life without ever having given thought to the storms that beset, to the rocks that threaten, to the unknown perils that may lie before. And then it is wondered why many fail to make port, why the ships of life frequently founder upon the high seas. The wonder ought rather to be that so many enter triumphantly into the harbors of eternity, seeing how rarely men map out life in advance, seeing how grudging is the time spent upon preparation, seeing how seldom men diligently and consciously prepare to meet those difficulties and burdens and problems which adequate preparedness for life alone can fit the soul to face. Let not life be mapped out so definitely for you, so accurately and systematically that no room will be left for the play of your own will and the determinations of your own spirit. I would almost rather have every map of life flung away than have life so mapped out as to leave youth no freedom of choice, as to fail to spur men on to face the great adventure, to be capable of daring to front whatsoever life may offer. Not very long ago, I inquired of friends, whose little lad is a pupil of one of the so-called best schools in the land, when they had applied for his admittance, and they answered, “Before he was born.” It occurred to me to inquire what dire thing would have happened in the event of the lad having proved upon birth to be a little lass, but the comforting assurance was at once given me that such contingency, not to say calamity, had been guarded against, in a sense, through applying for admittance to a girls’ school in the event of the lad being born a lass. It seemed to me then as it does now an admirable thing to make such comprehensive provision for a child’s education as to gain for it in advance of birth admittance into two schools, irrespective of sex.