A young man starts out to succeed in life. His enemy may lie
about him, may call him worthless. He may think he is hurting
him. If there is anything in the young man, the enemy's lies and
discouraging words only spur him on to greater effort. They do
him good.
It is the friend that ruins the young man by false, injudicious,
unearned praise.
As artist, poet, writer, clerk, or in any other effort, the young
man begins his work.
It is his friends who tell him that he is a splendid success,
when he needs to be told that, at best, he has some slight chance
of success, and that everything depends on desperate effort.
Look at the young, conceited fool who, instead of struggling on,
rails at the world, feels that he is not appreciated. He is a
failure--a sad, foolish failure. He has been made a failure, not
by the attacks of his enemies, but by the more dangerous praise
of his friends. ----
The lonely and friendless often succeed amazingly. "Multum
incola fuit anima mea" ("My spirit hath been much alone") said
the great Bacon. His mind fed on loneliness, on failure, and
even on disgrace.
How much success is due to freedom from that harm which
friendship does?
The reader can finish this editorial for himself with hundreds of
other arguments. This is enough for a sample.
SHALL WE TAME AND CHAIN THE INVISIBLE MICROBE AS WE NOW CHAIN
NIAGARA?
When Solomon was gathering his materials to build the Temple,
his, large cedar trunks from Lebanon and his costly materials
from everywhere, he used oxen, mules, camels.
With all his wisdom, he little dreamed that the day would come
when his descendants, instead of using mules and huge beasts of
burden, would heat water and with steam develop a force
sufficient to tear his Temple from its foundation.
Still less did he dream that steam would eventually be
superseded, as clumsy and primitive, by the invisible force of
electricity.
When the thunder roared, the lightning flashed and his conscience
troubled him, Solomon, turning away from his thousand wives and
his numerous other doubtful associates, put his head under the
richly embroidered pillow, worked, perhaps, by Sheba's own fair
hands--it did not enter his mind that that lightning could be
tamed and put to work.
Man has been gradually controlling and employing the various
animals on the earth's surface. He taught the elephant to haul
wood and water and to fight his battles. He trained the horse,
the dog. He even taught falcons to bring him back birds from
beyond the clouds, and otters to catch fish in the bottom of
lakes and rivers.
Gradually he has made himself independent of his animal partners.
The rifle made the falcon useless; steam destroyed the importance
of the horse and the ox.
But apparently we have only begun using animal life. We must run
the whole gamut of the marvels of creation before conquering
conditions on this earth. ----
We used to train the biggest dogs to kill wolves. The Government
of the United States is now breeding darning-needles to kill
mosquitoes.
A certain kind of wasp, with a black and white striped body,
spends his time killing house-flies, and this creature could be
bred and used to destroy the disease-spreading pests.
Even the invisible insect life can be made most useful to man and
to his health.
The latest plan for disposing of city sewage involves the
cultivation of microbes, to be employed as disinfectors.
Several towns in Illinois and in Wisconsin have established
plants for the purification of sewage by means of microbe life.
The collections of organisms invisible to the naked eye are to be
kept in great antiseptic tanks, and employed in the purification
of the city 's refuse.
Mosquitoes will ultimately be destroyed, undoubtedly, by breeding
among them smaller creatures fatal to their existence.
Man, in his conquest and use of animal life, will run the gamut,
from the biggest elephant, employed as a public executioner in
India, to the invisible microbe, doing a work ten thousand times
more important all over the globe.
These infinitesimal microbes, bred and controlled by science,
will do regularly and methodically the work which buzzards and
vultures have done on land, which sharks and dogfish have done at
sea, throughout endless centuries.
To the marvellous workings of nature we cannot possibly give too
much thought or too great admiration. Gardens are filled with
beautiful flowers, and fields are fertile to-day because hundreds
of years ago sea birds were devouring the carcasses of dead fish,
acting as nature's scavengers, and building up the great guano
fields of South America.
There is a Peruvian millionaire in his big yacht, and there is a
rose in full bloom--the millionaire's money, the beauty of the
rose, come from those birds that picked up the dead fish five
hundred years ago.
It's an interesting world.
THE ELEPHANT THAT WILL NOT MOVE HAS BETTER EXCUSES THAN WE HAVE
FOR FOLLY DISPLAYED
This is an editorial which we shall merely suggest, and which
each reader will write out for himself.
In the Zoological Garden of New York a poor elephant has stood in
chains for years. The animal was thought to be vicious, and was
kept fastened tightly to one spot, that it might have no leeway
to do damage.
A short time ago its keeper became convinced that the elephant
would do no harm and might safely be unchained. The chains were
taken off, and the keeper thought with satisfaction that the poor
beast would now enjoy freedom and be made happy by the
possibility of moving freely about its large inclosure.
The elephant did not move. The chains were gone, it was no
longer tied, but it stood, and it still stands, in just the same
spot.
The habit of slavery, of monotony, had become too strong. The
elephant, though free, stands still, sadly swaying its heavy
head, ignorant of the freedom that has come to it.
Men and women and children who see the elephant, and other men
who write paragraphs for the newspapers, dilate on the poor
animal's "stupidity."
"The elephant has been called the most intelligent of animals,"
says one writer, "but this elephant, that doesn't know when the
chains are off, seems to prove that the elephant can be a good
deal of a fool."
How easy it is for us human beings to see the faults in others,
our fellows, and the animals below us.
But which one of us can truly say that he is not in exactly the
same position as that poor elephant, fixed to one spot by the
chains of long ago?
Are we not still standing as a race just as we stood years and
centuries ago, ignorant of the freedom that has come to us?
Thousands of splendid men have worked, lived and died to free us
from superstition, from credulity, from ignorance, yet still we
stand in the same place, and fail to appreciate the freedom that
is ours. ----
Millions of us, tied down by foolish superstition, are like that
elephant--the chains are off, but we stand still.
The road to peace, happiness and universal progress has been
shown us in the teachings of great leaders, but we still stand in
the same old place, fighting, hating, cheating, suspecting,
harming one another.
Here and there there is a little progress; gradually we begin to
appreciate and enjoy the freedom that has been given to us with
the striking away of old mental chains. The process is slow.
Look into your own mind. Do you take advantage of all the
possibilities that are before you? Do you use your brain to
control your existence, acts and habits for your own benefit and
the benefit of others?
If not, you ought to sympathize with this poor elephant, and
realize that as your brain exceeds his in bulk proportionately,
so do you exceed him in the folly that misses opportunity.