The shrewd remarks of boy naturalists and girl satirists often almost confirm the opinion of Goethe that every child has the innate gifts of genius, and that subsequent differences are only the result of more or less propitious educational influences. And in spite of most discouraging circumstances, the love of knowledge sometimes revives in after years with the energy almost of a passionate instinct. On the veranda of a new hotel in a railroad town of southern Texas, I once noticed the expression of rapt interest on the face of a young hunter, a lad of eighteen or nineteen, who here for the first time came in contact with the representatives of a higher civilization and with breathless attention drank in the conversation of two far-traveled strangers. “If they would hire me for a dog-robber (a low menial), I would do it for a dime a day,” he muttered, “just for the chance to hear them talk.” “But if they should take you to some smoky, crowded, big city?” “I don’t care,” said he, with an oath, “I would let them lock me up in a jail, if I could get an education like theirs.” It would, indeed, be a mistake to suppose that the thirst for mental development is the exclusive product of advanced culture. In the thinly settled highlands of our western territories, miners and herders have been known to travel ten miles a day over rough mountain roads to get the rudiments of a school education. Missionaries who have mastered the language of a barbarous tribe have more than once been followed by converts whom the charm of general knowledge (far more than any special theological motive) impelled to forsake the home of their fathers and follow the white stranger to the land of his omniscient countrymen. B.—REWARDS OF CONFORMITY. Knowledge is power, even in the contests of brutes. Superior topographical knowledge enables the chasing wolf to intercept the flight of his game; a well-chosen ambush makes the tiger the master of his would-be slayer. Familiarity with the habits of enemies and rivals decides success in the struggle for existence.