foundly in sympathy with the modern spirit. By this phrase we mean primarily the disposition to accept nothing on authority, but to bring all reports to the test of experience. The modern spirit is first of all a free spirit open on all sides to the influx of truth. But freedom is not its only characteristic. The modern spirit is marked further by an active curiosity which grows by what it feeds upon, and goes ever enquiring for fresher and sounder information, not content till it has the best information to be had anywhere. But since it seeks the best, it is, by necessity, also a critical spirit, constantly sifting, discriminating, rejecting, and holding fast that which is good only till that which is better is within reach. This endless quest, when it becomes central in a life, requires labor, requires pain, requires a measure of courage; and so the modern spirit, with its other virtues, is an heroic spirit. As a reward for difficulties gallantly undertaken, the gods bestow on the modern spirit a kind of eternal youth with unfailing powers of recuperation and growth. This spirit—free, actively curious, upward-striving, critical, courageous, and self-renewing—Emerson richly possesses; and that is why he is so happily qualified to be a counsellor of youth in the period of intellectual emancipation.
There are many prophets abroad in the land to-day, offering themselves as emancipators, who have only very partially comprehended their task. By the incompleteness of their message they bring the
