“I confess,” said S. Augustine, “that by writing I have learned many things which nothing else had taught me.” You will recall to mind the apothegm of Bacon: “Reading makes a full man, talking a ready man, and writing an exact man.” I have no hesitation in saying that, of all means of mental culture, writing is the best, as well for extending and deepening the intellectual faculties, as for giving them justness and polish. Do I propose to you to go back to the drudgery of task compositions? Such is not my thought. I suppose you to be interested in certain subjects, of which you wish to get at least a tolerably thorough knowledge. You take the authors who have treated most exhaustively of these matters; you read them, you study them; you apply your own minds, in sustained thought, to the facts and principles which they give you. And here precisely lies the difficulty; for you will find that, when you will have acquired the power of sustained thought, you will be able to master almost any subject. Now, to get this mental habit, nothing will aid you like writing. I do not believe that any man who has never translated his thoughts into written language is able to think profoundly or correctly. Do not, however, misunderstand me. One may write negligently and thoughtlessly, as he may read with indolence and inattention. Put your hand to the pen, and begin to meditate upon the thoughts that fill your mind. Should you, for weeks and months, not write one sentence for every hour you hold the pen, do not be discouraged, and, above all, be persuaded that this time has not been lost. Think neither of style nor of the reader; give all your attention to truth and to your own soul. The style is the man. Write out the life that is within you. Keep what you have written, and after months and years, in looking back, you will perceive that you have grown steadily, increased day by day in intellectual vigor and refinement; and there will always be special worth in words written, not to please the vulgar crowd, not to propitiate a false and intolerant public opinion—written to gain neither applause nor gold, but for God and truth, and the dignity of the human soul. “There is nothing,” says Seneca, “however difficult or arduous, which the human mind cannot conquer, and assiduous meditation render familiar. Whatever the soul demands of itself it obtains.” But how are you to learn the secret of assiduous meditation, to acquire the habit of retaining difficulties in mind, to be considered and reconsidered, to be taken up at the leisure moment, and laid down as deferred but not abandoned? As the soldier takes the sword, the painter the brush, the musician his instrument, the mechanic the tools of his trade, each to perfect himself in his art, so he who wishes to learn how to think must take the pen and do honest work.