“‘I wish that you would send a servant to open the gate for me,’ said a well-grown boy of ten to his mother, as he paused with his satchel upon his back, before the gate, and surveyed its clasped fastening.

“‘Why, John, can’t you open the gate for yourself?’ said Mrs. Easy.  ’A boy of your age and strength ought certainly to be able to do that.’

“‘I could do it, I suppose,’ said the child, ’but it’s heavy, and I don’t like the trouble.  The servant can open it for me just as well.  Pray, what is the use of having servants if they are not to wait upon us?’

“The servant was sent to open the gate.  The boy passed out, and went whistling on his way to school.  When he reached his seat in the academy, he drew from his satchel his arithmetic and began to inspect his sums.

“‘I cannot do these,’ he whispered to his seat-mate; they are too hard.’

“‘But you can try,’ replied his companion.

“‘I know that I can,’ said John, ’but it’s too much trouble.  Pray, what are teachers for if not to help us out of difficulties?  I shall carry my slate to Prof.  Helpwell.”

“Alas! poor John.  He had come to another closed gate—­a gate leading into a beautiful and boundless science, ’the laws of which are the modes in which God acts in sustaining all the works of His hands’—­the science of mathematics.  He could have opened the gate and entered in alone and explored the riches of the realm, but his mother had injudiciously let him rest with the idea, that it is as well to have gates opened for us, as to exert our own strength.  The result was, that her son, like the young hopeful sent to Mr. Wiseman, soon concluded that he had no ‘genius’ for mathematics, and threw up the study.

“The same was true of Latin.  He could have learned the declensions of the nouns and the conjugation of the verbs as well as other boys of his age; but his seat-mate very kindly volunteered to ‘tell him in class,’ and what was the use in opening the gate into the Latin language, when another would do it for him?  Oh, no!  John Easy had no idea of tasking mental or physical strength when he could avoid it, and the consequence was, that numerous gates remained closed to him all the days of his life—­gates of honor—­gates to riches—­gates to happiness.  Children ought to be early taught that it is always best to help themselves.”

This is the true secret of making a man.  What would Columbus, or Washington and Franklin, or Webster and Clay, have accomplished had they proceeded on the principle of John Easy?  No youth can rationally hope to attain to eminence in any thing who is not ready to “open the gate” for himself.  And then, poor Mrs. Easy, how she did misjudge!  Better for her son, had she dismissed her servants—­or rather had she directed them to some more appropriate service, and let Master John have remained at the gate day and night for a month, unless willing, before the expiration of that time, to have opened it for himself, and by his own strength.  Parents in their well-meant kindness, or, perhaps, it were better named, thoughtless indulgence, often repress energies which, if their children were compelled to put forth, would result in benefits of the most important character.