as philanthropic agents, whose work, nevertheless, is as truly
philanthropic in character as that of any man or woman existing. I
allude to the public-school teachers whose schools lie in the poorer
quarters of the city. In dealing with any body of men and women general
statements must be made cautiously, and it must always be understood
that there are numerous exceptions. Speaking generally, however, the
women teachers—I mention these because they are more numerous than
the men—who carry on their work in the poorer districts of the great
cities form as high-principled and useful a body of citizens as is
to be found in the entire community, and render an amount of service
which can hardly be paralleled by that of any other equal number of men
or women. Most women who lead lives actively devoted to intelligent
work for others grow to have a certain look of serene and high purpose
which stamps them at once. This look is generally seen, for instance,
among the higher types of women doctors, trained nurses, and of those
who devote their lives to work among the poor; and it is precisely
this look which one so often sees on the faces of those public-school
teachers who have grown to regard the welfare of their pupils as
the vital interest of their own lives. It is not merely the regular
day-work the school-teachers do, but the amount of attention they pay
outside their regular classes; the influence they have in shaping
the lives of the boys, and perhaps even more of the girls, brought
in contact with them; the care they take of the younger, and the way
they unconsciously hold up ideals to the elder boys and girls, to whom
they often represent the most tangible embodiment of what is best in
American life. They are a great force for producing good citizenship.
Above all things, they represent the most potent power in Americanizing
as well as in humanizing the children of the newcomers of every grade
who arrive here from Europe. Where the immigrant parents are able to
make their way in the world, their children have no more difficulty
than the children of the native-born in becoming part of American life,
in sharing all its privileges and in doing all its duties. But the
children of the very poor of foreign birth would be handicapped almost
as much as their parents, were it not for the public schools and the
start thus given them. Loyalty to the flag is taught by precept and
practice in all these public schools, and loyalty to the principles of
good citizenship is also taught in no merely perfunctory manner.
Here I hardly touch upon the “little red schoolhouse” out in the
country districts simply because in the country districts all of
our children go to the same schools, and thereby get an inestimable
knowledge of the solidarity of our American life. I have touched on
this in a former article, and I can here only say that it would be
impossible to overestimate the good done by the association this
engenders, and the excellent educational work of the teachers. We
always feel that we have given our children no small advantage by the
mere fact of allowing them to go to these little district schools,
where they all have the same treatment and are all tried by the same
standard. But with us in the country the district school is only
philanthropic in that excellent sense in which all joint effort for the
common good is philanthropic.
A very wholesome effect has been produced in great cities by the
university settlements, college settlements, and similar efforts to
do practical good by bringing closer together the more and the less
fortunate in life. It is no easy task to make movements of this
kind succeed. If managed in a spirit of patronizing condescension,
or with ignorance of the desires, needs, and passions of those round
about, little good indeed will come from them. The fact that, instead
of little, much good does in reality result, is due to the entirely
practical methods and the spirit of comradeship shown by those foremost
in these organizations. One particularly good feature has been their
tendency to get into politics. Of course this has its drawbacks,
but they are outweighed by the advantages. Clean politics is simply
one form of applied good citizenship. No man can be a really good
citizen unless he takes a lively interest in politics from a high
standpoint. Moreover, the minute that a move is made in politics, the
people who are helped and those who would help them grow to have a
common interest which is genuine and absorbing instead of being in any
degree artificial, and this will bring them together as nothing else
would. Part of the good that results from such community of feeling
is precisely like the good that results from the community of feeling
about a club, football team, or baseball nine. This in itself has a
good side; but there is an even better side, due to the fact that
disinterested motives are appealed to, and that men are made to feel
that they are working for others, for the community as a whole as well
as for themselves.
There remain the host of philanthropic workers who can not be classed
in any of the above-mentioned classes. They do most good when they are
in touch with some organization, although, in addition, the strongest
will keep some of their leisure time for work on individual lines to
meet the cases where no organized relief will accomplish anything.
Philanthropy has undoubtedly been a good deal discredited both by
the exceedingly noxious individuals who go into it with ostentation
to make a reputation, and by the only less noxious persons who are
foolish and indiscriminate givers. Anything that encourages pauperism,
anything that relaxes the manly fibre and lowers self-respect,
is an unmixed evil. The soup-kitchen style of philanthropy is as
thoroughly demoralizing as most forms of vice or oppression, and it
is of course particularly revolting when some corporation or private
individual undertakes it, not even in a spirit of foolish charity,
but for purposes of self-advertisement. In a time of sudden and
widespread disaster, caused by a flood, a blizzard, an earthquake, or
an epidemic, there may be ample reason for the extension of charity
on the largest scale to every one who needs it. But these conditions
are wholly exceptional, and the methods of relief employed to meet
them must also be treated as wholly exceptional. In charity the one
thing always to be remembered is that, while any man may slip and
should at once be helped to rise to his feet, yet no man can be
carried with advantage either to him or to the community. The greatest
possible good can be done by the extension of a helping hand at the
right moment, but the attempt to carry any one permanently can end in
nothing but harm. The really hard-working philanthropists, who spend
their lives in doing good to their neighbors, do not, as a rule,
belong to the “mushy” class, and thoroughly realize the unwisdom of
foolish and indiscriminate giving, or of wild and crude plans of social
reformations. The young enthusiast who is for the first time brought
into contact with the terrible suffering and stunting degradation which
are so evident in many parts of our great cities is apt to become so
appalled as to lose his head. If there is a twist in his moral or
mental make-up, he will never regain his poise; but if he is sound
and healthy he will soon realize that things being bad affords no
justification for making them infinitely worse, and that the only safe
rule is for each man to strive to do his duty in a spirit of sanity and
wholesome common-sense. No one of us can make the world move on very
far, but it moves at all only when each one of a very large number does
his duty.
CHARACTER AND SUCCESS
PUBLISHED IN THE “OUTLOOK,” MARCH 31, 1900
A year or two ago I was speaking to a famous Yale professor, one of
the most noted scholars in the country, and one who is even more than
a scholar, because he is in every sense of the word a man. We had been
discussing the Yale-Harvard foot-ball teams, and he remarked of a
certain player: “I told them not to take him, for he was slack in his
studies, and my experience is that, as a rule, the man who is slack in
his studies will be slack in his foot-ball work; it is character that
counts in both.”
Bodily vigor is good, and vigor of intellect is even better, but far
above both is character. It is true, of course, that a genius may,
on certain lines, do more than a brave and manly fellow who is not
a genius; and so, in sports, vast physical strength may overcome
weakness, even though the puny body may have in it the heart of a
lion. But, in the long run, in the great battle of life, no brilliancy
of intellect, no perfection of bodily development, will count when
weighed in the balance against that assemblage of virtues, active and
passive, of moral qualities, which we group together under the name of
character; and if between any two contestants, even in college sport or
in college work, the difference in character on the right side is as
great as the difference of intellect or strength the other way, it is
the character side that will win.
Of course this does not mean that either intellect or bodily vigor can
safely be neglected. On the contrary, it means that both should be
developed, and that not the least of the benefits of developing both
comes from the indirect effect which this development itself has upon
the character. In very rude and ignorant communities all schooling is
more or less looked down upon; but there are now very few places indeed
in the United States where elementary schooling is not considered a
necessity. There are any number of men, however, priding themselves
upon being “hard-headed” and “practical,” who sneer at book-learning
and at every form of higher education, under the impression that the
additional mental culture is at best useless, and is ordinarily harmful
in practical life. Not long ago two of the wealthiest men in the United
States publicly committed themselves to the proposition that to go to
college was a positive disadvantage for a young man who strove for
success. Now, of course, the very most successful men we have ever had,
men like Lincoln, had no chance to go to college, but did have such
indomitable tenacity and such keen appreciation of the value of wisdom
that they set to work and learned for themselves far more than they
could have been taught in any academy. On the other hand, boys of weak
fibre, who go to high school or college instead of going to work after
getting through the primary schools, may be seriously damaged instead
of benefited. But, as a rule, if the boy has in him the right stuff, it
is a great advantage to him should his circumstances be so fortunate
as to enable him to get the years of additional mental training. The
trouble with the two rich men whose views are above quoted was that,
owing largely perhaps to their own defects in early training, they did
not know what success really was. Their speeches merely betrayed their
own limitations, and did not furnish any argument against education.
Success must always include, as its first element, earning a competence
for the support of the man himself, and for the bringing up of those
dependent upon him. In the vast majority of cases it ought to include
financially rather more than this. But the acquisition of wealth is
not in the least the only test of success. After a certain amount of
wealth has been accumulated, the accumulation of more is of very little
consequence indeed from the standpoint of success, as success should
be understood both by the community and the individual. Wealthy men who
use their wealth aright are a great power for good in the community,
and help to upbuild that material national prosperity which must
underlie national greatness; but if this were the only kind of success,
the nation would be indeed poorly off. Successful statesmen, soldiers,
sailors, explorers, historians, poets, and scientific men are also
essential to national greatness, and, in fact, very much more essential
than any mere successful business man can possibly be. The average man,
into whom the average boy develops, is, of course, not going to be a
marvel in any line, but, if he only chooses to try, he can be very
good in any line, and the chances of his doing good work are immensely
increased if he has trained his mind. Of course, if, as a result of
his high-school, academy, or college experience, he gets to thinking
that the only kind of learning is that to be found in books, he will do
very little; but if he keeps his mental balance,—that is, if he shows
character,—he will understand both what learning can do and what it
can not, and he will be all the better the more he can get.
A good deal the same thing is true of bodily development. Exactly
as one kind of man sneers at college work because he does not think
it bears any immediate fruit in money-getting, so another type of
man sneers at college sports because he does not see their immediate
effect for good in practical life. Of course, if they are carried to
an excessive degree, they are altogether bad. It is a good thing for a
boy to have captained his school or college eleven, but it is a very
bad thing if, twenty years afterward, all that can be said of him is
that he has continued to take an interest in foot-ball, base-ball, or
boxing, and has with him the memory that he was once captain. A very
acute observer has pointed out that, not impossibly, excessive devotion
to sports and games has proved a serious detriment in the British
army, by leading the officers and even the men to neglect the hard,
practical work of their profession for the sake of racing, foot-ball,
base-ball, polo, and tennis—until they received a very rude awakening
at the hands of the Boers. Of course this means merely that any healthy
pursuit can be abused. The student in a college who “crams” in order
to stand at the head of his class, and neglects his health and stunts
his development by working for high marks, may do himself much damage;
but all that he proves is that the abuse of study is wrong. The fact
remains that the study itself is essential. So it is with vigorous
pastimes. If rowing or foot-ball or base-ball is treated as the end of
life by any considerable section of a community, then that community
shows itself to be in an unhealthy condition. If treated as it should
be,—that is, as good, healthy play,—it is of great benefit, not only
to the body, but in its effect upon character. To study hard implies
character in the student, and to work hard at a sport which entails
severe physical exertion and steady training also implies character.
All kinds of qualities go to make up character, for, emphatically, the
term should include the positive no less than the negative virtues. If
we say of a boy or a man, “He is of good character,” we mean that he
does not do a great many things that are wrong, and we also mean that
he does do a great many things which imply much effort of will and
readiness to face what is disagreeable. He must not steal, he must not
be intemperate, he must not be vicious in any way; he must not be mean
or brutal; he must not bully the weak. In fact, he must refrain from
whatever is evil. But besides refraining from evil, he must do good.
He must be brave and energetic; he must be resolute and persevering.
The Bible always inculcates the need of the positive no less than
the negative virtues, although certain people who profess to teach
Christianity are apt to dwell wholly on the negative. We are bidden
not merely to be harmless as doves, but also as wise as serpents. It
is very much easier to carry out the former part of the order than the
latter; while, on the other hand, it is of much more importance for
the good of mankind that our goodness should be accompanied by wisdom
than that we should merely be harmless. If with the serpent wisdom we
unite the serpent guile, terrible will be the damage we do; and if,
with the best of intentions, we can only manage to deserve the epithet
of “harmless,” it is hardly worth while to have lived in the world at
all.
Perhaps there is no more important component of character than
steadfast resolution. The boy who is going to make a great man, or is
going to count in any way in after life, must make up his mind not
merely to overcome a thousand obstacles, but to win in spite of a
thousand repulses or defeats. He may be able to wrest success along
the lines on which he originally started. He may have to try something
entirely new. On the one hand, he must not be volatile and irresolute,
and, on the other hand, he must not fear to try a new line because he
has failed in another. Grant did well as a boy and well as a young
man; then came a period of trouble and failure, and then the Civil War
and his opportunity; and he grasped it, and rose until his name is
among the greatest in our history. Young Lincoln, struggling against
incalculable odds, worked his way up, trying one thing and another
until he, too, struck out boldly into the turbulent torrent of our
national life, at a time when only the boldest and wisest could so
carry themselves as to win success and honor; and from the struggle he
won both death and honor, and stands for evermore among the greatest of
mankind.
Character is shown in peace no less than in war. As the greatest
fertility of invention, the greatest perfection of armament, will not
make soldiers out of cowards, so no mental training and no bodily
vigor will make a nation great if it lacks the fundamental principles
of honesty and moral cleanliness. After the death of Alexander the
Great nearly all of the then civilized world was divided among the
Greek monarchies ruled by his companions and their successors. This
Greek world was very brilliant and very wealthy. It contained haughty
military empires, and huge trading cities, under republican government,
which attained the highest pitch of commercial and industrial
prosperity. Art flourished to an extraordinary degree; science advanced
as never before. There were academies for men of letters; there were
many orators, many philosophers. Merchants and business men throve
apace, and for a long period the Greek soldiers kept the superiority
and renown they had won under the mighty conqueror of the East. But
the heart of the people was incurably false, incurably treacherous and
debased. Almost every statesman had his price, almost every soldier was
a mercenary who, for a sufficient inducement, would betray any cause.
Moral corruption ate into the whole social and domestic fabric, until,
a little more than a century after the death of Alexander, the empire
which he had left had become a mere glittering shell, which went down
like a house of cards on impact with the Romans; for the Romans, with
all their faults, were then a thoroughly manly race—a race of strong,
virile character.
Alike for the nation and the individual, the one indispensable
requisite is character—character that does and dares as well as
endures, character that is active in the performance of virtue no less
than firm in the refusal to do aught that is vicious or degraded.
THE EIGHTH AND NINTH COMMANDMENTS IN POLITICS
PUBLISHED IN THE “OUTLOOK,” MAY 12, 1900
The two commandments which are specially applicable in public life are
the eighth and the ninth. Not only every politician, high or low, but
every citizen interested in politics, and especially every man who, in
a newspaper or on the stump, advocates or condemns any public policy or
any public man, should remember always that the two cardinal points in
his doctrine ought to be, “Thou shalt not steal,” and “Thou shalt not
bear false witness against thy neighbor.” He should also, of course,
remember that the multitude of men who break the moral law expressed
in these two commandments are not to be justified because they keep
out of the clutches of the human law. Robbery and theft, perjury and
subornation of perjury, are crimes punishable by the courts; but many
a man who technically never commits any one of these crimes is yet
morally quite as guilty as is his less adroit but not more wicked,
and possibly infinitely less dangerous, brother who gets into the
penitentiary.
As regards the eighth commandment, while the remark of one of the
founders of our government, that the whole art of politics consists
in being honest, is an overstatement, it remains true that absolute
honesty is what Cromwell would have called a “fundamental” of healthy
political life. We can afford to differ on the currency, the tariff,
and foreign policy; but we can not afford to differ on the question of
honesty if we expect our Republic permanently to endure. No community
is healthy where it is ever necessary to distinguish one politician
among his fellows because “he is honest.” Honesty is not so much a
credit as an absolute prerequisite to efficient service to the public.
Unless a man is honest we have no right to keep him in public life, it
matters not how brilliant his capacity, it hardly matters how great
his power of doing good service on certain lines may be. Probably
very few men will disagree with this statement in the abstract, yet
in the concrete there is much wavering about it. The number of public
servants who actually take bribes is not very numerous outside of
certain well-known centres of festering corruption. But the temptation
to be dishonest often comes in insidious ways. There are not a few
public men who, though they would repel with indignation an offer
of a bribe, will give certain corporations special legislative and
executive privileges because they have contributed heavily to campaign
funds; will permit loose and extravagant work because a contractor has
political influence; or, at any rate, will permit a public servant to
take public money without rendering an adequate return, by conniving
at inefficient service on the part of men who are protected by
prominent party leaders. Various degrees of moral guilt are involved
in the multitudinous actions of this kind; but, after all, directly or
indirectly, every such case comes dangerously near the border-line of
the commandment which, in forbidding theft, certainly by implication
forbids the connivance at theft, or the failure to punish it. One of
the favorite schemes of reformers is to devise some method by which
big corporations can be prevented from making heavy subscriptions to
campaign funds, and thereby acquiring improper influence. But the best
way to prevent them from making contributions for improper purposes
is simply to elect as public servants, not professional denouncers
of corporations,—for such men are in practice usually their most
servile tools,—but men who say, and mean, that they will neither be
for nor against corporations; that, on the one hand, they will not
be frightened from doing them justice by popular clamor, or, on the
other hand, led by any interest whatsoever into doing them more than
justice. At the Anti-Trust Conference last summer Mr. Bryan commented,
with a sneer, on the fact that “of course” New York would not pass
a law prohibiting contributions by corporations. He was right in
thinking that New York, while it retains rational civic habits, will
not pass ridiculous legislation which can not be made effective, and
which is merely intended to deceive during the campaign the voters
least capable of thought. But there will not be the slightest need for
such legislation if only the public spirit is sufficiently healthy,
sufficiently removed alike from corruption and from demagogy, to see
that each corporation receives its exact rights and nothing more;
and this is exactly what is now being done in New York by men whom
dishonest corporations dread a hundred times more than they dread the
demagogic agitators who are a terror merely to honest corporations.