The man of independent mind and strong personality is never trivial or vulgar, no matter what his education or social position. The artist who plays solo commands our attention. The plant which is indigenous is alone strong and hardy; exotics are starvelings. Individuality is contagious, and it is bracing and stimulating to meet such a character. His presence is a benefit to a whole company, and a company of such is worth a regiment of nonentities. The richest agricultural community I ever saw was in France, where every peasant cultivated his own little field; and the poorest was in our own country, where every man was trying to feed his cattle on somebody else’s range. The latter theory, however, is that which is popular to-day. Dreamers are constantly devising schemes by which the idle and incompetent may live off the proceeds of the diligent; labor unions deprive their members of the liberty of speech and the liberty of work; socialism would reduce all to a common level; syndicates and trusts break down individual enterprise; sectarian colleges limit their calls to professors who will echo their tenets; and thus in all directions the free growth of the individual is hemmed in by the hedges of prejudice, tradition, creed, and false theory. Many people scarcely know what Individuality is. They think it means to wear a straw hat in winter, or in some other way to make oneself conspicuous. This is precisely what it does not mean. The man who is himself is always simple and natural; he buys his hat at the hatter’s and allows the tailor to make his clothes. To act otherwise is affectation and singularity, not individuality. Simplicity is a charming characteristic of the strongest minds. It is recorded of Sir Isaac Newton that he was not distinguished from other men by any peculiarity, either natural or affected; upon which Dr. Johnson makes the excellent remark,――“Newton stood alone merely because he had left the rest of mankind behind him, not because he deviated from the beaten path.” Those who met Robert Browning for the first time were agreeably surprised to find the great poet was in ordinary society simply a gentleman. All forms of affectation are confessions that we are not what we pretend to be, and are inconsistent with true individuality. Nor is it obstinacy and self-assertiveness, as others suppose. The man who aims to be himself will wish others to remain themselves, and will be the last to obtrude his personality in a disagreeable way upon them. Obedience, voluntary subjection to the will of others, is part of his self-training. He who cannot obey, cannot command. Nor is he one who lives for himself, is solitary or selfish. The characters who in history shine with the most marked individuality have been those who moved most actively among their fellow men.