“‘Let me discourse on a theme I understand,’ said the President. ‘I know all about trees in light of being a backwoodsman. I’ll show you the difference between spruce, pine, and cedar, and this shred of green, which is neither one nor the other, but a kind of illegitimate cypress.’ He then proceeded to gather specimens of each, and explain the distinctive formation of foliage belonging to every species. ‘Trees,’ he said, ‘are as deceptive in their likeness to one another as are certain classes of men, amongst whom none but a physiognomist’s eye can detect dissimilar moral features until events have developed them. Do you know it would be a good thing if in all the schools proposed and carried out by the improvement of modern thinkers, we could have a school of events?’ “‘A school of events?’ repeated the lady he addressed. “‘Yes,’ he continued, ‘since it is only by that active development that character and ability can be tested. Understand me, I now mean men, not trees; _they_ can be tried, and an analysis of their strength obtained less expensive to life and human interests than man’s. What I say now is a mere whimsey, you know; but when I speak of a school of events, I mean one in which, before entering real life, students might pass through the mimic vicissitudes and situations that are necessary to bring out their powers and mark the calibre to which they are assigned. Thus, one could select from the graduates an invincible soldier, equal to any position, with no such word as fail; a martyr to Right, ready to give up life in the cause; a politician too cunning to be outwitted; and so on. These things have all to be tried, and their sometime failure creates confusion as well as disappointment. There is no more dangerous or expensive analysis than that which consists of trying a man.’ “‘Do you think all men are tried?’ was asked. “‘Scarcely,’ said Mr. Lincoln, ‘or so many would not fit their place so badly. Your friend, Mr. Beecher, being an eloquent man, explains this well in his quaint illustration of people out of their sphere,--the clerical faces he has met with in gay, rollicking life, and the natural wits and good brains that have by a freak dropped into ascetic robes.’ “‘Some men seem able to do what they wish in any position, being equal to them all,’ said some one. “‘Versatility,’ replied the President, ‘is an injurious possession, since it never can be greatness. It misleads you in your calculations from its very agreeability, and it inevitably disappoints you in any great trust from its want of depth. A versatile man, to be safe from execration, should never soar; mediocrity is sure of detection.’