throughout by intelligence and progress.

His life speaks for itself. The best commentary on it is the fact
that, in 1849, the people of Wantage, his native place, celebrated the
thousandth anniversary of his birth,--another proof that "what is
excellent, as God lives, is permanent."[1]

[1] R. W. Emerson's "Poems."

60. St. Dunstan's Three Great Reforms (960-988).

Long after Alfred's death, St. Dunstan, then Archbishop of Canterbury
and head of the English Church, set out to push forward the work begun
by the great King. He labored to accomplish three things. First, he
sought to establish a higher system of education; secondly, he desired
to elevate the general standard of monastic life; finally, he tried to
inaugurate a period of national peace and economic progress.

He began his work when he had control of the abbey of Glastonbury, in
the southwest of England. He succeeded in making the school connected
with that abbey the most famous one in the whole kingdom (S45). He
not only taught himself, but, by his enthusiasm, he inspired others to
teach. He was determined that from Glastonbury a spirit should go
forth which should make the Church of England the real educator of the
English people. Next, he devoted himself to helping the inmates of
the monasteries in their efforts to reach a truer and stronger
manhood. That, of course, was the original purpose for which those
institutions had been founded (S45), but, in time, many of them had
more or less degenerated. Every athlete and every earnest student
knows how hard it is to keep up the course of training he has resolved