apparent; again, it is painfully real. To determine what is an apparent
conflict and what a real is one of the difficult problems we have to
solve. It is surprising how little help others, as a rule, can give us
in its solution; in fact, this is one of the situations in life where we
must stand alone--must make our own decisions and bear the
responsibility for them. To try to follow the judgment of others often
results only in bewilderment.
Should a young man or woman accept an education to be paid for by money
toilsomely earned by self-sacrificing parents? We cannot tell until we
know all the circumstances. What would be base selfishness in one case
becomes in another a sacred duty. Should the daughter whose presence
gives cheer leave the home for a larger sphere of usefulness? Should the
widowed mother wear herself out and fill an early grave in order that
her children may have the advantages which will make them intelligent
and useful men and women? Should the physician sacrifice his life in
order that the devastating scourge may give up its secret and other
lives be saved? To what extent is it your duty to imperil your health or
your life for the needs of others? There is not one of us who does not
sometimes meet with such questions as these. As to minor questions
involving the same principles, we encounter them every day.
Just here I wish to point out certain frequent fallacies regarding our
duties and obligations. The first is, that if you greatly desire to do
or to have a thing, it would therefore be selfish for you to do it or to
have it. The ascetics of the Middle Ages acted on this assumption. They
practiced self-denial for the sake of self-denial, without any larger
aim. The ascetic sacrifices himself for nothing. I have known people who
seemed to direct their lives in accordance with the same theory. (They
were always women!) I once had a friend who did so. As soon as she found
that she had quite set her heart upon anything, she promptly gave it up.
If there was something she did not want to do, she was sure to do it,
for it must be her duty. I need not point out the unintelligence of this
procedure. To live with her was almost necessarily to grow selfish. Did
you ever think of the bad result upon a family of having one unwisely
unselfish member? Such a person unconsciously develops selfishness in
the others. Excessive unselfishness defeats itself. It does not even
benefit those for whom the sacrifice is made, but injures them instead.
Thus foolish mothers spoil their children, wives ruin their husbands,
sisters destroy the character of their brothers, and brothers even have
been known to pet and humor their sisters into egregious selfishness.
It is evident, then, that duties to self and duties to others are
inextricably interwoven. The thing which you want may be best for you,
and may serve the interests of others as well as yourself. Securing an
education, for example, may double or treble your usefulness, not only
to the world in general, but to those individuals who made the sacrifice
in order that you might have it.
Self-sacrifice is noble, but if it is to be worthy self-sacrifice, the
end must be worthy. Nothing could be finer, for example, than to risk
one's life for another human being in danger, but we have only contempt
for the man who imperils his life for no worthy end. That end must
always be a _larger self_, and we shall respect the person in proportion
to the worth of the larger self. The family is a larger self, so is
one's school, church, city. The soldier in obeying the call of his
country is serving a still larger self, and this call rarely falls on
deaf ears. When the interests of the individual come into conflict with
the interests of the larger unit, the individual's interests must give
way. Sometime all good and intelligent people will realize what only the
few see now, that there is a larger self even than country, and that is,
humanity. When that time comes, nation can no more be arrayed against
nation in the terrors of war. There should be no conflict between
loyalty to country and loyalty to humanity, and the tragedy of war is
that there is such a conflict.
There are many kinds of sacrifice besides the sacrifice of life. The
sacrifice of material things is of no great moment, for they are not a
part of ourselves. The greatest sacrifice we can make, next to that of
life itself, is the sacrifice of our own growth. Deliberately to remain
small, for the sake of duty, when we might have been large, requires all
the heroism of which most of us are capable. Such a sacrifice has been
made times without number by parents for their children and by sons or
daughters for the sake of parents dependent upon them. It has been made
by martyrs for their religion, by patriots for their country. It has
been made by teachers for their pupils and by doctors and nurses for
their patients. If we sacrifice our own larger growth and highest
self-realization,--and it is sometimes necessary,--let us see to it that
the end we aim to accomplish justifies the damage to ourselves. It is to
be feared that such a sacrifice is often made without due consideration
of relative values. The young man or woman who gives up an education for
the sake of rendering service to others should make sure that the end
aimed at is one of superlative worth. The mother whom I knew, who
refused to allow her daughter to carry out her cherished plan of going
to college, simply because she did not want to give up her daughter's
companionship for four years, was an example of pitiable and
short-sighted selfishness. The sacrifice she demanded was not justified
because it was for no worthy end.
Often a great sacrifice of self now will mean that one will have little
to give by and by, when the need may perhaps be larger. The self you
have to give now is small. Why not make it larger before any complete
self-surrender? We cannot give unless we have something to give. "If you
would be a great giver," says one of our philosophers, "you must first
be a great person." You dream of enriching the world with your life.
Then make it a rich life.
A second fallacy often held is that obligations for which one is not
likely to be called to account until the distant future are less binding
than those which make their claim felt now. None of us acknowledge that
we so regard duty; but if we do not, it is difficult to account for some
of our actions. For the sake of fashion or of vanity modes of dress are
often followed which are bound to result in impairment of health. Wrong
habits of eating injure the digestion, late hours drain the vitality.
Thus we buy present gratification at the cost of our future welfare. To
no other class of persons is it as important to say this as to girls.
Many a girl acts as if she believed that she would have no use for any
health or strength after she was thirty years old, and so were willing
to squander all she had in a few months or years. She should remember
that she will need at least as much each year of her threescore and ten
as she does this year. There will be people in the future to whom she
will owe obligation, just as there are now, some of whom are yet unborn.
When we are inclined to overwork, the same arguments should apply. Why
spend one's self in a single effort? Why not take account of the work
that must be done in future years? I have known short-sighted young
people who spent their entire capital of health in getting an education,
only to live thenceforth lives of impaired usefulness.
One of the questions which the most conscientious of us must constantly
ask ourselves is to what extent we should share whatever material
possessions we may have with those less fortunate than ourselves. The
needy are all about us and the claims of suffering humanity are
insistent. The call must not fall on deaf ears. For some this call has
seemed so imperative as to make them surrender all they had for the sake
of alleviating distress or of making life more worth while for a few of
their fellow beings. Too many go to the other extreme and admit no
obligation to their fellow men.
Here are some questions in social ethics for you to ask yourself: Have I
a right to live in a fine house, to have expensive clothing, and to
spend money on travel and other pleasures when there are so many people
in the world suffering for the necessities of life? To my mind the
answer is, I have a right to spend money on myself only so far as it
will make me a person of greater value to the world. If I should give
away everything I have to those whose need is greater than mine, and
live in a hovel, only a few out of the vast number of the needy would be
benefited and I should be unfitted to accomplish the work in life which
I am in duty bound to accomplish. What shall we say, however, of those
who all through life are consumers and not producers, who add nothing to
the world, but continually take from it? What further shall we say, if,
in addition to being a non-producer, one is wasteful of that which has
been produced by others, using it for self-indulgence and selfish
pleasure? I have a friend who was once criticized for her simple and
inexpensive clothing. Her reply was, "How can I spend much money for
clothes when there are so many young people in the world suffering for
an education?"
It seems to me, then, that loyalty to self demands that we should regard
self as nearly as possible in an impersonal way. We must not ask for
more than our share, yet we should take our portion just as we should
expect another to do, not for our own pleasure or selfish ambition, but
in order that we may be able to render the largest possible service to
our day and generation. By these questions test every benefit you seek
for yourself and especially every luxury that tempts you: Have I a
_right_ to this benefit or this luxury? That is, can I take it and at
the same time be just to others? If the answer is in the affirmative, a
further question should be asked: Will it help me to become a more
valuable person? If the answer is in the negative, then, even though you
have a right to it, your larger privilege is to surrender that right.
X
THE VALUE OF DISCIPLINE
One of the most frequent and least satisfactory answers given to
students in reply to the question _why_ a certain subject must be
studied, or a given course of conduct pursued, is, "It is good
discipline." That statement is probably true, but it is sometimes
difficult for the questioner to understand. He asks, What is discipline?
And why has it the virtue claimed for it?
By discipline I suppose we mean the subordination of the self to
something outside of the self, or, at least, the subordination of the
self to law, even though that law be self-made. The psychologist could
explain to you that the law of habit is the controlling factor in all
discipline. The thing that has been done many times is finally done with
ease, is perhaps done automatically. Ease, as some one has said, is the
lovely result of forgotten toil. The laws that apply in learning to play
the piano or to ride a bicycle are not different from those involved in
the training of the intellect or the will.
It is not necessary to point out the very evident truth, that no school
could command the respect of its students for a single day if it had no
discipline. Whether the regulations are made by the students themselves
or by a higher power, there must not only be subordination of the whims
and caprices of each student to his own higher interests, but there must
be subordination of the will of each individual to the common good. No
school community could furnish the proper conditions for growth whose
members did exactly as they pleased unless each pleased to consider the
rights of others as sacred as his own. Whether from alien compulsion or
from some inner law, each must make his contribution to the welfare of
the whole. The result is system and order that enables each to go his
way, free to put forth his best effort. Each member of the community
must give up a portion of his own freedom for the common good, that
common good being for him a much larger freedom. Students sometimes
think too much about the freedom they surrender and not enough about the
benefits that surrender secures.
Perhaps you have sometimes for the moment grown a little restive under
discipline--who of us has not?--and have longed for the time when you
could do just as you please. There are, doubtless, times when even the
most faithful student longs to "play truant." Yet holding one's self to
definite and stated tasks is the surest road to the largest freedom.
As there is no royal road to learning, so, also, there is none to mental
insight and acumen. You must think, compare, reason, remember. You must
learn accuracy and precision. When the facts more or less laboriously
acquired in school and college have been for the most part forgotten,
the mind, if it has been really disciplined, still retains the power of
grappling with new problems and solving them. This power is worth all it
costs. The value it adds to life can hardly be overestimated. It gives
an independence and a mastery over things that can be gained in no other
way. It is the means of providing resources that make life vastly more
worth living. It increases one's usefulness to the world many-fold. Such
mental training may be had, too, by most of us if we are willing to pay
the price. The majority of people, however, are not willing to do that,
and therefore those who are generally find themselves in positions of
leadership.
The training of the will is just as important as the training of the
intellect; nay, more important, since thought is powerless until put
into action. Essential as it is that the average citizen should be a
trained thinker, even more so is it that he be a person of right action.
Yet the two kinds of training need not be set over against each other as
if one needed to choose between them. They should go hand in hand.
It is difficult to say which is the source of greater danger in a
community, the weak and nerveless will, or the strong but perverse will.
Our prisons, penitentiaries, and reform schools are recruited for the
most part from the ranks of the weak of mind and will. In every
community the many are easily led by the few. This is true in social
life and perhaps doubly true in political life, as we in America know to
our cost. That the perverse will may easily grow into the wicked will,
bent only on selfish and base ends, there is constant proof in the world
about us. Such men as those designated by a former President as
"malefactors of great wealth" belong to this class. Tyrants and despots
are made of men of strong but unregulated will. To this class belong the
overbearing and autocratic everywhere, who always insist upon having
their own way regardless of the rights or the feelings of others.
Without fully realizing it, many a family has among its members one
whose will rules the household, not because it is the wisest will, but
because it is the most determined.
"Man is made great or little by his will," said Schiller. The
disciplined will has gained the power of attention and of industry, has
learned method, accuracy, and dispatch in doing work. It has acquired
patience and perseverance and knows how to resist, to persist, to attack
and to conquer obstacles. "My imagination would never have served me as
it has," said Charles Dickens, "but for the habit of commonplace,
humble, patient, daily, toiling, drudging attention." "Genius," said
George Eliot, "is a vast capacity for receiving discipline." If even the
great writers admit, as many of them do, that their work is the result
of long and patient self-discipline, surely in the more ordinary walks
of life that kind of training may not be despised.
To have a work that we love is one of the supreme things to be desired
in life. It must be admitted, however, that the majority of the world's
workers find little pleasure in their task. Yet the next best thing to
doing one's work with enjoyment is to _do_ it--even without enjoyment.
This takes strength of will, more strength of will, indeed, than many
possess. This is one of the reasons (though not the only one) why there
are always and everywhere so many persons out of employment. The number
of such persons who have to be taken care of by the charity of the
State, simply because they cannot or will not hold themselves to labor
of any kind, is appalling.
But even the most favored of us, congenial though our work may be, have
duties to perform every day that are not especially pleasurable. A few
years ago Dr. Eliot, then President of Harvard College, addressed a body
of laboring men on "The Joy of Labor." He tried to show them that they
should not expect pleasure in every detail of their work, but rather in
seeing its larger relationships, and in working toward a certain
definite goal. He said that among the men of his acquaintance, those
whose work seemed to him most enviable had much to do in the course of
each day that could by no means be called pleasurable and that had to be
done by sheer effort of will. The men whom he was addressing, he
remarked, probably regarded his own work as wholly delightful; yet that
was by no means the case, as the larger part of each day's work was
drudgery, and his joy in doing it came only through realizing its
importance in the scheme of the whole. It is the disciplined will which
enables us to do the disagreeable or the uninteresting thing
uncomplainingly. The scientist at work in his laboratory, the lawyer
preparing his brief, the business man toiling by day and often by night
in his office, give most of their time to uninteresting details. Yet the
difference between success and failure usually lies in one's ability or
lack of ability to hold himself to uninspiring details.
Does the mother who has the care of a family need a disciplined will?
Who, indeed, needs it more? In whose life is there more of petty detail
and unending drudgery? Where is there greater need of the wide outlook
and the large vision? In this case it is the vision of a perfect home
which glorifies the petty details and the drudgery.
"Who sweeps a room as for thy laws
Makes that and the action fine."
The person of disciplined will has learned to respect the rights of
others. English people often comment on the lack of discipline in a
certain type of American home, with its self-asserting children who
ignore the rights of their elders. These children, grown up into young
men and women, trample on the rights and on the feelings of others. The
spoiled girl who goes away from home to live the community life in
school or college can quickly be distinguished from her more fortunate
fellow students who have behind them years of the firm and kindly
discipline of a wise home. She is obliged to adjust herself to the new
conditions, where her rights are of no more importance than those of any
one else. She must put herself under prompt and severe discipline if she
is to win for herself any place in the school or college world. If she
fails to do this, she must pay the penalty. Until she can be an
acceptable member of the community, she can have but small share in its
life. One of the best reasons why every girl should receive a part of
her schooling away from home is because of the wholesome discipline sure
to be administered by her fellow students.
The athletic field is one of the best places in the world for
discipline. Self-subordination to the good of the whole forms the basis
of success in every game. Good "team-work" admits of no bumptiousness on
the part of any player. No good, clean game is ever played without its
lessons in self-restraint and self-control.
A trained and disciplined will you will find to be your most valuable
resource, enabling you to do the thing that ought to be done and to do
it when it ought to be done, whether you like it or not. Is not this
power the greatest asset possessed by those who have achieved true
success in every age? In these days, when learning is so often
sugar-coated and made attractive by every possible device, it is well to
emphasize this point. It seems to be the aim of some teachers--indeed,
of some schools of education--to administer the greatest amount of
knowledge with the least amount of effort on the part of the pupil.
Every device and every method which deprives a pupil of doing his own
thinking is harmful. The more genuine effort put forth the better. We
all know that the quick pupil who learns without effort is often
surpassed later in life by the plodding, hard-working pupil. One reason
is that the latter was forced to acquire while young those habits of
industry and perseverance which are the price of success.
A wise sprinkling of electives is a great improvement upon the iron-clad
course of study of a generation ago. I certainly would not be understood
as saying that it is better to study without enjoyment than with
enjoyment, for I strongly believe the opposite. There is a tendency
among students, however, in selecting a course of study to follow the
lines of least resistance. I would almost advise a student to go to the
other extreme. Remembering my own student days and the feeling of joy
and mastery that came from conquering some particularly difficult
subject in an inflexible course of study, I should give every student
the opportunity occasionally to measure himself against a subject that
is especially hard for him. It strengthens the sinews of the mind. It
breeds confidence and power. Can you not remember some occasion when you
mastered some especially difficult problem or subject, and can you not
still feel the exhilaration that came with that mastery? You became
suddenly conscious of new power, you could feel yourself grow. Then how
can you believe that you are being educated if your work is not of such
a nature as to call forth your highest powers? In regard to the tendency
of students in schools and colleges to choose "snap courses," Dean
Briggs says, "For any responsible work we want men of character--not men
who from childhood up have been personally conducted and have had their
education warped to the indolence of their minds." The attitude of mind
which is satisfied merely with a passing grade is most unscholarly and
betrays low ideals. One who is so satisfied has missed the conception of
what education really is.
In life, as most of us quickly find out, one of the most important
things we have to do is to overcome obstacles. They beset every path and
either they must yield or we must. Life is not intended to be easy for
any of us. Sometimes we meet persons who give us the impression of being
able to conquer any situation or any combination of circumstances in
which they may be placed. Whatever they undertake, we know they will
carry it through in spite of obstacles. Such people inspire confidence
wherever they go. We instinctively feel that they may safely be
entrusted with large things. Julia Ward Howe used to say that she never
dared to remark to her husband, Dr. Howe, that anything was impossible,
for he would go straight off and do it!
I wonder if it was not the discipline in the soldier's life which made
the early apostles speak so often of the Christian life in terms of
warfare. Certainly there is nothing else in war that could have appealed
to them. The soldier is the embodiment of discipline. He who would
command others must first learn to obey. It is through obedience,
discipline, that we come to authority. The first claim to a position of
leadership in the world is complete mastery of one's self.
XI
THE SUCCESSFUL LIFE