This world would be tiresome, we'd all get the blues,
If all the folks in it held just the same views;
So do your work to the best of your skill,
Some people won't like it, but other folks will.
Jean Jacques Rousseau, a French-Swiss philosopher, nearing the end of
his days complained that in all his life he never knew rest or content
for the reason he had never known a home. His mother died giving him
birth, his father was a shiftless dancing master. Rousseau claimed his
misfortunes began with his birth and clung to him all his life. Rousseau
was one of the few persons who have attained distinction without the aid
of a home in youth. No matter how humble the home, it is the beginning
of that education that brings out all the better nature of a human
being.
The home is the God-appointed educator of the young. We have educational
institutions, colleges, schools, but the real school where the lessons
of life are indelibly impressed upon the mind is the home. We write and
talk of the higher education. There is no higher education than that
taught in a well regulated home presided over by God-fearing, man-loving
parents whose lives are a sacrifice to create a future for their
children. The parents, rather than the children, should be given credit
for the successes of this life.
Alfred had separated himself from his home several times but never
decided to leave it for any lengthy period; but now the time had arrived
when it seemed to him the parting of the ways in his ambitious life was
at hand.
On the dead walls, fences and old buildings, were pasted highly colored
show bills announcing the coming of Thayer & Noyes Great American
Circus. Alfred decided he would go hence as a member of the troupe.
The humdrum life of the old town had begun to wear on his energetic
feelings. There were social pleasures sufficient to make the days and
nights joyous, but Alfred was thinking beyond the days thereof.
The circus had come and gone. "I will take your address. If anything
occurs that I can use you I will write. You can expect a letter from me
soon." With these words Dr. Thayer crushed Alfred's hopes.
Alfred voted the show the best he had ever witnessed, but the concert,
the after show that promised so much and gave so little, he condemned.
After writing several letters and destroying them, deciding they did not
fulfill all requirements, the following letter was mailed: