learned, amidst misfortunes and defeats, how bad business arrangements and bad generalship serve to ruin the morale of an army. Ten years after entering the army, we find him a colonel in India, reported by his superiors as an officer of indefatigable energy and application. He entered into the minutest details of the service, and sought to raise the discipline of his men to the highest standard. "The regiment of Colonel Wellesley," wrote General Harris, in 1799, "is a model regiment; on the score of soldierly bearing, discipline, instruction, and orderly behavior, it is above all praise." Shortly after this event, an opportunity occurred for exhibiting his admirable practical qualities as an administrator. Placed in command of an important district, immediately after the capture of Seringapatam, his first object was to establish rigid order and discipline among his own men. Flushed with victory, the troops were found riotous and disorderly. "Send me the provost-marshal," said he, "and put him under my orders; till some of the marauders are hung, it is impossible to expect order or safety." This rigid severity of Wellington in the field was the salvation of his troops in many campaigns. The same attention to, and mastery of details characterized him through all his career. He neglected nothing, and attended to every important detail of business himself. When he found that food for his troops was not to be obtained from England, and that he must rely upon his own resources for feeding them, he forthwith commenced business as a corn merchant on a large scale, in copartnership with the British Minister at Lisbon. Commissariat bills were created, with which grain was bought in the ports of the Mediterranean, and in South America. When he had thus filled his magazines, the overplus was sold to the Portuguese, who were greatly in want of provisions. He left nothing whatever to chance, but provided for every contingency. He gave his attention to the minutest details of the service, and was accustomed to concentrate his whole energies, from time to time; on such apparently ignominious matters as soldiers' shoes, camp-kettles, biscuits, and horse-fodder. His magnificent business qualities were everywhere felt, and there can be no doubt that, by the care with which he provided for every contingency, and the personal attention which he gave to every detail, he laid the foundation of his great success. By such means, he transformed an army of raw levies into the best soldiers in Europe, with whom he declared it to be possible to go anywhere, and do anything. A large manufacturer of Manchester, England, on retiring from business, purchased a large estate from a noble lord, and it was part of the arrangement that he was to take the house, with all its furniture, precisely as it stood. On taking possession, however, he found that a cabinet which was in the inventory had been removed, and on applying to the former owner about it, the latter said: "Well, I certainly did order it to be removed, but I hardly thought you would have cared for so trifling a matter in so large a purchase." "My lord," was the characteristic reply, "if I had not all my life attended to trifles, I should not have been able to purchase this estate; and, excuse me for saying so, perhaps if your lordship had cared more about trifles, you might not have had occasion to sell it." It was one of the characteristic qualities of Charles James Fox, that he was thoroughly painstaking in all that he did. When appointed Secretary of State, being piqued at some observation as to his bad writing, he actually took a writing-master, and wrote copies like a school-boy until he had sufficiently improved himself. Though a corpulent man, he was wonderfully active at picking up cut tennis-balls, and when asked how he contrived to do so, he playfully replied: "Because I am a very painstaking man.' The same accuracy in trifling matters was displayed by him in things of greater importance, and he acquired his reputation, like the painter, by "neglecting nothing." COMMON SENSE. "Sense is our helmet, wit is but the plume; HE man of sense and tact is one who generally succeeds in whatever line of work he takes hold of. If he makes a mistake, he somehow recovers himself, gets on his feet again, and goes ahead. He is one who knows men, and knows how to take advantage of circumstances; not in a dishonest way, but in a way that turns out to his profit, and the furtherance of his projects. If he makes a change in his business, he is sure not to lose anything by it; and so, in one way or the other, the years, as they roll, push him and his fortunes onward. This chapter sets forth forcibly the difference which often exists between the man of sterling common sense, shrewd business capacity, and practical talent, and the learned or educated fool. We say often exists, because this difference is by no means uniform or universal; if it were, the best thing which could be done to promote human welfare on earth, would be to abolish at once all the schools and col leges in the universe. But we think hardly any one is prepared to say that this abolition would be either safe or wise. Education, in itself, neither makes men fools, who have good natural endowments, nor does it transform natural idiots into men of first-class ability. The difference under consideration, however, is not so much between fools and wise, as between theoretical, idealistic men, who have received what is called a liberal education, and whose minds are full of abstract, scientific, metaphysical, or philosophical knowledge, and uneducated men who are destitute of all scholastic accomplishments, but who have instead what is termed good, strong, common sense, or natural ability. As the world goes, men who have amassed the largest fortunes in life, and who have the best judgment in practical matters, are not, as a rule, men so profoundly versed in scholastic erudition. Not many of them received when young anything more than the merest rudiments of an education at school, but picked up the bulk of their knowledge through wise observation and practical experience. On the other hand, but few men who have been noted for eminent scholarly attainments, and whose minds are full of learned lore, gathered from the dusty tomes and urns of antiquity, are pre-eminently wise or capable, in managing the practical affairs of daily life. They have greater visionary power than practical sagacity, or shrewd business tact. They are often men of greater intellectual ability than those distinguished in the commercial world, but their ability does not seem to be of that kind which enables |