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MEN OF THOUGHT AND MEN OF ACTION.

enough to be an human being, especially an American."

"Now very few of my forefathers," a sensible man will say, "have stones to mark their graves! But they left me a great inheritance. What is that? My mind, my being-all that I am and all that I expect to be. After I have provided an humble shelter for my wife and little ones and have made provision for our essential wants, I will not lift a hand to earn another cent, except for an altruistic end. I will not take pride in what others have builded for me, but in what I have builded for others. The hod-carrier does more for the benefit of the world than the exploiter of others' labor, though he accumulate a million, yea, a billion of wealth. It is the toilers who build the cities by the labor of their hands and brains and that deserve all the honor, not they that nominally own them; they that produce the works of art and literature, not they that hang them against the walls of their homes or place them on their book shelves or on pedestals in their front yards. Let me be poor as was Jesus, if I may leave the world the better, the wiser and the happier for my having lived in it.

YE 19TH LESSON.

Men of Thought and Men of Action.

At no distant day the bubble of the desirableness of great wealth will explode-its glamour pass away-become non-existent in the minds of all sensible persons. School boys read in daily papers and magazines accounts of the evil effects of riches on the sons and daughters of wealthy parents-how, as a rule, luxury and idleness lead to degeneracy. Then, on the other hand, they fill commonplace books with clippings of which what follows is a sample:

"From the shepherd's cote comes David, the sweet singer. From the plow comes Burns, baptizing the field mouse and the daisy with the immortality of song. From the poor comes the father of poetry, blind, aged and a beggar. The father of philosophy, Socrates, has but one garment, and that worn threadbare. Epictetus, the great moralist, is a slave. And what shall we more say of our indebtedness to the working classes, save that Martin Luther comes from the colliery and Newton from the home of the seamstress, and James Watt from a bare kitchen, and the great President from rail splitting; while the poets, the merchants, the statesmen and the jurists have not dwelt in that clime named riches, but rather have been reared in the unfriendly zones where poverty rules."

And instances are not uncommon of ambitious young men, sons of wealthy parents, cutting loose from the enervating influences of wealth and starting out to win their way to success, as the sons of poor men have done. We have no nobler example of this than is that set by Earl Shaw, son of an ex-governor of Iowa, and secretary of the treasury at Washington under McKinley and Roosevelt. Secretary Shaw is a rich man-was wealthy before he entered politics-but his noble boy does not see any advantage to him in this, but cuts loose and undertakes to climb by his own strength. I clip the following from a morning paper:

"Passing by all of the luxury and all of the social prominence which his position as son of the secretary of the treasury would give him, Earl Shaw, formerly a Des Moines boy, has accepted work as a common laborer on the government dock at Seattle. There he remains, unmindful of the supplications of his mother and sister, who went to Seattle and there attempted to persuade him to return home. Instead, he remained at his work and pointed to his workman's uniform and at his grimy hands with pride.

"Young Shaw is an original fellow and proposes to stand on his His work on the dock has been so good, because of

own resources.

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his knowledge of civil engineering, secured in a course at Cornell college, that he has been promised the foremanship of the gang of men of which he is now a member. This is Shaw's ambition now. It is said that his wishes have been made known to his father, who is satisfied to have his son work out his own future.

"It is well known that Shaw the elder was at one time a woodsawer and even peddled nursery stock in order to make his way through college. The son always pointed with pride to how his father got his start and repeatedly remarked that to be the way to build up one's position in life."

That young American is a philosopher as truly as was Socrates or Plato or the Sage of Verona. It is what we do and accomplish and not what we possess of artificial wealth that ennobles. Earl Shaw, by his example to the youth of our country, is destined, I trust, to do great good, as has President Roosevelt by his example done and is doing. These have the same ideal of the true object of life, as had George Washington. What was that ideal? Not money-making as a primary aim. Under our present order of society men individually must lay up something for old age. And how little does each really need! One can live comfortably and dress decently on an income of ten dollars a month. Sensible people see the folly of throwing life away "making money" as its supreme aim, and the crime of it, too, if the end can be reached only by the exploitation and robbery of other men-grinding the faces of the poor.

The great men of America's past were those who by labor changed the wilderness into a park

"Men of thought and men of action."

The wealthy man today, building the future greatness of his countrybringing in the new civilization in advance of all the past-devoting his accumulations, justly earned, to the lifting up of the lowly-destroying vice-destroying ignorance-destroying the hells of iniquity— making life worth living to all-he is a benefactor following in the footsteps of our pioneer ancestors who leveled the forests, broke the prairie sod and builded by the labor of their own hands the present greatness of these states.

YE 20TH LESSON.

College Women and College Men.

Why are girls in college, where co-education prevails, so exemplary in behavior? It is because the environment is like that of home and the students are as sisters and brothers. There is no other class of young women to compare with college girls in all that is womanly and becoming. Their thoughts, centered on the cultivation of their minds, they present a modest simplicity of dress and of manners-the same as at home surrounded by parents, brothers and sisters. And, after graduation, what a grand contrast do they present to the frivolous "social sets" devoted to whist and "entertaining"-wives of men as frivolous and ignorant as themselves (though "rich in this world's good")-devourers of current literature, novels, books that have no reason for existence, except that they sell. Before me is one of these "popular" novels, containing a cut of a loving sister sitting on a sofa preparing cigarettes for her brother, who is about to go from homea fine thing for a sister to do! But that is about the high-water mark of "elevated novel literature"!

And the wife and mother who has been a college student, whether she spent one year or four inside college walls, is the wife and mother

that, of her fault, never comes before a divorce court. She appreciates a home furnished with books and a husband as pure and highminded as herself. If she by mischance has married a beast that does not appreciate her worth, she suffers in silence and gives her life to her little ones—not caring for anything outside of the family circle. Say all that we may of the good of the church, the good of the high school and college far transcends it. Of course, the school and the church are both essential to the perfection of twentieth century society; but the church can be but a reflex of the degree of brain development of the occupants of the pews. Superstition and ignorance have never been divorced.

How does the contrast stand between college women and college men? Greatly to the credit of the women. But the college boy highly respects the college girl, not too much, however, to prevent his filling her lungs with tobacco smoke as she walks by his side, even on the college campus. What is needed is missionary work by the young women to elevate the young men to a station above the aboriginal inhabitants of North America in self-respect. If the college girl call the attention of the college boy to the fact of the incongruity with civilization of the tobacco habit, he will feel ashamed of the practice that by no sane speech can he justify. Young college men are not few that put the glass to their lips. And yet the time is near when they -students and post-graduates-will form a caste as free from bad habits as is the clergy-a class of self-respecting, exemplary men. It is from above that society is infected as well as disinfected. The example of the learned and well to do has a mighty influence with those not so well educated or well off.

I trust that the time is not distant when no girl or boy will reach adult age that has not "been to college." It is necessary, as conditions exist today, for the youth to learn from their superiors in mental culture in order to reach a higher plane of civilization than that our fathers occupied. What grand women morally were our mothers and grandmothers! And who will speak disparagingly of his father or grandfather? No one should or will do so. But all men know that our grandfathers reaped their wheat with the sickle, and our grandmothers carded and spun their wool by hand. And we all do know that there is such a word as reform along other lines than of production of "comforts of life"-food, clothing, etc. Our fathers could read and write and cipher as a rule. How far could they cipher? Not many of them, who grew up in the back woods west of the Alleghanies, went beyond long division.

In respect to "schooling" there has been advance. There is room for advance in other lines. In one line especially we are behind. There is, including malt liquor, more strong drink and tobacco consumed per capita, today, in America, than was consumed one hundred years ago so (if I mistake not) statistics show.

But this will not continue very much longer. The school re-enforcing the church will put a stop to the shame of the white race-the enfeebling the minds and poisoning the blood with alcohol and the nicotine drug.

YE 21ST LESSON.

A College Education.

No honor ought to be greater than to have received a diploma from a first-class college. It should be to its possessor a sufficient passport of welcome to all cities and all firesides, the people everywhere rejoicing at his coming, made happier by his presence and wiser and better. Education should be. primarily, character building. Without good habits and good character, the man, no matter what his intel

THE IDEAL COLLEGE BOY.

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lectual qualifications, is a failure-a hollow sycamore. Burns and Poe both died, before they had reached forty years of age, victims of strong drink. Had they been free from the drink habit and lived to old age, what gain to the world!

Both in Europe and all other lands inhabited by men of the Caucasian race, education is directed to the intellect almost solely. The gymnasia in Germany develop intellect and muscle, while beer guzzling and riotous living predominate. Our own Harvard is little better. I have seen numbers of her students sitting around drinking tables in Boston restaurants. So, too, most other colleges give no special moral instruction as was given in certain schools of philosophy of old Athens. Only a short time ago a student of an Iowa college (a church school) was, in vacation, arrested in his home town, and rather than face the disgrace of a jail sentence for drunkenness, committed suicide. Now the jail sentence was in itself no disgrace; but drunkenness was disgraceful. Many good men, Bunyan and Cervantes among them, have lain in jail for years. Their immortal works, Pilgrim's Progress and Don Quixote, were written by those great men mainly during imprisonment. O, that young men would learn that character rather than reputation should be sought after.

I insist that no educated man will drink and no self-respecting man either. The college boy that passed my door not long since stylishly dressed, a lighted cigar held between thumb and fingers, seemingly proud of his appearance, ought to have been ashamed of himself. A little while later, several students, aboard a trolley car, were hilarious with drink-intoxicated! This is not an uncommon sight in a college town of open saloons. One of the most elegant drinking hells of Des Moines, Iowa (a college town of three thousand or more students-four large literary colleges and two large commercial), is situated right by the postoffice and, painted in glaring letters on one of its plate-glass windows, were the words "The College-Inn Buffet!"

"The boys are having a good time getting an education," remarked a portly man on the car-proprietor of the "College-Inn Buffet" and of sixty or more other liquor hells of Des Moines' one hundred and twenty the city has licensed, in all. Getting an education! Is that so? Does not manliness form an essential part of the adornment of an educated man? Manliness and Godliness are equivalents. But not godliness after the manner of the Greek and Roman deities I am sure; for they were poor examples in morals. The votaries of Bacchus delight to point to the "turning of the water into wine" at the wedding feast. But they forget the New Testament admonition: "No drunkard shall enter the Kingdom of God." And that warning of the Old Testament:,

"Who hath woe? Who hath sorrow? Who hath contentions? Who hath babbling? Who hath wounds without cause? Who hath redness of eyes? They that tarry long at the wine; they that go to seek mixed wine. Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth its color in the cup, when it moveth itself aright. In the end it bitheth like a serpent and stingeth like an adder."

Why may not modern educators occupy as high ground morally as did those of old Greece? "To become better is the sole end of all studies," said Socrates. And Seneca, the Roman disciple of the Greek master, said: "A rightly equipped mind is one that is free, upright, undaunted and steadfast beyond the influence of fear or desire." The definition of "education" in that classic age was "The Art of Life."

His motto is:

YE 22D LESSON.

The Ideal College Boy.

"There is room at the top and I will get there." When he entered for the first time the portal of the institution he

raised his hat and said: "By the help of God and a persevering mild, I will get out of this school all that is in it." He does not just keep to the curriculum, but he delves into the tomes of the library. The classical English poets he becomes familiar with. He trains his voice, making elocution a hobby. Writing essays, he thinks to be of more importance than mastering the Greek verb. "What is the use of knowledge," he says, "if you cannot communicate it?" It is his expectation on leaving college to be able to write magazine articles in good English and speak so clearly and not loudly as to be heard distinctly by his audience filling the largest auditorium or chautauqua meeting place without producing hoarseness of his voice. He is greatly interested in the debating society, taking a leading part in its exercises. He is a Cynic, like Diogenes, "eating to live and not living to eat," reducing his natural wants to the minimum, creating no unnatural ones, taking ample time for sleep, since after sleep the mind is most clear and active, not over-doing by "wasting the midnight oil" at his books and studies, making haste slowly. Physical exercise he takes in the gymnasium and in long walks in the country and on the railroad track, going for miles on the rail, like a rope-walker on a rope. He joins in no violent games like football. "Do and not overdo; too much is intemperance, too little is slothfulness; but medium exercise strengthens body and mind," he declares. He treats young ladies courteously, but attends no balls, and no social gatherings not literary. Time he considers too precious to be wasted in frivolty. "One pursuit at a time; but, as to pleasure, I shall never have time for seeking that. The ways of the German student I avoid," he says. "Let him swill his beer and fight duels, if he like; as for me I prefer the name of 'Puritan' to that of bully.' I read," he says, "that on the other side of the water wassail is the rule and study the exception. If a member of one of the German students' beer clubs does not drink, when ordered, two quarts of beer in five minutes four additional schoppens (quarts) are added to the amount which the offender has yet to drink or be written down on the beer tablet a Bierschisser.'" (Sheldon's Student Life and Customs, page 33.) The same author says: "The quantity of beer consumed at these festivities would seem an impossibility to the students of any other nation." In describing a German students' duelling scene, he says: "The closeness of the room in which the fighting took place, thick with the confined tobacco of yesterday's festivities, or the pathos of the students eating sausages during the encounter, the grotesqueness of the iron spectacles and padding are conditions unfavorable to the heroic. I confess when blood began to ooze and spurt, every other feeling gave way to an invincible nausea and disgust." And the same writer adds: "In the hands of capable teachers, the schools may become an important element in character building."

The German students' idea of "honor!" "The military conception of honor prevailing on the continent makes duelling the only dignified and gentlemanly way of resenting an insult." (Sheldon.) And what is the nature of the insult thus resented? "One student happens to bump against another in the street or one chaffs another too sharply., he must apologize or fight and bloodshed settle it." (Sheldon.) A lofty idea of honor, surely. Who can say that we do not still live in an age of savagery? We have, I trust, no use for this kind of "student life" in America-not even at West Point where young men are educated to be "food for gunpowder." There is a vein of Puritanism—an element of earnestness and moral stamina in the natural make up of the American boy whose fathers fought under Washington-especially the boy brought up on the farm, that compels a life of ambitious effort. The honor "he covets is the praise of the good for praiseworthy deeds." He has no greater "dignity" to maintain than had he who "washed his disciples feet. ' The most "honorable and dignified" American boy, hat I have ever met or seen, was a college boy in the ranks of the Sal