Aside from the rudimentary training, it ought to take at least ten years to make a good doctor, or a good lawyer, or a good electrician, or a good preacher. Four of these years ought to be spent in college; and four in the professional school; and the other two ought to be spent in picking up a practical or working knowledge of the calling--whatever it may be. The young doctor obtains this practical knowledge in hospitals and in practice among the poor. The electrician obtains it by entering some large electrical industry or manufactory, in which a thoroughly practical knowledge of mechanical engineering and electricity can be secured. It is true that some men have become distinguished in these callings without this long preparation of which I have spoken; yet it is, also, true that they would have been better off--they would have been more likely to have become eminent--if they had taken the longer course. College is a little world which every one, other things being equal, ought to enter and pass through before launching in the great world. KEEPING ONE’S ENGAGEMENTS. What would happen if everybody should begin tomorrow to keep all his promises and fulfill all his engagements? I think it would make a new world at once. There is great need that the attention of young people should be called to the importance of keeping engagements. Much of the confusion and annoyance and trouble of this world would be done away with if people would learn to keep their promises. The oft-repeated excuse, “I forgot,” is not reasonable. If the memory is in the habit of playing tricks with you, then you ought to make notes of your engagements, write them down in some way, so that you will not forget them. Arnold of Rugby said: “Thoughtlessness is a crime,” and he was right. The great Ruskin has also uttered strong words in condemnation of thoughtlessness in youth. He said: “But what excuse can you find for willfulness of thought at the very time when every crisis of future fortune hangs on your decisions? A youth thoughtless! when the career of all his days depends on the opportunity of a moment. A youth thoughtless! when his every act is a foundation-stone of future conduct, and every imagination a fountain of life or death. Be thoughtless in any after years rather than now, though, indeed, there is only one place where a man may be nobly thoughtless--his deathbed. No thinking should ever be left to be done there.” [Illustration: KEEPING ONE’S ENGAGEMENTS.]