A gentleman who had resided some years in Central and South America,
conversing one evening with friends upon a doctrine of happiness,
illustrated his argument with an anecdote. A Yankee living in South
America observed that the native bees had no care for the morrow. He
thought to make a fortune by bringing hard-working honey bees from the
North to this land of perennial flowers, where they could store up
honey the year around, and he tried the experiment. The bees worked
eagerly for a time, but soon discovered that there was no winter in
this paradise, and they perched on the flowers and trees and dozed the
livelong day. Our philosopher assumed that the indolent, improvident
life of the ignorant natives of sunny climes is the one of real
happiness, and that a life of great activity is not to be desired. If
his theory holds, then the savage under his palm tree is happier than
the civilized man of the temperate zone, the monkey in the tropical
jungle is better off than the savage, and the clam is happiest of all.
An observant traveller, returning by the southern route from
California, studies Indians of various tribes at successive stages of
the journey. Near the Mohave desert he sees abject beings loafing
about the railway station to beg from the curious passengers; further
east he sees self-respecting red people offering for sale pottery or
blankets—their own handiwork; later he notes members of another tribe
working on railroad construction by the side of white laborers; as he
approaches the settled region he observes yet others who have homes
and farms and engage in civilized industry, and his thought runs along
the ascending scale of being until he contemplates the highest energy
of the most cultured and forceful minds of our best civilization. He
instinctively decides that the desirable life is on the upper scale of
intelligence, feeling, and action.
Happiness through work is the creed of the dawning century. The romance
of chivalry gives place to the poetry of steam; democracy is teaching
wealth and position the dignity of labor; evolution and psychology
show action to be the consummate flower of thought and feeling; recent
literature illustrates the gospel of effort; and religion reaffirms the
doctrine that faith without works is dead.
Herbert Spencer’s philosophy defines life to be “the continuous
adjustment of internal relations to external relations.” This
adjustment implies self-activity. If man has been evolved through a
long period of change, he is a survival of the fittest in the struggle
for existence. His ancestral history is one of exertion, his powers
have been developed by use, he maintains himself by striving, his
normal state is in the field of labor, and logically it is there his
welfare and happiness are found.
Max Nordau wrote a book on “Degeneration.” It contains much interesting
matter, many wholesome suggestions, and considerable false theory.
He claims that the demands of modern civilization place men under
too great a strain, that the human race is tending toward insanity,
and that by and by we shall stop our daily newspapers, remove the
telephones from our homes, and return to a life of greater simplicity.
It is true that tension never relaxed loses its spring, and worry
kills, but the most potent causes of degeneration are false pleasures
and lack of healthful work. Evolution’s most important ethical maxim
is that deadheads in society degenerate as do parasites in the lower
animal kingdom. Every idler violates a great law of his being, which
demands that thought and feeling shall emerge in action. Every class
of people has its idlers, men who desire to possess without earning.
The aimless son of wealth and the tramp tread the same path. Universal
interest in honest, healthful employment would cure nearly all the
evils of society and state. Manual labor is the first moral lesson
for the street Arab and the criminal, and the best cure for some
species of insanity. True charity does not give when it can provide
the chance to earn. Idlers, lacking the normal source of happiness,
seek harmful pleasures, and learn sooner or later that for every silver
joy they must pay in golden sorrow. False stimuli, false excitement,
purposeless activities, take the place of vocation. Tramps are not
the only vagabonds; there are mental and moral vagabonds whom a fixed
purpose, a definite interest and principles of conduct would turn
from degeneration to regeneration. Balzac, with his keen analysis,
describes the career of a graceless spendthrift who, finally weary of
himself, one day resolved to give himself some reason for living.
Under good influences he took up a life of regularity, simplicity, and
usefulness, and learned that men’s happiness and saneness of mind are
proportionate to their labors. This is the great lesson of Goethe’s
“Faust,” set in imperishable drama for the instruction of the ages.
Balzac’s Curé of Montegnac speaks to a repentant criminal: “There is no
sin beyond redemption through the good works of repentance. For you,
work must be prayer. The monasteries wept, but acted too; they prayed,
but they civilized. Be yourself a monastery here.” Repentance, prayer,
work—these are the way of salvation.
Every man of broad mind has full regard for the problems of labor and
has faith in a progress that shall mean better conditions for the less
fortunate, but Edwin Markham’s “Man With the Hoe,” as applied, not
to special and extreme conditions of hardship, but in general to the
problems of the human race, is wrong at the foundation; it is neither
correct science, good philosophy, nor accurate history. It is the
doctrine of the fall of man rather than of the ascent of man; it is the
doctrine that labor is a curse. Without the hoe the human race would
be chimpanzees, savages, tramps and criminals. In human development no
useful labor ever “loosened and let down the brutal jaw” or “slanted
back the brow” or “blew out the light within the brain” or deprived man
of his birthright. At a stage of his progress, by cultivating the soil
man of necessity cultivates his soul. The hoe has been an indispensable
instrument to the growth of intelligence and morals, has been the
great civilizer—a means of advance toward Plato and the divine image.
Hardship may arrest development, but seldom causes degeneration. Our
problem is not to free from bondage to work, but to relieve of burdens
that are too heavy, and place a larger part on the shoulders of the
strong and selfish.
Our educational philosophy at times wanders in dangerous bypaths,
but there is a recent return to the plain highway. Some late notable
utterances maintain that character must be formed by struggle, that
a good impulse must prove its quality by a good act, that education
is self-effort, and that passive reception of knowledge and rules of
conduct may make mental and moral paupers. Here is an apt thrust from a
trenchant pen: “Soft pedagogics have taken the place of the old steep
and rocky path to learning. But from this lukewarm air the bracing
oxygen of effort is left out. It is nonsense to suppose that every step
in education _can_ be interesting. The fighting impulse must often be
appealed to.”
I like to discover philosophy in the literature of the day, literature
which does not rank as scientific, but contains half-conscious,
incidental expression of deep perceptions of human nature. Kipling at
his best sounds great moral depths, and teaches the lesson of life’s
discipline. He has a plain message for America as she takes her new
place in the congress of the world. Civilized nations must take up the
burden of aiding less favored peoples, not for glory or gain, but as
an uncompromising duty without hope of appreciation or reward. We must
expect the untaught races will weigh our God, our religion, and us by
our every word and act in relation to them. We, as a nation, may no
longer wear the lightly proffered laurel, but must expect the older,
civilized nations will judge us by our wisdom, equity, and success in
discharge of our new responsibilities. In Kipling’s “McAndrew’s Hymn”
many years of hardship, sternly borne in obedience to duty, atone for
misspent days under the influence of the soft stars in the velvet
skies of the Orient. In “The ’Eathen” the author refers to the native
inhabitants of India, whose most familiar household words are “not
now,” “to-morrow,” “wait a bit,” and whose chief traits are dirtiness,
laziness, and “doin’ things rather-more-or-less.” He describes the
raw English recruit, picked out of the gutter, recounts the stages
of discipline that make him a good soldier, and finally a reliable
non-commissioned officer—a man that, returned to his country, would
prove a good and useful citizen.
“The ’eathen in ’is blindness bows down to wood ’an stone.
’E don’t obey no orders unless they is ’is own;
’E keeps ’is side arms awful: ’e leaves ’em all about,
An’ then comes up the regiment an’ pokes the ’eathen out.
* * * * *
The ’eathen in ’is blindness must end where ’e began,
But the backbone of the Army is the non-commissioned man.”
“L’Envoi” of “The Seven Seas” suggests the creed of a healthy soul: to
accept true criticism; to find joy in work; to be honest in the search
for truth; to believe that all our labor is under God, the Source of
all knowledge and all good.
Robert Louis Stevenson is great as a novelist; he is greater in his
brief writings and his letters. He presents some plain truths with
attractive vigor. He says: “To have suffered, nay, to suffer, sets a
keen edge on what remains of the agreeable. This is a great truth,
and has to be learned in the fire.... In almost all circumstances the
human soul can play a fair part.... To me morals, the conscience, the
affections, and the passions are, I will own frankly and sweepingly,
so infinitely more important than the other parts of life, that I
conceive men rather triflers who become immersed in the latter. To me
the medicine bottles on my chimney and the blood in my handkerchief are
accidents; they do not color my view of life.... We are not put here to
enjoy ourselves; it was not God’s purpose; and I am prepared to argue
it is not our sincere wish.... Men do not want, and I do not think
they would accept, happiness; what they live for is rivalry, effort,
success. Gordon was happy in Khartoum, in his worst hours of danger and
fatigue.”
* * * * *
A cartoon of Gladstone, appearing soon after he had ostensibly retired
from public life, showed him, with eager look and keen eye, writing
vigorous essays upon current political questions. It recalled the
grandeur of a life filled with great interests, sane purposes, and
perpetual action. Biography is the best source of practical ideals;
it is philosophy teaching by example; the personal element gives
force to abstract truths. Luther’s Titanic power and courage under
the inspiration of a faith that could remove mountains has served the
purpose of millions of men in great crises.
Were I to seek an epic for its power to influence, I would go to real
history and choose the life of William the Silent. For thirty years
this Prince of Orange stood for civil and religious liberty in the
Netherlands, in an age when men little understood the meaning of
liberty. He sacrificed wealth and honors for his country. In spite
of reverses, of the cowardice and disloyalty of his followers, of
ignorance of the very motives of his action, he persevered. Throughout
the long struggle he was hopeful, cheerful, and courageous. When the
celebrated ban appeared, barring him from food, water, fire, shelter,
and human companionship, setting a price on his head, in reply he
painted in vivid colors a terrible picture of the oppressors of his
people and held it up to the view of the civilized world. The motives
which sustained him were faith in God, a strong sense of duty, and a
deep feeling of patriotism. His biographer says: “As long as he lived
he was the guiding-star of a whole brave nation, and when he died the
little children cried in the streets.”
Heine, the poet and philosopher, was dying in an obscure attic in
Paris. He was wasted to a skeleton and was enduring the extremity of
human suffering. He could see only dimly, as through a screen. As he
himself said, there was nothing left of him except his voice. Under
these almost impossible conditions, he was still laboriously writing,
that he might leave a competence to his wife. A friend of his earlier
days visited him, and through a long conversation his words sparkled
with wit, humor, poetry, and philosophy. Surely the active spirit is
more than the body! There was a feudal knight who went about saying to
all despondent wayfarers, “Courage, friend; the devil is dead!” and he
always spoke with such cheerful confidence that his listeners accepted
the announcement as good news, and gained fresh hope.
* * * * *
In this Philosophy of Work is there no place for romance? Shall there
be no thrilling adventure, nothing but dull duty and drudgery? Shall
we have only dead monotony—no color, light, or shadow? Shall Carlyle’s
“splendors high as Heaven” and “terrors deep as Hell” no longer give
a zest to life? Stevenson’s “Lantern Bearers” has an answer for this
natural and ever recurrent question. In a little village in England,
along the sands by the sea, some schoolboys were accustomed to spend
their autumn holidays. At the end of the season, when the September
nights were black, the boys would purchase tin bull’s-eye lanterns.
These they wore buckled to their waists and concealed under topcoats.
In the cold and darkness of the night, in the wind and under the
rain, they would gather in a hollow of the lonely sand drifts, and,
disclosing their lanterns, would engage in inconsequential talk. In
his words: “The essence of this bliss was to walk by yourself in the
black night; the slide shut, the topcoat buttoned; not a ray escaping,
whether to conduct your footsteps or to make your glory public: a mere
pillar of darkness in the dark; and all the while, deep down in the
privacy of your fool’s heart, to know that you had a bull’s-eye at your
belt, and to exult and sing over the knowledge.... Justice is not done
to the versatility and the unplumbed childishness of man’s imagination.
His life from without may seem but a rude mound of mud; there will be
some golden chamber at the heart of it, in which he dwells delighted;
and for as dark as his pathway seems to the observer, he will have
some kind of a bull’s-eye at his belt.... The ground of a man’s joy is
often hard to hit. The observer (poor soul, with his documents!) is all
abroad. For to look at the man is but to court deception. We shall see
the trunk from which he draws his nourishment; but he himself is above
and abroad in the green dome of foliage, hummed through by winds and
nested in by nightingales. And the true realism were that of the poets,
to climb up after him like a squirrel, and catch some glimpse of the
heaven for which he lives. And the true realism, always and everywhere,
is that of the poets: to find out where joy resides and give it a voice
far beyond singing. For to miss the joy is to miss all. In the joy
of the actors lies the sense of any action, that is the explanation,
that the excuse. To one who has not the secret of the lanterns, the
scene upon the links is meaningless. And hence the haunting and truly
spectral unreality of realistic books.” This quotation needs no excuse.
The mould of human nature from which this copy was taken is forever
broken, and can never be reproduced.
To be a lantern-bearer on the lonely heath, to rejoice in work and
struggle—this is the romance, real, attainable, and apt for the world
as it is and for the work we must do. If irrational pastime, attended
with endurance, may be a joy, surely rational effort toward some
desired result may have its poetry. Sacrifice and heroism are found
in humble homes; commonplace labor has its dangers and its victories;
and many a man at his work, in knowledge of the light concealed, the
interest he makes of his vocation, his romance, exults and sings.
The world is as we regard it. Many look at the world as Doctor Holmes’
squint-brained member of the tea-table views the plant kingdom. He
makes the underground, downward-probing life of the tree the real
life. The spreading roots are a great octopus, searching beneath
instinctively for food, while the branches and leaves are mere terminal
appendages swaying in the air. It is a horrible conception, and we are
pained at standing on our heads. The tree roots itself to the earth
and draws its nourishment therefrom that it may spring heavenward, and
bear rich fruit and be a thing of beauty, a lesson and a promise. Man
is rooted to the earth, but his real life springs into the free air and
bathes in the glad sunlight.
* * * * *
The purpose of our labor determines its qualities of truth and
healthfulness. Satisfaction must be sought by employing our faculties
in the useful arts and in the search for truth. Perfection of self is
the ultimate good for each individual, but this is attained, not in
isolation, but in social life with its mutual obligations. The lesson
of civil and religious liberty, taught by the great reformers, has
been only partly learned. Individualism, rightly understood, is the
true political doctrine, but the selfishness of individual freedom is
the first quality to develop. Concerning great public questions often
the attitude is as expressed in Balzac’s words: “What is that to me?
Each for himself! Let each man mind his own business!” Democracy is
the way of social and political progress, but we have not yet reached
the height of clear vision. We are struggling up the difficult and
dangerous path, looking hopefully upward, thinking we see the summit,
only to find at each stage that the ultimate heights are still beyond.
When kings are dethroned, the hope of democracy is to enthrone public
conscience. Here is a picture of a condition occasionally possible in
any state of America to-day. We will say there is some great public
interest, not a party problem, involving the financial prosperity and
the essential welfare of the state, and affecting its credit, honor,
and reputation abroad. And—with some noble exceptions—perhaps not a
minister in his pulpit, not an orator on his platform, not a newspaper
with its great opportunity for enlightening the people and exerting
influence, not an educator, not a college graduate, not a high-school
graduate, not a business man, not a politician arises and says: Here
is a common good imperilled, and I for one will give of my time, my
energy, and, if need be, according to my ability, of my money in its
support. So long as such a state of apathy concerning public questions
may exist, there is something still to be desired for the ideals of
democracy and for our methods of education.
The Platonic philosophy has largely inspired educational work, and
must still furnish its best ideals. But emphasizing the worth of
the individual to himself has created a false conception of social
obligation. Culture for culture’s sake has been the maxim, but I have
come to believe that a culture which does not in some way reach out to
benefit others is not of much value to the individual himself. Some one
has aptly illustrated this view: probably the drone in the bee-hive,
when he is about to be destroyed, would say, “I would like to live for
life’s sake, and would like to buzz a while longer for buzz’s sake.”
I would see young men and women go out into the world with a true
democratic spirit, with a ready sympathy for all classes of people,
and with a helpful attitude toward all problems of state and society.
The work of any public institution of higher learning is a failure in
so far as its graduates fail to honor the state’s claim on them as
citizens. The great principle of evolution is the struggle for life;
there is another equally important principle, namely, the struggle
for the life of others. Altruism, dimly disclosed away down on the
scale of being, finally shines forth in the family and home in all of
those social sentiments that make human character beautiful and noble.
Society is the mirror in which each one sees himself reflected, by
which each attains self-consciousness, and becomes a human being. From
coöperation spring industries, commerce, science, literature, art—all
that makes life worth living. If the individual owes everything to
society, he should be willing in some small ways to repay part of the
debt.
* * * * *
The great Bismarck, that man of iron and blood, not given to
sentimentality, in fireside conversation repeatedly proclaimed that
during his long and arduous struggle for the unification of Germany
he was sustained by a sense of duty and faith in God. “If I did not
believe in a Divine Providence which has ordained this German nation
to something good and great, I would at once give up my trade as a
statesman. If I had not the wonderful basis of religion, I should have
turned my back to the whole court.” Some one has said that the essence
of pessimism is disbelief in God and man. Fear is a kind of atheism.
Heine once said: “God was always the beginning and end of my thought.
When I hear His existence questioned I feel a ghastly forlornness in
a mad world.” The inspiration of labor is faith in God, faith in man,
faith in the moral order of the world, faith in progress. The religious
man should have a sane view of life, should have convictions, and the
courage of his convictions. He should believe that his work all counts
toward some great purpose.
The impulse to reverence and prayer is an essential fact, as real as
the inborn tendency to physical and mental action. Its development is
necessary to the complete man. The religious nature obeys the great
law of power through effort, and increases strength by use. He who by
scientific analysis comes to doubt the value of his ethical feeling has
not learned the essential truth of philosophy, namely, that a thing’s
origin must not be mistaken for its character.
Some tendencies of the best scientific thought of to-day, seen here
and there, confirm this view of man’s nature. Here are some fragments,
expressed, not literally, but in substance: It is the business of
science to analyze the entire content of human consciousness into
atomic sensations, but there its work ends. The man of history, of
freedom and responsibility, whose deeds we approve or disapprove, is
the real man, a being of transcendent worth, aspiring toward perfect
ideals; and the teacher must carry this conception of the child’s
nature into the work of education. It is a scientific fact that prayer
is for the health of the soul. It is useless to theorize on the
subject—men pray because it is their nature; they can not help it. Even
if prayer does not change the will of God, at least it does change
the will of man, which may be the object of prayer. The Christian
experience shows that prayer is a communion of man’s spirit with God,
the Spirit. John Fiske affirms the reality of religion. He argues that
the progress of life has been achieved through adjustment to external
realities; that the religious idea has played a dominant part in
history; that all the analogies of evolution show that man’s religious
nature cannot be an adjustment to an external non-reality. He says: “Of
all the implications of the doctrine of evolution with regard to Man,
I believe the very deepest and strongest to be that which asserts the
Everlasting Reality of Religion.”
* * * * *
In this message to students we have emphasized a particular ideal,
namely, normal activity, because one’s own effort and experience count
most for growth and power.
“It was better youth
Should strive, through acts uncouth,
Toward making, than repose on aught found made.”
Students are at an age when to them the roses nod and the stars seem to
wink. Their mental landscape is filled with budding flowers, singing
birds, and rosy dawns. Every one has a right to consider his own
perfection and enjoyment, his own emotions. One is better for his
healthful recreations, his aspirations and ideals, his perceptions
of beauty and his divine communings—the sweetness and light of the
soul. We can only ask that the main purpose and trend of life may be
laborious and useful, even strenuous and successful.