To strive at all involves a victory
achieved over sloth, inertness, and indifference; and competition
for these prizes involves, besides, in the vast majority of cases,
competition with and mastery asserted over circumstances adverse to
the effort made. Therefore, every losing competitor among my
hearers may be certain that he has still won much--very much--and
that he can well afford to swell the triumph of his rivals who have
passed him in the race.
I have applied the word "rewards" to these prizes, and I do so, not
because they represent any great intrinsic worth in silver or gold,
but precisely because they do not. They represent what is above
all price--what can be stated in no arithmetical figures, and what
is one of the great needs of the human soul--encouraging sympathy.
They are an assurance to every student present or to come in your
institution, that he does not work either neglected or unfriended,
and that he is watched, felt for, stimulated, and appreciated.
Such an assurance, conveyed in the presence of this large assembly,
and striking to the breasts of the recipients that thrill which is
inseparable from any great united utterance of feeling, is a
reward, to my thinking, as purely worthy of the labour as the
labour itself is worthy of the reward; and by a sensitive spirit
can never be forgotten.
[One of the prize-takers was a Miss Winkle, a name suggestive of
"Pickwick," which was received with laugher.
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