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1.What should one do if he wanted to attain the heights reached by great
men? Keep their faculties polished by ...
2.What did Edmund Stone publish? ...
3.How did the little Scotch lad, Ferguson calculate the position of the
stars? By ...
4.What is the price of enduring success referred in the passage? ...
The significant inscription found on an old key---“If I rest, I
rust”---would be an excellent motto for those who are afflicted with the
slightest bit of idleness. Even the most industrious person might adopt it with
advantage to serve as a reminder that, if one allows his faculties to rest, like
the iron in the unused key, they will soon show signs of rust and, ultimately,
cannot do the work required of them.
Those who would attain the heights reached and kept by great men must keep
their faculties polished by constant use, so that they may unlock the doors of
knowledge, the gate that guard the entrances to the professions, to science,
art, literature, agriculture---every department of human endeavor.
Industry keeps bright the key that opens the treasury of achievement. If
Hugh Miller, after toiling all day in a quarry, had devoted his evenings to rest
and recreation, he would never have become a famous geologist. The celebrated
mathematician, Edmund Stone, would never have published a mathematical
dictionary, never have found the key to science of mathematics, if he had given
his spare moments to idleness, had the little Scotch lad, Ferguson, allowed the
busy brain to go to sleep while he tended sheep on the hillside instead of
calculating the position of the stars by a string of beads, he would never have
become a famous astronomer.
Labor vanquishes all---not inconstant, spasmodic, or ill-directed labor;
but faithful, unremitting, daily effort toward a well-directed purpose. Just as
truly as eternal vigilance is the price of liberty, so is eternal industry the
price of noble and enduring success. |
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发表于 2018-5-31 22:49:58