And yet, for my part, I am convinced that this is a fatally one-sided view of things. Is there in existence one great work of any sort which owes nothing to the historic guild which does that sort of work? Is there one great man in history who gave to the future without getting anything from the past? The bare scientific fact is that no man escapes the tuition of society. The crank does not escape. The freak does not escape. They miss the highest traditions of society only to become victims of lower traditions. Whether such a man have genius or the illusion of genius, it is his tragic fate to have the best that he can do lie far below the best that society already possesses. If one will see what genius without adequate instruction comes to, let him look at the case of the mathematical prodigy, Arthur Griffith. There is what no one would refuse to call genius. There is originality, spontaneity, insatiable interest, unceasing labor. And the result? A marvelous skill for which society has almost no use, and a knowledge of the science of arithmetic which is two hundred years behind that of the high school graduate. III But now that we have told off these three classes who will not learn what society has to teach, we have happily left most of mankind; certainly, I trust, most of you who have submitted to the instruction of society thus far. And it is you who are willing to work and eager for the best instruction that society can give, whom the question of occupations especially concerns. And here I beg to have you discriminate between the work to which one gives his attention and the great swarm of activities physical and mental which are always going on in the background. A boy who is driving nails into a fence has for the immediate task of his eyes and hands the hitting of a certain nail on the head. Meanwhile, the rest of the boy's body and soul may be full of rebellion and longing to be done with the fence on any terms and away at the fishing. Or instead of that the whole boy may be full of pride in what he has done and of resolution to drive the last nail as true as the first. Which of these two things is the more important--the task in the foreground or the disposition in the background--I do not know. They cannot be separated. They are both present in every waking hour, weaving together the threads of fate. A man's life is not wholly fortunate unless all that is within him rises gladly to join in the work that he has to do.