Chapter VIII: Progress as Realization 243 (7)

Justice was regarded by Plato as the ground of social uprightness; Christian justice recognized the brotherhood of man, with all that follows in moral conduct; “moral ideals” for us has the same significance. This is not the place for the discussion of ethical theories, but it is of the highest importance for the young man, after wandering more or less vaguely over the field of ethical doctrines, to turn to the nature of his own being and find there written the supreme fact of moral obligation, with its implications of freedom of will, a personal God, and immortality of the soul.

Every man knows that even in his ordinary approvable acts he does not work to the end of pleasure, but that he has impulses that reach out in fellowship and compassion toward others, impulses that reach out toward the Truth and Beauty and Supreme Goodness of the world. Every man knows that he possesses a power to choose amongst and regulate his impulses; that such aims are to be employed as will conduce to the perfection of his being and of all human being; that his reward lies in this perfection, in a noble and approvable character, which is not to be completed in this life, but is to attain its full realization in a future life. And hence is revealed to him the rational necessity of that life, without which the present struggle and growth would lack meaning.

If there is moral order in the universe, then man will be successful as he conforms to that order. If he goes against the great silent forces moving in the direction of Right, his life can but result in failure. Men who show a disregard for moral law are held to possess a dangerous malady slowly decaying the tissues of the soul. They are treated with suspicion in business relations and condemned in the minds of others and by their own judgment. Sound to the core must a man be who would make the most of life and receive the approval which the world bestows upon character.

A true man is bold; he feels that for him all the forces of right will contend. He has courage for his work, because he knows he is on the right path and is moving toward ever higher attainments and a supreme result.

The subject is old as man, the thoughts are trite; why not utter your maxim and proceed, or rather say nothing? While there are lives empty of purpose and hearts that bleed in contrition and tragedies that fill prisons and madhouses, there is much to say and more to do. Have we no further use for wisdom? Have we ceased to erect perennial monuments to the memory of saints and reformers? If the subject is old, the generations of men are new, and the race has not attained its perfection. The best men and the best thoughts reveal us to ourselves, are the source of our aspiration; and we of the present, not half-way toward the goal, have need of our Socrates, Augustine, Luther, and supremely of the divine Christ. We still have need of our Pilgrim’s Progress.

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The aim of Plato’s philosophy was the Supreme Good, or God. The Cardinal Virtues were framed in the light of religious faith. Reverence is the sentiment whose object is God. Says the Sage of Chelsea: “All that we do springs out of Mystery, Spirit, invisible Force.” Some, well-versed in Spencer’s works, have failed to note this passage: “One truth must grow ever clearer—the truth that there is an Inscrutable Existence everywhere manifested, to which the man of science can neither find nor conceive either beginning or end. Amid the mysteries which become the more mysterious the more they are thought about there will remain the one absolute certainty, that he is ever in the presence of an Infinite and Eternal Energy, from which all things proceed.” Add to this the Faith which is the “substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen,” and you have the origin of all religions, of all temples of worship. It is the conception of the philosopher and the insight of the poet; it is held most strongly by the most profound. Few great men, though they may reject formal creeds, are without the feeling of Reverence. Carlyle’s “Everlasting Yea” is the vision of a true seer, and it reveals, in the spontaneous language of earnest thought, the breadth and depth of a possible Christian experience. He speaks through the hero of the “Sartor Resartus.” By disappointment and dim faith the universe had become to him a vast merciless machine; he was filled with an indefinable fear. But over his soul came the spirit of Indignation and Defiance, and he shook off fear of all that is evil, and all that may happen of evil. In his words: “The Everlasting No had said: ‘Behold, thou art fatherless, outcast; and the Universe is mine (the Devil’s)’; to which my whole Me now made answer: ‘I am not thine, but Free, and forever hate thee!’” This is but the first step, and only by the “Annihilation of Self” does he awake to a “new Heaven and a new Earth.” Now nature is seen to be the “Living Garment of God.” The Universe is no longer “dead and demoniacal,” but “godlike and his Father’s.” He looks upon his fellow man with an “infinite Love, an infinite Pity,” and enters the porch of the “Sanctuary of Sorrow.” Happiness is no longer the aim; happiness cannot be satisfied. “There is in man a _Higher_ than Love of Happiness; he can do without Happiness, and instead thereof find Blessedness!” “Love not pleasure; love God. This is the EVERLASTING YEA.” The Temple of Sorrow (the Christian Temple) is partly in ruins, but in a crypt the sacred lamp still burns for him, and for all. Applied Christianity is action. He says: “Do the Duty which lies nearest thee: thy second Duty will already have become clearer.” Thy opportunity is in whatever thy condition now and here offers thee. “Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy whole might.” Christianity “flows through all our hearts and modulates and divinely leads them.” Of immortality he says: “Know of a truth that only the Time-shadows have perished, or are perishable; that the real Being of whatever was, and whatever is, and whatever will be, _is_ even now and forever.... Believe it thou must; understand it thou canst not.”

If we may draw a lesson from this, Carlyle’s greatest work, it is that the completeness of life requires vivifying, hope-giving, sin-subduing, courage-inspiring faith and reverence. To the hero of Carlyle’s prose poem success did not come, until the “Fire-Baptism” of his soul. He confesses: “I directly thereupon began to be a man.”

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Are these ideals of value for practical success? Yes, for all the success worth striving for and worth having. Does not craft succeed better than honesty? Sometimes, and for a time, but honesty appears to be even the best policy, and it is the essential stamp of real manhood and womanhood. The genuine heroes of all history are the morally great. Are not such standards too high—impractical ideals for the pulpit and platform, which no one is expected to carry into real life? No one attains even his own ideals, much less the absolute standards; but they are the steady aim of a fully successful life.

If a young man is true to himself, the bounties of nature, the good will of others, the coöperation of the forces of right, and the approval of God are his. The world waits to see what he will do with his powers and opportunities. Much is expected of him, and rightly. The state which has helped educate him expects much; the home which has made sacrifices for him expects much. Will he have the courage to stand by his ideals? To progress must be part of his religion. When the oak has ceased to put forth its leaves and extend its branches, it has gone into hopeless decay. There is no lasting happiness but in action and ever new and higher realizations.

Longfellow represents early manhood turning regretfully from the memory visions of childhood and youth to the earnest work of life.

“Visions of childhood! Stay, O stay!
Ye were so sweet and wild!
And distant voices seem to say,
It cannot be! They pass away!
Other themes demand thy lay;
Thou art no more a child!

“The land of Song within thee lies,
Watered by living springs;
The lids of Fancy’s sleepless eyes
Are gates unto that Paradise,
Holy thoughts, like stars, arise,
Its clouds are angel’s wings.

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“Look, then, into thine heart, and write!
Yes, into Life’s deep stream!
All forms of sorrow and delight,
All solemn Voices of the Night,
That can soothe thee, or affright,—
Be these henceforth thy theme.”

THE STUDENT AS CITIZEN.

Solomon, in the fulness of his wisdom and the maturity of his moral strength, wrote Proverbs. In the third chapter are many appeals in behalf of ideal manhood, and in behalf of justice and mercy in relations with one’s fellow men. He exhorts men to depart from evil and hold fast to truth. He instructs them that intellectual and moral wisdom is better than silver and gold and rubies; that it gives long life, riches, power, and peace of mind. The wise shall find favor in sight of God and man. Reverence for God contributes to worldly success and the growth of character. With equal force he teaches regard for the rights and the welfare of others. “Devise not evil against thy neighbor.” “Strive not with a man without a cause.” “Choose not the ways of the oppressor.” “Withhold not good from them to whom it is due, when it is in the power of thine hand to do it.” And he sums up the whole matter in the sentence: “God blesseth the habitation of the just.”

Men sometimes question whether ideals and Utopias have any practical value. Note the words of Professor Jowett, penned after he had spent years of his intense life in translating and commenting upon the Dialogues of Plato—writings which, in broad outlines, represent the best ideals of all philosophy for the individual and for society. He says: “Human life and conduct are affected by ideals in the same way that they are affected by the examples of eminent men. Neither the one nor the other is immediately applicable to practice, but there is a virtue flowing from them which tends to raise individuals above the common routine of society or trade, and to elevate states above the mere interests of commerce or the necessities of self-defense. Most men live in a corner, and see but a little way beyond their own home or place or occupation; they ‘do not lift up their eyes to the hills;’ they are not awake when the dawn appears. But in Plato, as from some ‘tower of speculation,’ we look into the distance and behold the future of the world and of philosophy. The ideal of the state and of the life of the philosopher; the ideal of an education continuing through life and extending equally to both sexes; the ideal of the unity and correlation of knowledge; the faith in good and immortality—are the vacant forms of light on which Plato is seeking to fix the eye of mankind.”

In Plato’s Ideal Republic the ruler is to be a man of wisdom and probity, and is to consider only the good of his subjects. “Until political greatness and wisdom meet in one, cities never will cease from ill.” The citizen must perfect his calling, however humble, as an artist perfects his art, and must form a harmonious and useful factor in the state. States must be organized on the “heavenly,” that is, the ideal, pattern. After developing the understanding of justice through the ten books of the “Republic,” Socrates concludes: “Need we hire a herald, or shall I proclaim the result—that the best and the justest man is also the happiest, and that this is he who is the most royal master of himself; and that the worst and most unjust man is also the most miserable, and that this is he who is the greatest tyrant of himself and of his state.”

The good citizen is described in Plato’s “Laws” as he who honors his own soul, obeys the laws, meets the just demands of the state with endurance; who holds virtue above all other good, teaches children reverence, instead of bestowing upon them riches; who sets a good example, holds a contract as sacred, aids the suffering; who is trusted because of his truthfulness, does no injustice, exerts good influences, is ambitious without envy; who is gentle, forgives the penitent, loves not self unduly; who is cheerful and hopeful in misfortune; who is wise and moderate, and courageous in spirit.

Thus the wisdom of the Greek confirms the wisdom of the Hebrew, and, were we to trace the Christian teachings that constitute the true spirit of our modern civilization, we should find these same maxims, wrought out with fuller understanding, given a richer content and a broader application. The good citizen is he who is true to his best nature, and toward others is just, truthful, merciful, and helpful. It requires no new philosophy to solve the problems of society, only a better grasp and use of the old; for the germs of essential truths are as old as man, and have their origin in the mind of the Creator, who made this a moral world.

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Each man, as a part of the universe, is subject to the universal will of God revealed in him; he, though a free agent, is under universal law, binding upon him as sharing in the common brotherhood. Did a different universe walk under your hat and under mine, then there would be no society, no brotherhood, no individual growth; so far as a man isolates himself in selfishness and narrowness, he is detached from the source and life of his being, and perishes by himself. He remains undeveloped, because the soul comes to know itself only by reflection in the mirror of kindred natures. The state is the organization that brings men into the most favorable conditions for the interplay of mind upon mind and heart upon heart.

As a part of the whole, each man must have his vocation. Man is conditioned by the needs of his physical being. He is compelled to make requisition on the fruitfulness of the earth, the abundance of the sea, and all the forces of nature. This demand upon his energies develops his intelligence and creative power. By serving his own needs he also serves others and contributes to a material civilization favorable to soul growth. The most favorable material conditions, however, are only the scene for the play of spiritual forces, and on this scene some find their special vocation in arousing and guiding mental and moral activities. He who, being able, does not contribute by his vocation to the common good, is a drain upon the whole; he takes without giving, and has no just share in the products of earth, the protection of state, or the favor of the Universal Father.

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The ideal scholar is a man of rich thought and feeling, one who has realized much of his possibility, has come to a consciousness of universal truths. He has variety, breadth, and definiteness of knowledge, and, hence, is able more wisely to play his part in the state. He is the conservator and transmitter of the thought of the ages. From his acquaintance with the past he may interpret the present. By his own activity and invention he may add to the store of wisdom and the progress of civilization. He is able to view broadly the field of knowledge. He should judge wisely of events, and be able to sift useless details from essential truths. Upon him rests the responsibility of having many talents committed to his charge; he must gain other talents.

But this educated power is not to be merely self-centred. In these days no man is privileged to live an unproductive life. The development of his nature and the enjoyment of his powers is every man’s right; but mere serene pleasure in exalted thought and feeling, as sought by the mediæval recluse, in an age when ideals must be followed by action, when utility is yoked to philosophy, is no longer tolerable in scholar or saint. The world demands the best expression of every man’s best ability. The educated man should be a man of action and influence. If he chooses literature, he must give mankind the result of his deepest insight. If he chooses science, he enters a vast field, and the world expects of the trained specialist some fresh contribution to knowledge or skillful application in using the forces of nature. If he chooses teaching, he holds his only valid commission from the wise men of all ages. He is a mediator between the whole world of intellectual and moral wisdom and the needs of the plastic mind, and he is in large degree responsible for the shape it assumes and its beauty and worth. Young minds will reflect the richness or poverty of the thought, feeling, and life of the teacher. College-trained educators have a greater responsibility in proportion to their superior advantages. In whatever field, the educated man must use his trained powers for the honor of his calling.

The world has special claims upon the learned professions. The client pays for the honest service of the advocate, and, to the full limit of the justice involved, he may demand the best effort of his patron. The graduate in medicine has a mission, not alone of drugs and instruments, but of ministering to the mind diseased. His relations call for the soul of honor and delicacy and secrecy. The nature of his profession requires the most devoted service.

This demand for unselfish public service from the educated has not merely an objective significance. A man’s full growth is, in a large measure, dependent upon the effective outward expression of his better self. Man finds his well-being in regard for the well-being of others.

There are times when the popular clamor of those who see only the near event must be resisted by the steady courage of citizens of far-reaching vision. One such man may see a truth more clearly than a thousand of average judgment. Plato surpassed the race in discovery of the foundations of truth. Copernicus penetrated to the centre of the solar system, and, there taking his stand, all the orbs moved before him in harmony. Such a standpoint, amid all the complexities of affairs, is always to be sought by men of deep discernment.

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He who is educated by society or by the state stands under a peculiar obligation. The state says: I offer you as your right the best opportunities for your development; I provide for the acquisition of professional and mechanical skill. As a human being, for whom I am responsible, you have a claim to these privileges; but I give them also for the further welfare and progress of the whole, and I demand that you use your opportunities appreciatively and wisely. I expect you to conserve your physical being, to develop your powers, to train your mind for service and your heart to regard the claims of society. I expect no dwarfed and distorted growth, but a growth that has expanded in normal beauty and strength. The state has trained you that you may be an active factor for the welfare and glory of the state—a factor that shall consider the state’s problems, shall take part in political affairs, shall occupy honestly positions of responsibility, shall stand for the right and raise its voice vigorously for every just cause, shall impart of its knowledge and professional skill in proportion to the full measure that has been received. Good to the state is the state’s due; withhold not that good when it is in the power of your hand to do it. If your power is used selfishly, if your cunning is turned to the harm of your foster mother, if your influence leads men aside from the path of moral progress, I disown you as unworthy and ungrateful, and unconscious of your obligations as a man and a citizen.

The name of a country stands for more than its territory, people, and government. It represents the principles and conditions that gave it birth, the battles in defence of its integrity and honor, the civil conflicts for the triumph of the best elements, the monuments to the loyalty and sacrifice of its founders, defenders, and preservers. It represents the glory of its heroes, statesmen, poets, and seers; it stands for the peculiar genius and mission of the people. It is a heritage whose glory is to be maintained by the character, wisdom, and devotion of all its citizens.

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I do not take the pessimistic view of political life. Men in places of responsibility are more disposed toward the right than is allowed by their political opponents. Respect is due to our rulers, and a man is not to be charged with wrong motives merely because his judgment is not in accord with ours, because the affairs of state or municipality are not perfectly administered, nor because of the exigencies of party.

That there is much to condemn in political conduct is also true, and corruption, whether in the primaries or the Presidency, is most potent in weakening the integrity of ambitious young men. The best influences of church and school hardly serve to offset the tendency of daily contact with men who have no ideal standards of citizenship. The idea of public gain without commensurate public service is a most insidious tempter, to be resisted by every instinct of true manhood. This is not a matter of abstract speculation, but a practical condition here and now, and one that every educated man must face.

You recall the scene of Shakespeare, where Hotspur on the field of battle, “breathless and weary” after the conflict, encountered a certain lord, “perfumed like a milliner,” holding to his nose a pouncet-box, and calling the soldiers, who bore the dead bodies by, untaught knaves, “to bring a slovenly, unhandsome corse betwixt the wind and his nobility.” Hotspur adds: “It made me mad to see him shine so brisk, and smell so sweet, ... and tell me but for these vile guns, he would himself have been a soldier.” I mean no undue disrespect to educated and refined gentlemen who stand aloof from the political field because it smells of “villainous saltpetre,” and is altogether too dirty and dangerous for their respectability and ease. The intelligence of the nation should guide the nation, and any educated man who stands by and views with indifference or timidity the struggle for the triumph of the best elements of society and the best principles, deserves the objurgations of every valiant Hotspur in the land. A minister recently said: “It is as much your duty to attend the primaries as the prayer-meeting.” I would have educated young men take a hand in every contest where order and justice and honesty are endangered; I would have them independently take a stand with whatever party or faction, at a given time, may represent the best cause. I would have them measure public service and public reward by the strict standard of equity; I would have them recognize the duty of active practical citizenship.

The people are keen to detect wrong aims in political life, and in their minds they speedily relegate the politician who shows himself unworthy to the plane of his motives. They as speedily recognize probity and patriotism and devotion to the commonwealth, and the truly royal men in public life are enshrined in their hearts and are made an example to their children. The majority of citizens are right in their feeling and purpose; their fault is in their apathy. Edgar W. Nye, the genial humorist, quaintly expressed a deep thought when he said: “To-day there is not a crowned head on the continent of Europe that does not recognize this great truth—viz.: that God alone, speaking through the united voices of the common people, declares the rulings of the Supreme Court of the Universe.” In the long run the voice of all the people is just.

In the sixteenth century literature we find a choice bit of truth and eloquence: “Of Law there can be no less acknowledged than that her seat is the Bosom of God; her voice the harmony of the world.” Moral order is a part of the beneficent law of the world; only by conformity to it can an individual or a nation prosper. If ideals of truth and right are existent in the mind of the Creator, are implanted in human nature and revealed through society, no one can escape from their authority. One of the old Sophists declared honesty to be “sublime simplicity,” and those are yet found who subscribe to the creed. The life that is controlled by mere prudence is likely at some time to commit a fatal error. That State is sound that lives under the law of God, that regards principles of right and maintains healthy sentiment.

OPTIMISM AND INTEREST.

Not long ago I met an old acquaintance, and by way of greeting asked how affairs were with him. “All right,” he replied; “business is looking up; the city is improving; the State is in a better condition; we have a good Legislature, a good Governor; it is a beautiful day, a beautiful world; everything is all right.” And I went on my way, meditating on interest and optimism. His interest in life was not due to any recent stroke of good fortune, but was habitual.

The optimist is your best philosopher. He adapts himself to the world and uses it. He selects the best that life offers, and, when the sky is gloomy, he lives in hope of bright days. He has faith in the ultimate beneficent outcome of the plan of the Creator. As there is light for the eye, sound for the ear, form for the touch, aromas for the smell, food for the taste, so there is an object in the outer world, adapted to every human instinct and impulse. The impulse for life and action, the desire for property, the impulse for friendship, the impulses of wonder, æsthetic admiration, and religious worship—each has its objective counterpart. Man is adjusted to his environment, and his environment includes the whole round world of utility and sentiment. Human life is perpetual activity, a searching for objects that will meet material needs and conduce to spiritual development. The feeling of interest arises when the mind finds the object of its search or feels that it is on the right track.

Interest is the condition of the mind that makes a thing of value to us. It is the cry of _Eureka_ when a fitting discovery is made. It is the magnetic relation between impulse and the end at which it aims, between man and the outer world, between man and himself. It makes life worth living, and is the secret of activity and progress. Inasmuch as interest shows the kind of objects that appeal to the mind, it is a revelation of character.

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The objects, which a man may cherish are limitless. He may rejoice in his strength, his personal adornment, his lands and money, his books and works of art. He may find an eager interest in his own image as pictured in the minds of his relatives, friends, or fellow citizens. He may take pride in family or in personal glory and honor. Men pose before the world; they act often with reference to the appreciation they will receive. It is told that the poet Keats could not live without applause. Carlyle says men write history, not with supreme regard for facts, but for the writing. Nero conceived that he was a musician, poet, and actor, surpassing in merit the geniuses of his age.

Man’s attitude toward wisdom and religion, the quality of his thoughts and feelings, his aspirations, constitute his spiritual interest. The sentiments of his soul are his; for them he is responsible, and in them he finds satisfaction or humiliation.

As one forgets self and self-interest, more and more he makes the whole world his possession. Nature, the welfare of others, man in history and literature, the Maker of all, may become objects of regard. A French nobleman who in the vicissitudes of revolution lost his estates and titles, but received a small pension from the government, became a philosopher and had the world at his command. For slight pay, willing service for his daily needs was his; private gardens, public parks, the broad landscape, the sky were his to enjoy, and he was free from care and fear. Some interests are universal, not the heritage and possession of one, but, like sun and air, free. They fall “as the gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath,” and bless him that receives. Rich in experience is he who can see in the drifted gleaming snows on our mountain peaks more than the summer’s irrigation, in the green plains of May more than the growing crops of wheat and alfalfa, in the orchard bloom more than the promise of fruit, in public education and charity more than political and social prudence, in religious devotion more than conventionality. For him blessings come on the morning breeze, gleam from the midnight sky, appear in the quality of mercy, and spring from communion with the Soul of Nature.

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Prometheus is said to have given to men a portion of all the qualities possessed by the other animals—the lion, the monkey, the wolf—hence the many traits that are manifest in his complex nature. There is a slight suggestion of evolution in this—that man is but the highest stage of animal development, and that his refined emotions are but the instincts of the lower orders modified by complex groupings. We grant the process, but not necessarily the inference. An apple is none the less an apple because it is the product of an unbroken development from a germ and simple shoot. The spirit of self-sacrifice need be none the less valid because it is a late phase of some simple instinct. We believe the world was fashioned according to an intelligent plan, a plan gradually realized, and that its meaning is found, not in the lower, but in the higher stages of development. We explain the purpose of creation, not by the first struggle of a protozoan for food, but by the last aspiration of man for heaven.

“From harmony, from heavenly harmony,
This universal frame began:
From harmony to harmony
Through all the compass of the notes it ran,
The diapason closing full in Man.”

The latest science hesitates to question the validity of our higher emotional life. It is becoming antiquated to say that, because we are descended from animals, our sense of duty, our feelings of faith and reverence have no more significance than the animal instincts from which they may have developed. There they are in all their refinement, need, and suggestiveness, and, as such, are a proper ground of belief. A late philosophical evolutionist says it is useless to theorize about our impulse to pray, its use or futility—we pray because we cannot help praying. Evolution is undergoing the test of the last stage of a scientific process—in this instance that of fitness to explain the facts of man’s nature. It may not escape the test by denying the facts.

Pardon the seeming digression, but the reasonableness of our faith is the ground of interest. Interest vanishes with the genuineness of our supposed treasure. We do not like to handle counterfeit coin; we do not value antiquities and sacred relics of modern manufacture, or mementos that no longer represent cherished memories. Much that stimulates the higher life would perish did we doubt the truth of our nature; the glory of the world would depart were the soul lost out of it.

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Some interests have sacred claims above others; there is a hierarchy amongst our impulses. Analyze the fact as we may, duty still remains. Moral laws and their practical application are progressively revealed by the relations of men in society. We may believe the laws are there in the nature of things, but that our discovery of them is gradual, as is the discovery of the unchanging laws of physics. The moral problem is the old one of the struggle between light and darkness, between good and evil, between duty and pleasure—the problem of responsibility, character, and destiny. In its modern form it is the problem of utility, that is, of life and happiness. But utilitarianism includes, and ever must include, the happiness that comes from the exercise of the higher spiritual functions, from the sense of duty performed, and from belief in divine approbation.

Interests chosen and pursued reveal the character. Men do not gather grapes of thorns nor figs of thistles. “A good tree can not bring forth evil fruit; neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.” The outward act is but the visible expression of the inner life.

There is something more than a pleasing myth in the Greek conception of choosing the lot of life. Every responsible act of free will is gradually fixing our destiny. The conduct of life is not a series of skirmishes with fate; it is fate itself, and a thing largely of our own creation. We are constructing the future out of the present. For the goal that we may finally reach we are even now running the race, the direction is already chosen, and, if we find ourselves on the wrong road, time is already lost.

Times change, science brings in new conceptions, superstitions vanish, beliefs are modified, new conditions and duties arise. But as the scenes shift and new actors come on the stage, the themes are still human history, comedy, and tragedy. The argument of the play is still the triumph of heroism and the reward of virtue. The spectators still smile at innocent pleasures, weep with misfortune, and applaud sentiment and worth, and the orchestra still plays the triumph or the dirge as the curtain falls on the final scene. The ideals of the saints, the courage of heroes, the sufferings of martyrs still teach their lesson. Reverence for God, justice, benevolence, the ethical worth of the individual are still dominant ideas.

If our ideals are less severe, they are more practical; if our heroism is less phenomenal, it takes on new forms or is reserved for imperative need; if we shrink from martyrdom, it may be because martyrdom is sometimes folly; if we worship with less zeal, we are more conscious of the rational grounds of worship. Our justice and benevolence have become more useful and practical, and reach all men. The problems of physical comfort and material progress, of practical charity, of political justice, of social purity, of the rights of all classes of men, of education, of peace and good will, of the true grounds of religious faith are at the front, and claim our interest and devotion. Romance is not dead. The modern hero has his opportunity, an opportunity open as never before to all kinds and conditions of men. Every educated young man has an unlimited field, a free lance, and a cause worthy of his valor. Let him go forth, as an ideal knight of old, pure in heart and life, with consecrated sword, to aid misfortune, to defend the people, and fight bravely for truth and right.

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I have seen young men going about, dallying with this or that pleasure, physically lazy, mentally indolent, morally indifferent, burdened with _ennui_, aimless, making no struggle. Will power must be awakened, life given to the mechanism, or it will go to rust and decay. While there is hope there is life. When interest is gone, the mind and spirit are dead, and the body is dying. What a hopeless lump of clay is he who, standing in this infinitely glorious world of ours and having eyes sees not, having ears hears not, and having a heart understands not.

What shall men do who have not come to a consciousness of their better impulses, to whom the number and worth of human possibilities are unknown, who have hidden, silent chords, awaiting the touch that will set them vibrating? Plainly by studying the highest types of men, the completeness of whose inner life is revealed in their deeds and thoughts. By contact with a better than himself one comes to know his better self. Under the influence of great companionship, whether in life or literature, new conceptions may appear in the vacant soul.

A popular work of fiction lately published shows incidentally how great conceptions may grow in a foreign and incongenial soil. It treats of the times of Nero and the early struggles of the Christians in Rome. Amidst that folly, profligacy, debauchery, strife, and cruelty, the Christian purity, humility, brotherly love, and faith in God are made to stand forth in world-wide contrast. Through a series of dramatic events, possessing for him a powerful interest, a Roman patrician comes to receive the Christian ideas, and, under the nurture of interest, they gradually wax strong and become the dominant impulses of his being. A fellow patrician, maintaining a persistent attitude of indifference to the new truths, lives and dies, to the last a degenerate Roman and a Stoic.

A remote interest whose attainment is doubtful may come to wholly possess the mind. A young man, misunderstood and underestimated by friends, suffering years of unrequited effort, persevering in silent determination, standing for the right, making friends with all classes, seizing strongly the given opportunity, defying popularity, and thereby winning it, may gradually rise to prominence through long years of focusing of effort.

Man’s free will makes him responsible for his interests. Aristotle’s dictum comes down to us in an unbroken line of royal descent: Learn to find interest in right things. Repugnance to the sternest demands of duty may be converted into liking, and, in the process, character is made. If you have a need for mathematics, science, history, poetry, or philanthropy, cultivate it, and interest will come as a benediction upon the effort. I sometimes think the gods love those who in youth are compelled to walk in hard paths. Rudyard Kipling has a trace of imperialism which is not the least valuable feature of his unique writings. In a late story he describes the transformation of a son of wealth who is already far on the road to folly—one of those nervous, high-strung lads who in the face of hardship hides behind his mother, and is a particular nuisance to all sensitive people. Crossing the ocean in a palatial steamer, he chances to roll off into the Atlantic and is conveniently hauled aboard a fishing schooner, out for a three months’ trip. He has literally tumbled into a new life, where he is duly whipped into a proper frame of mind and made to earn his passage and a small wage, by sharing the hardships of the fishermen. In time he is returned to his parents, together with a bonus of newly acquired common sense and love for useful work. Hardship did for him what all his father’s wealth could not buy.

It is in the time of need that men seek ultimate reality. A scientific writer, after speaking of our interest in the friendship and appreciation of men, refers to our need of friendship and appreciation in our time of stern trial, when we stand alone in the performance of duty. Then we have an intuitive consciousness of a Being supremely just and appreciative, who recognizes worth at its exact value, and will duly reward. We feel that in Him we live and move and have our being. The finite conditions of life drive us to the thought of an infinite One, who possesses in their fullness the ideals imperfectly realized in us. When the world swings from under our feet we need a hold on heaven. In these modern days we need the spirit of the hero who places honor above life, the spirit that places character above material advantage. Without it we are like Falstaff, going about asking “What is honor?” and complaining because it “hath no skill in surgery.” Balzac, describing one of his human types, paints a striking picture. A miser is on his death bed. As the supreme moment approaches, and a golden crucifix is held before his face, he fixes his glazing eyes upon it with a look of miserly greed, and, with a final effort of his palsied hand, attempts to grasp it. He takes with him to the other world in his soul the gold, not the Christ crucified.

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There are people who demand a series of ever varied, thrilling, fully satisfying emotional experiences. For them “the higher life consists in a sort of enthusiastic fickleness. The genius must wander like a humming-bird in the garden of divine emotions.” When they do not save themselves by devotion to scholarly work or by refuge in the church, they frequently end in pessimism, madness, or suicide. They exalt the _Ego_, do not lose self in the pursuit of proper objects of utility. Nordau has done the world one service in branding them as degenerates, living in abnormal excitement, instead of employing the calm, strong, balanced use of their powers. Their fate is fittingly suggested by a choice sentence from a well-known writer, describing Byron’s “Don Juan”: “It is a mountain stream, plunging down dreadful chasms, singing through grand forests, and losing itself in a lifeless gray alkali desert.” Goethe’s Faust sets forth—be it noted, under the guidance of the devil—to find complete enjoyment, and tries the whole round of experience. Everything palls upon him, until he at last finds permanent satisfaction in earnest practical labor for the welfare of his fellow-men. In the words of Faust:

“He only earns his freedom and existence
Who daily conquers them anew.”

Labor! It is the secret of happiness. We are born bundles of self-activity, in infancy ever developing our powers by ceaseless movement, with eager curiosity ever reaching out toward knowledge of external things, ever laboring and constructing in imitation of the great, working world. Unless our energies are wasted by folly and our hearts are chilled by custom, it is the natural condition, even as children, older and wiser, but still as children, ever to extend with enthusiasm the boundary of knowledge, and in reality to join in the labor which was the play-work of our childhood. And when our effort overcomes, creates, develops power, aids humanity, we are conscious of the joy of true living. In our work self must be put in the background. “He that loseth his life shall find it.” The great Goethe, once weighed down with a mighty sorrow, forgot his grief in the study of a new and difficult science.

It is a mistake to suppose that interest and happiness may not attach to duty. Duty is not a dead, barren plant that no more will put forth green leaves and blossom. Philanthropists do not need our sympathy. A man of learning, culture, and ability, capable of enjoying keenly the amenities of civilization, and of winning worldly success, goes on a mission to the interior of Darkest Africa. Amid hardships and dangers, he offers his life to help an alien race in its suffering, ignorance, and savagery. He makes this devotion his supreme interest, and who shall say that his satisfaction will not be as great as that of the most favored son of wealth amid the luxuries of civilization? “He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.”

One great purpose of education is to increase and strengthen our interests. It shows the many fields of labor and gives us power to work therein; it reveals the laws and beauties of the natural world; it introduces us to many lands and peoples, and acquaints us with the problems and means of progress; it opens to us the treasury of man’s best thoughts; it gives us philosophical and poetic insight.

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Sydney Smith, indulging one of his quaint conceits, says: “If you choose to represent the various parts in life by holes upon a table, of different shapes—some circular, some triangular, some square, some oblong—and the persons acting these parts by bits of wood of similar shapes, we shall generally find that the triangular person has got into the square hole, the oblong into the triangular, and a square person has squeezed himself into the round hole.” This fancy has some truth, but more of nonsense. “Men at some time are masters of their fates.” Create your place in life and fill it, or adapt yourself to the best place you can find. The choice of occupation is important, but filling well the profession chosen is more important. Turn your knowledge and power to the performance of to-day’s duty.

Lowell in his “Vision of Sir Launfal” imparts one of the sweetest lessons man may learn. Sir Launfal is to set forth on the morrow in search of the Holy Grail, the cup used by our Saviour at the last supper, and in his sleep there comes to him a true vision. As in his dream he rides forth with pride of heart, at his castle gate a leper begs alms, and in scorn he tosses him a piece of gold. Years of fruitless search pass, and as he returns old, broken, poor, and homeless, he again meets the leper at the castle gate, and in Christ’s name he offers a cup of water. And lo! the leper stands forth as the Son of God, and proclaims the Holy Grail is found in the wooden cup shared with communion of heart. The morn came and Sir Launfal hung up his idle armor. He had found the object of his quest in the humble duty at hand.

A poet of our day quaintly but not irreverently writes of the future life, “When the Master of all Good Workmen shall set us to work anew.” There we shall work for the joy of it; there we shall know things in their reality; there we shall enjoy the perfect appreciation of the Master, and know the blessedness of labor performed in His service. Thus the lesson is good for this world as well as the next.

“And only the Master shall praise us, and only the Master shall blame;
And no one shall work for money, and no one shall work for fame;
But each for the joy of the working, and each, in his separate star,
Shall draw the Thing as he sees It for the God of Things as They Are.”

THE ETHICAL AND ÆSTHETIC ELEMENTS IN EDUCATION.

A historic sentiment is associated with the laurel tree, sacred to Apollo; with the laurel wreath which crowned the victor in the Pythian games, was the emblem of the poet, rested upon the heads of victorious generals, later indicated academic honors, and has become a figure of speech and a gem in poetic literature. The Baccalaureate Day—the day when victors in the endeavor to reach the graduate’s goal figuratively are crowned with the fruited laurel—we would preserve. We would preserve it for its history, its significance, its associations, its sentiments, its memories, its promise, and its religious suggestion. We would preserve it, not only to celebrate scholastic honors already won, but as a fitting occasion to consider some of those deeper lessons whose meaning will appear through experience in the School of Life.

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Higher education ever enlarges the borders of science and leads forth into new fields. It transmutes superstition into knowledge. It is the spirit of civilization and the leader of progress. It stands at the summit of human development, represents the aggregate of human knowledge, is the goal for intellectual endeavor, and it points the way for the discovery and progress of the future.

There was a time when many scholars turned the pages of literature, in which were preserved the deeds, investigations, and thoughts of men, solely that they might develop and enjoy their own powers; when they devoted themselves to Truth for its own sake; when they stood isolated, as in a world of their own, considering naught but their own welfare and, perhaps, their relation to their Maker. Men dwelt in caves, in remote deserts, or within gloomy walls to dwarf the bodily and worldly impulses and to rise to a serene contemplation of God and His truths, disregarding the appeal of ignorant or suffering humanity and the duty of adding works to faith.

Our relations to our fellow-men give rise to nearly the entire Ethical Code. Society cares for us, educates us, develops us, and it has claims upon us, not on purely selfish or utilitarian grounds, but under a higher ethical idea, whose sanction is the perfection and will of God. The law of God requires effort for humanity, government enjoins it, charity demands it. The Associationist, the Utilitarian, and the Evolutionist teach it.

An honorable character and a useful life are full of influence. And there are hundreds of ways, in some of which, without burdensome effort, one may be a blessing to others. Ignorance may be awakened to its condition, vice may be shamed, sorrow may be assuaged, fear may be changed into hope, sloth may be aroused to action, doubt may be converted into faith.

Go forth and join in the labor you are fitted for. If you have a truth, utter it; if you have had superior privileges, impart to others; if you have an insight into principles of conduct, stand for them; if you have a trained eye and a deft hand, use your skill. Externalize the powers of your being; find outward expression for your inward thought.

Thank God for a courageous man, a true Anglo-Saxon man, a man whose convictions are deeply rooted, and who guards them as his very life. Heroes, philanthropists, and martyrs are his exemplars. He has a work to do, and he enters upon it as his fathers battled for the right. The sensualist, the dreamer, and the fatalist lie supine, are lulled by the summer breeze, and gaze upon the drifting panorama of clouds with playful imagination. The man of duty marches forth and takes the fixed stars for his guide.

The educated young man of to-day has every reason to thank the stars under which he was born. Behind him is the teaching of the civilized world—the poetry and art of Greece, the laws and institutions of Rome, the growth of Christianity, the Mediæval commingling of forces and evolution of rare products, the Renaissance, the religious and political emancipation, invention, science, art, poetry, and philosophy. Behind him is the history of the Anglo-Saxon race, its courage and deeds of valor, its profound earnestness, its stern ideals. Behind him is Puritan New England and liberty. Around him lies the new land of promise with its natural blessings of air, sun, mountains, and plains, with its mineral wealth and industrial possibility, with its people of pride, energy, intelligence, and high enthusiasm. Before him lie the development of a great and unique civilization, a wonder of material progress, a rare growth of poetic power and free spirit under new and fostering conditions. Before the youth of this State is the possibility of success in any pursuit, of rise to influence, of contributing to the formative period of a new commonwealth. There is every inducement to be a courageous, energetic, and ideal man. Those who have made our history, most of them, are still living, but their work is nearly accomplished, and you will take up the responsibility. May our great system of public instruction contribute to fill the State in coming decades with noble men and women who are not afraid of ideals.

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