15. When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume, among the Powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

THOMAS JEFFERSON: Declaration of Independence

II

The following address on "Margins," admirable alike in thought and expression, was delivered by James A. Garfield as a chapel talk before the students of Hiram College.

(1) Read it carefully and repeatedly for its style and truth.

(2) What is the subject of the first paragraph? of the second? of the last?

(3) State in a few words the central thought of the selection.

(4) In the first paragraph find five prepositional phrases used as adverbs.

(5) In the second paragraph find five simple sentences.

(6) In the last paragraph find (a) three compound sentences, (b) three adverbial clauses, and (c) three noun clauses.

I was thinking, young ladies and gentlemen, as I sat here this morning, that life is almost wholly made up of

margins. The bulk itself of almost anything is not what tells; that exists anyway. That is expected. That is not what gives the profit or makes the distinguishing difference. The grocer cares little for the great bulk of the price of his tea. It is the few cents between the cost and the selling price, which he calls the "margin," that particularly interests him. "Is this to be great or small?" is the thing of importance. Millions of dollars change hands in our great marts of trade just on the question of margins. This same thing is all-important in the subject of thought. One mind is not greater than another, perhaps, in the great bulk of its contents; but its margin is greater, that's all. I may know just as much as you do about the general details of a subject, but you can go just a little farther than I can. You have a greater margin than I. You can tell me of some single thought just beyond where I have gone. Your margin has got me. I must succumb to your superiority.

A good way to carry out the same idea, and better illustrate it, is by globes. Did you ever see globes whose only difference was that one had half an inch larger diameter than the other? This larger one, although there is so little difference, will entirely enclose the other, and have a quarter of an inch in every direction to spare besides. Let these globes be minds, with a living principle of some kind at their centres, which throws out its little tentaclelike arms in every direction as radii to explore for knowledge. The one goes a certain distance and stops. It can reach no farther. It has come to a standstill. It has reached its maximum of knowledge in that direction. The other sends its arms out, and can reach just a quarter of an inch farther. So far as the first mind is able to tell, the other has gone infinitely farther than it can reach. It goes

out to its farthest limit and must stop; the other tells him things he did not know before. Many minds you may consider wonderful in their capacity. They may be able to go only a quarter of an inch beyond you. What an incentive this should be for any young man to work, to make this margin as great as, if not greater than, the margin of his fellows.

"At night,"

His window

I recall a good illustration of this when I was at college. A certain young man was leading the class in Latin. I thought I was studying hard. I couldn't see how he got the start of us all so. To us he seemed to have an infinite knowledge. He knew more than we did. Finally, one day, I asked him when he learned his Latin lesson. he replied. I learned mine at the same time. was not far from mine, and I could see him from my own. I had finished my lesson the next night as well as usual, and, feeling sleepy, was about to go to bed. I happened to saunter to my window, and there I saw my classmate still bending diligently over his book. "There's where he gets the margin on me," I thought. "But he shall not have it for once," I resolved. "I will study just a little longer tonight than he does." So I took my books again, and, opening to the lesson, went to work with renewed vigor. I watched for the light to go out in my classmate's room. In fifteen minutes it was all dark. "There is his margin," I thought. It was fifteen minutes more time.

It was hunt

ing out fifteen minutes more of rules and root-derivatives. How often, when a lesson is well prepared, just five minutes spent in perfecting it will make one the best in the class. The margin in such a case as that is very small, but it is all-important. The world is made up of little things.