FacingLife 10792349

FA CIN G LIFE
W H. .
R ESIDEN T ,
P F A U N CE
B
.
RO W N U m
N EW YO RK
MA CMILLA N C O MPA N Y
. 1 99 2
All Rig h ts Reserved

COPYR
I GH T , 1 938 ,
m
B Y T HE MA CM I LLAN COM PAN Y
m m
S et u p and e lectr o ty pe d .
P
m
ubli sh e d S e pte be r , 1 928
R
.
,
epri nted S e pt e be r 1 928 ; N ov

. e be r , 1 933 ;
Ja nu ary , 1 929; Ja nu a ry , 1 929; A p rl l, 1 929
N ove b e r , 1 929 .
m
mmm
mu IN T HE
s
'
u
rr o ao
ST AT ES or
R
P ESS, I N C.
“ RICA BY
F O EW O RD R
were m ade t o t h e S t udent s o f
m
THESE ad resses
d
B row n University at m orn ing chapel service .
They are t oo brief t o allow logical development

—logic does no t always prevail at a . .
and they do not pretend to have any clear con

ne c t io n o ne with another Yet roughly speak
.
,
ing the first four groups do have some corre

,
spo n den ce wi th the four c ollege years whi le the

,
last group is addressed to those w h o are leaving

t h e college campus and find ing their place in the
larger world beyond it .
T o all W hom I have known as students un der

the elms during these nearly thir ty years I sen d
”
salutations mingled with happy memories To .
them and t o the graduates of many other colleges

, ,
I send my Wish and h Ope that they may accept

“
Rober t Brownin g s challenge an d g ree t the un
’
”
seen With a cheer .
CO N TEN T S
I — TH E N EW ENVIRONM EN T
.
TEM P TATION S UPWARD

READJ U STM EN ’
I
’
W HAT S TUDIE S ARE M O S T USEF UL ?

LIB ERAL OR VO CATIONAL TRAIN ING
THE TYRANNY OF DEM O CRA CY

M YS E L F
H o w TO M AK E F RIE N DS
ON B EIN G A GO OD AN IM AL
CLEAN M AN HOOD
AFRAID OF THAT WHI CH 15 HIGH
II.
— TH E W IDEN IN G H ORIZ ON
THE O PENING OF CO LLEGE

N EW M O TIVE S T O O LD VIRT U E S
TW O K INDS O F HYPO CRISY o
COMM UNE VIN CULUM

T H E S N ARE O F PREP ARA TION
C O NTENT S
ONE S M IND
’
M AK ING UP
G OO D ENGLIS H
B EFORE EX AM INATI ONS
A NALYSIS
S YNTH ESIS
ATTENTION To READING
N EW YEAR M ORNING
L E SS ON S NOT FO UN D IN B OOK S
III — T I—
. TE D EE P EN ING F AITH
S TUDY AN D FA ITH
G REAT B E LIEVERS
THE S O CIA L M E SSAGE OF RE LIGIO N
H OW To THIN K OF GO D
WHA T Is US E OF
T HE P RA YER?
W HO W AS J E SUS ?
W HY THE B IBL E?
RE LIGIO N IN THE CHOICE O F A C AREER
THE US E O F SUND AY
IV — PERSISTENT PROBLEM S
.
O P TIM IS T OR p ESSIM IST ?
Is I t WORTH WHILE ?
C O N TENT S
THE CU RE F OR LONE LIN ESS

EXP E RIEN C E AND HO P E
THE M EAN ING OF TEM PERAN CE

THE P O WER T o F O CUS
T HE PL EA S U RE OF ECO N O M Y
W HAT IS CHRIS TIAN EDUCATI ON ?

B ROTHERHOOD A N D B ARRIERS
TW O P RIN CIP LE S OF A C TI O N
FIN DING ONE S PLA C E

’
V —
. B EYOND CO LLEGE GATES
HOW S TUD IE S T RAVEL

C ON TI N UO US EDUCATI O N
A N INDUS TR AL C REED
I —I
A N IN DUS TRIA L CREED—II
W HAT Is AM ERICA ?
T H E M E AN ING OF CHAN GE
FACIN G LIFE
m
TEM PTATION S U PWARD
T HERE are many temptations en say in the , ,
modern college and so there are Wherever there

,
.
is life there is t h e testing of life There are no

,
.
temptations in the cemetery but we have no de ,
sire t o be carried there T o be alive is t o feel

. ,
to choose t o grapple an d a good life is a good

, ,
fight If we go outside the college into the

.
-
bank the law Office the subway the political
m
,
caucus—are there no temptations there ? The

, ,
college cannot abolish tempt ation but it can pro ,
vide te ptations upward allurements and sedu c ,
t ions into the higher life
m
.
The whole business o f t h e Faculty is t o furnish

temptations upward They call the student into
m
.
the laboratory and hand hi the microsc ope or

the test tube or the balance They tempt h is .
natural curiosity they try to S tart hi interro
m
,
gating nature searching for facts and laws Then

, .
t hey take him i nto a class in English They let .
“
hi hear Shakespeare singing Fear no more the ,
h eat 0 the sun n or the furious winter s rages

’ ’
,
"
or Robert Louis Stevenson crying Paint on dis ,
tant lands an d seas my Odyssey O f battle Does .

”
he respond ? Doe s his p ulse begin t o beat an d

I 3
FA CIN G LIFE
hi s imagi nation begin to work ? Or do es he still

prefer the che ap maga zine with the g audy and
impossible girl on the cover ? The Faculty take
the stud ent into a cour se i n the his t ory of art .
They explain to him the Corinthian col umn the ,
grouping o f the fig ures in the Sistine Madonna ,
the marvel of Coro t s light streaming thr ough the

’
gnarled tree s of the forest Does he respond ? Or

.
“
does he still prefer the colored Sunday S upple
ment ? Th ey bring before him some great lead
”
er o f moral and spiritual progress ; they let him
hear Abraham Lincoln o r James Bryce or Cardi

nal Mercier Does h is spirit take fire and doe s
.
,
he respond an d de dicate his life to the se rvice of

the world ? No power can coerce him As some .
"
o n e has said You can lead a stu de nt to college
, ,
but you cannot make him thin k All we can .

”
do is t o furnish the temptation to thi nk to un ,
derst an d to se rve t o lead humanity and make it

, , ,
as V ivid and Winsome as poss ible .
In the old G reek mythology when Odysseus and

hi s sailors came near t he island o f the Sirens and
heard the seductive music wooing them to the
shore Odysseus stuff ed their ears with cotton t o
,
shut out the te mpting strains But when Orpheus .
and hi s crew sailed past the dangerous islands ,
he took ou t his lyre and struck up a sweeter music

so that the sirens voices were no lon g er heard
’
.
De te fabzd a docet — the story means you

v
" " - ” ”
.
N O stuffing of the ears can save us long NO .
wit hholding of the facts no artificial deafness,
an d blindn ess will we submit to " We are no t
I4
THE NEW EN VI ONMENT R
afraid to know t he f acts ; we will not be wrapped
in cotton wool or kept under a glass case All .
truth is f or all men an d n o real college st udent ,
is afraid o f it .
We have seen in the stree ts o f the metropo l is

a h uge sight seeing wagon loa de d wi th strangers
-
, ,
l umbering pas t t he famo us buil d ings while t he ,
stentorian voice of t he megapho ne

points of interest That pe culiar process is called
m
.
“
seeing New York At the en d o f the trip ”
m
.
,
what have the weary folk seen of N ew York ?

Ha v e they really seen its ho es its libraries its , ,
hospitals ; have they co e t o understand its

music its journalism its univer sities its religious
, , ,
faith ? Th ey have me rely Vi ewed the city s ski n ’

,
n o t reached its so ul They have simply gazed at

.
the la t est skyscrape r or at G rant s Tomb or the ’
“ “
bears in the Zoo and they call it seeing New
”
m
,
York " The real cit y like the real university is

”
, ,
invi sible It is a s piritual thi ng t h e combined

.
,
memory and hope of i llions a common heritage ,
and a common aspiratio n Some men are Will .
in g ly led into its d ens and some are tempte d into ,
its ca thedrals .
Can you stan d the freedom of the modern col
m
lege ? It will no t coerce y o u We frankly confess .
it has Its temptations like the rail road station -
and the stock exchange But we also afir that
m
.
there is no other place in America where there

are so many all u rements t o knowledge to wi s ,
do , t o u nselfish friendsh ip and t o stalwart char

acter as in the Americ an colle ge
,
.
1 5
READJ U STIMEN T
THE first few weeks in college are a time
m
necessary readjustment The stud ent .
c hange has come to the wrong place Unless .
has some degree of flexibility he will be iserab ,
He must adjust himself to

books new methods o f ins t
,
system has floo red many

n ew stan dards
and hi s entire
call it wi ll be serio usly modified by a
m m
,
that is really alive Each morning he mus

.
himself what is expected o f him in this

environ ent What is right What is wrong
, , ,
"
’
is worth while If I ay o fier coun sel t o tho
.
w h o often do not des i re i t I would say two thing

,
“ “
Do not hurry your opinions ; and Learn tl ”
uses of freedom .
Give yourself time to readjust calmly ar

thoughtfully Do n ot be dragoo ned into sudds
.
changes of attitude o r conviction Do n o t decit .
t oo has t ily regarding the merits of a n ew f rien c

“
shi p whi ch is th rust upon you Student acti v .
ties crowd the field o f vision Does that phr a

”
.
“
mean that studi es are mere passivities ? N e ”
publications sports fraterni ties stridently c laiI

, , ,
the newcomer s interest and support If he j oiI

’
.
I 6
THE NE W E N VIRONME N T
everything he will amoun t to nothing It is a

, .
blunder to accept every friendship the moment

it is proffered ; even a cheap lodging house will
not take in every tramp To j oin a fraternity .
ro up Without knowing much about It is to marry

g
in haste an d repent at leisure Many a student .
h as left college because he joined the wrong

group and many a fraternity has bitterly repented
m
,
m
choosin g the wrong man .
If o ne is to change h is opinions let him not ,
de oli sh the old house until the new one is built .
Bec ause we discover that so e theory taught in

t h e little red schoolhouse or the old wh ite meeting
m
house is inadequate for our present thinking it
m
,
does not follow that we have g ot t o throw away

all t he beliefs o f past gener ations an d rec onstruct
the worl d in o ur Fresh an yea r Omar Khayy a
m
.
0 Lo ve, ld
m
d I w it h Hi consp ire
m
cou y ou an
To c h an g e t h is sorr y sc h e e o f t hi ng s entire,
Wou l d w e no t h
s at t er it to b it s,
A nd t h en re ou ld it to our h earts
’
desire?
The '
answer t o th a t question is : No we woul dn t ,
’
,
if w e have any u nderst anding o f life We must .

”
take in the new facts new poi nts o f view new , ,
codes of conduct and understand and assimilate

,
them thoro ughly before w e attempt to rebuild

t h e u ni verse .
It IS equally necessa ry to learn how t o use free

d om The modern college treats the Freshman
.
as a man or a woman not as a child and some

, ,
I7
FA CIN G LIFE
m
students are chil dren still The college is no .
longer paterna listic ; no professors look through

keyholes or de and admission t o a student s ’
room ; n o spies are o n the student s track

’
No .
time is assi gned for meals or for putting out

li ghts at night ; no program of study hours is
e nforced. And many S tudents are dazzled by
their new freedom Be ca use they can come in at
m
.
any hour o f the ni ght they thi nk it a demonstra

,
tion o f manhood to come in very late —o r ve ry

early—and make a great noise as they co e Be .
cause t hey can study when they choose they do ,
no t choose to study Because they have full per

.
“
sonal liberty they delight in a fresh manner
,
”
a swaggerin g gait and a superfluous demonstration
that they are self steered as an automobile that

-
has escaped control may insist o n going round

in a circle and coll iding wi th everythi ng in sight .
Neither such machines nor such men furnish an

e difying spectacle .
We cannot change the mod ern uni versity back

into a boardin g school We want few regulations .
and no spies But we want students who can

.
stand freedom w h o can use perso nal liberty with

,
o u t abusing it and who when they enter t h e uni ,
v ersity gates can put away childish things F or

, .
such a student the inevitable readjustment to new

environment will come gradually and calmly and ,
he w ill gain a new horizon Without losing hi s

.
common sense .
'
1 8
in a few years the American ha d built up a la rge
eastern trade as the result o f his undesired c ou rs e
-
in the religi on o f anc ient Persia That study .
“
p roved for him more u seful than any possible
”
course in banking or transportatio n .
The most useful studies are those which give

u s broad horiz on The y are ft h ose that give us a
.
sense o f relation t o the men around us and t o the
men who have li ved before us We need to know .
not only how the oth er half lives but ho w the ,
other half thi nks We must exchange ideas with

.
other nations befor e we can exchange goods .
Why does the task of the day labore r o r the

factory worker usually seem so dull ? Because he
cannot see the use of it cannot see t h e relation of
,
it to the great h uman task of his generation He
m
.
may sew the buttons on hundr eds of shoes all day

long but he does n o t kn ow Where the shoes came
,
from o r where they are going or get any gli pse ,
o f the soc i al service he is rendering or the comfor t ,
and happiness he is bringing to thousands of h is

fellow men Those studi es which make the bri ck
.
layer o r the farmer o r the la w yer o r the teach er

see how his day s work is essent i al t o t he entire
’
social order th ose studies whi ch push out our

,
horizon and link our little lives with the life o f

humanity are always vital
, .
Useful studies are also those that libe rate and

release the mind —from supe rstition from prej ,
ud ic e from race hatred and all the petty animosi

,
-
ties which spoil happiness and block progress .
20
THE NEW E N VI ONME N T R
m
Mode rn science h as brought extrao rdina ry release
from baseless fears an d provincial ideas Science .
cools our passions gives us an objective an d i

,
personal attitude an d forc es us t o ask not wh at

,
facts are pleasant not what are desirable not

, ,
what are popular but what are the facts Mod

, .
ern science with all its faults—i t s occasional arro

gance its tendency to rest in materialistic ex
,
planations has yet released milli ons of minds

-
f rom medi aeval fear and small prejudice and taught

us in the words of James Russell Lowell
, t h at ,
“
t h e universe is fire proof and it is qui te safe to
-
strike a match .
”
Useful studie s are always t o be found in those

which brin g us into touch wi th great minds ,
whether past or present Health is always more .
contagious than dise ase and the finest things in

,
“
human nature are catching whe n once o ur ”
minds are really brought in touch with them The .
most interesting of all studi es— and the most

neglected— are the biographi es o f the men who
ha ve led the world in th ought or action We can .
never explain civi lization by physical science

alone by the winds and tides the coastli nes and
, ,
t h e mountain ranges an d the variations in climate .
“
Deepe r than ever pl ummet so unded lie t he ”
mysteries of persona li t y and t o know men their

, ,
S trength and weakness their motive and purpose
m
, ,
their aspiration and achi evement is the best pos ,
sible equi pment for living Any studies that Show .
us h ow en behave and w h y they do so are studies
21
FA CIN G LIFE
liberal li beralizing an d f ar more useful th an

and ,
th ose which teach us how t o get our bread and

butter .
In the S how window of a correspon dence scho ol

“
I saw a glaring and vulgar Sign which read : Sal
ary raising ed ucation taught here
-
Such educa
.
”
tion aimed purely at the pay envelope is self

, ,
m
de feating and in the end proves useless T o aim .
,
no t at the raising o f salaries but at the clarifyi ng

,
o f thought the development o f sympathy th e

establ ishment of contacts with all hu anity—t hat
.
, ,
is usef ul study .
22
LIB ERAL O RVO CATI ON AL TRAIN IN G ?
AM ERICA needs bOt h liberal and vocational ed uca

tion but it needs to distinguish very sharply be
,
tween the t wo What is the di fference ?

.
A liberal education is o f course one that
m
, ,
liberates o n e th at releases t h e mind from ig

,
no ran ce prejudice partisanship or superstition

, , ,
on e that e mancipates the will stimulates the i ag ,
in at ion broadens the sympathi es and makes the

, ,
student a citizen o f the worl d Vocational edu .
c ation is tha t which focuses the mind o n the
m
pa rticular trade business or profession whi ch the
, ,
student expects to pursue in later years and it ,
t eaches him how t o pe rf or hi s future task wit h .
intelligence ski ll and competence Vocational

, , .
training necessary and valuable as it is does n o t

, ,
attempt t o liberate but to concentrate ; not to

broaden a man s horizon but t o focus hi s min d on
’
his job .
The bo y who attends a purely vocational school

learns to do some very useful things and he may
go on doing th em forever If he lea rns t o keep .
books he may keep them until he is gray headed

,
-
.
m
If he learns to drive an automobile and repair it ,
he may be a chauff eur for the rest of h is life If .
he studies garde nin g he may be an excellent

,
gardener forever But the an w h o receives a

.
2 3
FA CIN G LIFE
liberal education— in literature an d history an d

econo mics an d mathe matics and philoso phy—g ain s
from it no t the S ki ll of the carpenter or the
t radesman or th e bookkeeper but rather the power
,
t o d o things that he never did before and t o face ,
novel S ituations unafraid The test of a liberal

.
co llege course is this : Has it enable d you to do
m
What you n ever expected t o d o t o fit into a situ
,
ation you never heard o f and to know how to

,
act in Circu stanc es that no teacher and no book

h as described ? Can you understand strangers and
appreciate a forei gner s point of view ? Can you
’
understand after a little study an entirely new

machi ne ? Can you analyze a tan gled economic
Situation or see the ri ght and wrong in a con
,
flic t o f capital and labor ? Can you discover the

reasons for a deficit in a business o r the weakness
,
in a political platform or the real causes o f in

,
t e rn at io n al hatred ? If you can meet such tests

and life i s full o f them— you may not be fitted to
keep books or gardens but you are fitted to shape
,
some part o f the civili za t ion that is to be .
When Abraham Lincoln w as perplexed by a

lawyer s claiming that hi s case had been proved
’
he borrowed a geometry and began to study so

“
that he might know wh at proof is He w as ”
.
S tudying not law but the logical process Which

,
underlies all law and all life .
The schoolboy S tudying Caesar may say : Wha t

possible d iff erence does it make whether that
que er looking verb is in the su bjunctive or t he
-
24
THE NEW E N VI O NMENTR
in dicative ? None at all if the mere form is
”
,
all you are after B ut does it ma ke no difierence

.
whether y o u can look into a man s mind through ’
the words he puts on paper ? Does it make no

di fieren ce whether Caesar said he had conquered
the Germans or that he might have conquered
them ? Late r that schoolboy may be a lawy er in
t e rpreti n g a clause in a contrac t o r may be in
m
,
the Supreme Cou rt interpreting a consti tution

whose smallest phrase vitally a ff ects a hundre d
million people Then no ere knowledge will
.
suffice no amou nt of tec hnical training will help

,
him Then he will need that insight into other

.
men s minds that appreciation o f i nstitutions and

’
their development that capac ity to infer and to ,
conclude which only truly liberal education can

g ive .
After the Worl d War our students contra ry to ,
t h e general expe ctation came trooping back into ,
the colleges Why did the y come ? One o f the

.
ex service men gave the reason in the langu a ge

-
“
o f the stree t : Because we college men in t h e
service saw that w e had the jump on the other
fellows The y saw the v alue of the accuracy
.
”
that only mathematics can give the value of mod ,
ern languages as means o f insight into the soul

o f foreign peoples the value o f history and of ,
psychology without which we can neve r compre

,
hend either the temperament or the pu rposes of

other races and nations The soldiers returne d to .
c ollege beca use they ha d wi tnessed a demonstra
25
FA CIN G LIF E
tion that trained intelligence deepened insight an d

,
instructed conscience can accomplish more in a

year than massed brute strength — ou the land ,
o r in the air o r under the

, in a
h alf cent ury
.
26
FACIN G LIF E
mm
i ”
p gs ? sy in deed when st rangers are sa d
It is
m
ea ,
denly thrown togeth er to meet on the plan e o f
m
,
the physical o r t h e ani al Only when some great .
crisis arises, w he n a su d
den su o ns t o h eroic
action co es — o nly then do
the soldiers meet on
the level o f the finest among th em .
The American college is possibly the best in

st ance o f d emocracy in the mo dern world In .
it men are jud g ed on their merits to a rare degree
m
.
The college asks no t abo ut a student s pedi gree or ’
his wealth or h is influential friends ; it asks not:

where he co mes fro but whe re he is going t o
m
.
,
Th e college democracy smooths o ff the n ewcomer s

’
m
m
rough edges reduc es h is swo llen cranium t o nor
,
mal size and as signs hi on the whole his proper

,
place in the n ew co un ity But a gai n the in .
sistent que stion comes : Does this democracy of ,
which we are so proud mean leveling up or level

,
ing down ?
Many a stu dent w hen su bjected t o the leveling
,
proc ess of the new communi ty shrinks from t e ,

“
vealing his best self H e hides away all that the
.
world s coarse thumb and finger failed to plumb

’ ”
and shows to hi s friends only the c ommonplac e

qualities that the soc iety around him seems t o de
"
mand He is afraid o f being a g rin d or a
. ,
”
"
shark or a prig or an esthete afraid of seeming
”
,
exc eptional in any w ay and so protects his real ,
self by submerging it as the submarine goes down

,
when the de stroyers appe ar Many stude nts con .
c ea l the fac t that they care for a symphony or a

sonata and woul d not for the world confess the
,
2 8
THE NEW ENVIRONMENT
th rill that comes to them fro m a Chopin prelu de ,
beca use th e college democracy allows nothing but

r agtime o r jazz . I have known students to snatch
from the piano the so na ta of Beethoven which one
o f their n umber was playing and insist that he
m
substitu te th e fo x tro t which all t h e men in
-
the frat ernity house could appreciate I have .
se en a student carrying a volu e of Shakespeare s ’
sonnets in his inner pocket re ading it when alone

, ,
but when in a friend s room professing devotion

’
“
t o only the best sellers and the five cent week
-
”
-
lies The student s ensitive to beau t y is compe lled

.
t o adorn his walls with che ap po ster s and the ,
student w h o wants t o make Sunday a day of

no bl est inspiration finds it ha rd t o rise above the
p o li t e loafin
g of his dormitory Compulsory .
smokin g imposed by a social code is even more
m
objectionable than it s prohi biti on by printed
statute.
But the most d a aging of all demo cratic tyran

nies is tha t which makes it bad form t o profess
o r even t o possess religi ous f aith The student.
wh o brings t o college a de ep and glowing faith ,
w h o sees th at the great need o f the world is not

clothes t o wear or brea d t o eat but a real knowl
,
edge o f G od and o f what i s worth while in life
m
su ch a stu dent is at least as much nee ded in a
c ommunity as o ne of athletic o r literary o r dra
matic ability Do his fellow students smi le at h i

.
as queer o r ant iquated or sentimental ?

, , I woul d
rather that a son or a friend of mine should en ter
“
a one ho rse
-
”
colle g e in the backwoods where ,
29
FACIN G LIFE
religious faith is recognized as a c onstructive force
in society than attend the most finely equipped
,
university where imagination and esthetic feeling

and musical taste and reli gious conviction are
rubbed off and rubbed out by the daily attrition
o f a pseudo democracy
-
. The tyranny o f one man
—c zar or prince or boss— can be thrown o ff by
revolution But the tyranny of t h e crowd is like
.
a clinging fog which dampens and depresses all

clear and high endeavor .
Democracy must be made safe for the college

if the college is to continue to be proud o f it .
30
M Y S E LF
TH E famous Apostles Cree d begin s with the wor d

’
m
“
I an d every perso nal confess ion of faith has to
,
”
begi n in that way We cannot jump out of ou r

.
selves I a the center o f all I think and do

. .
To doubt my o wn existence would be to doubt

my o wn d oubt— which is intellectual suicide U n .
less I believe in myself and my worth w h ilen ess
m
-
in my own past achi e vements and future possi

bilit ies my life practically comes t o an end
,
.
"
Co gi to erg o su, said Descartes I am not a
,
”
.
d ream o f the night a fleeting shadow but a liv

, ,
“
ing growing self with power on mine ow n act
, ,
and on the world Tennyson says the l ittle child

.
”
“
very early learns the use o f I and me ; so rounds
he to a sepa rate soul I am an d I am worth
”
whil e —that is the beginning o f knowledge

.
,
Unless I do believe in myself w h y shoul d I
m
,
ask anyone else to believe in me ? To think meanly

o f oneself is not humi lity ; it is humiliation which ,
is a very diff eren t atter Since a man has go t .
t o associate with hi mse lf through a measur eless

future it is of immense importance t o enjoy one s
,
’
h
o wn c ompanions i p t o have a mind that is n o t
,
a vacuum which o n e abho rs nor a poor lodging

, ,
house filled with vulgar tenants If a man s mind .

’
is a guest room for happy memories high resolve s ,
31
an d beckoning visions then the owner is always ,
“
in go od company and can daily say My mind t o ,
me a Kin g do m is .
”
In all t rue religion there is a place for egoism

never for egotism " In Christiani ty a tremendous
m
e mphasis is placed upon the self In this respect .
it is in sharpest contrast with Buddhism which ,
akes Nirv ana— the fading ou t of desire and even

thought— the final goal Unless a man thoroughly .
esteems and hono rs hi mself believes in his ow n

’
,
val ue to the world and therefore resolves to stay

alive as long as he can and develop his capacities
t o the n th power he is a poor creature fit neither
, ,
t o work nor to fight nor t o pray Th e abjectnes s .
o f Dickens Uriah H eep is as far from reality as

’
are the bombastic announcements of Shake

speare s Falstaff
’
.
Without a strong an d wholesome egoism th ere

can be no genuin e altruism N o man can help .
t h e world by giving himself for his friends o r h is

country unless he has a self worth giving a per ,
“
son alit y that counts Self love is not so vile a
.
-
sin as self neglecting

-
We are learni ng t o day
.
-
how mysterious and many roomed the self is We -

.
have discovered tha t the citadel o f pe rso nality h as

many levels and that below the thr eshold of con
sc iousn ess are bo th the noblest instincts and the
wild beasts o f untamed desire As seven eighths .

-
o f the iceberg floats below the water line the -
largest part of the self is subliminal and qui te

known t o us Down in the sunless caverns of the
.
self are resources practically inexha ustible in ,
32
st in c t s
THE NEW EN VIRONMENT
which will master us u nless we as t er
them and t h e real zoological garden is no t the o n e
,
m
w e see in the public park but the o n e w e carry,
inside .
Th e man who truly be lieves i n himself so live s

“
that each day he can say I am the captain o f ,
my soul He kee ps his bod y fit his mind alert

.
,
“
and Ope n t o worthy guests He keeps the cham .
bers of imagery wi thin his conscious m ind clean

”
and whole so me He cannot prevent foul birds

.
from flying through his mind no w and then bu t ,
he can prevent their buildi ng nests and hatchi ng

o u t a fouler brood He is constantly enlarging
.
his o wn self as the chambered n autilus bui lds

,
“
more stately mansions in the seashell His
”
.
Whole life is a steady intellectual expansion .
Let a man then dare to believe in himself

, ,
otherwise he is a burden and impe diment t o the

world The shallowness o f self conceit the
.
-
blindness of mere self culture w e reject and ah

-
hor But w e also reject that view of man whi ch

.
“
makes him a worm of t he dust whether it is ”
,
prese nted by pseudo reli gion or material istic sci

-
ence He w h o thi nk s of hi mself as a worm wi ll

.
inevitably crawl and twist in unma nly fashion .
He who believes himself a mere chemical combina

tion o f atoms o r electrons will be incapable of
m
those loves and hates those loyalties and volitions
, ,
which make l ife worth l iving But he who be .
liev es hi self to bear however dim and stained

, ,
“
the image and superscription o f God has taken ”
the fir st step in rea lly living .
33
HO W T O M AK E FRIE NDS
A SEN IOR about to graduate from college put t o

me one day a rather pathe t i c question He said : .
“
How does a man secure a circle o f friends ? I
have bee n absorbed in my laboratory work and
have made no attempt at establishing college
f rie ndships Now I seem t o stand al one while
.
,
O th ers are surroun ded by a host of c omrades and

c hums . How should I go t o work to get friends
for myself ? Hi s complai nt w as perhaps na i ve
”
b ut his situation not uncommon .
Friendshi p is seldom ba sed o n mere neighbor

hood The fact that a man lives on the same
.
stree t wi th me o r in the same boarding house

, ,
does not mean he is my friend but may mean ,
prec isely the opposi te Two note s th at are close

.
t ogether in the musical scale make the harshes t

discord
m
.
Friendshi p is not based on identi ty o f opini on .
Of course the re must be some general principles

,
held in com on but no man wants a friend w h o

,
is a mere echo o f himself In fact the most
m
.
,
stimulating asso c iations we know are with mi nds

t hat strike fire from our own and ki ndle us into
flame by their conta ct When Tho as Carlyle .
r eturned from a vis i t to h is close friend John ,

“
Sterling he wrot e
, Spent nearly the whole day
34
sought contacts They have arrived at the
.
making discovery that
m
sui ts i nve lnnji sry i t is the b y
. t
:
Such friendship ay last and grow in spite of

all the flaws and frailties that w e s u bsequ ently
discover in our friend Wh at right h ave we t o
.
demand perfection in him when he cannot find

it in us ? Indee d his very flaws and frailties may
m
endear him t o us—as architects prefer a s treaked
and dark veined marble to one that is a monoto
m
-
nous dead white But we c an o v e rlo ok fl a n nly
m
" -
.
To sit still and

look at our friend is to criticize and lose hi To
m
.
work wi th hi —steadily patiently hopefully— is, ,
t o keep him and to find constantly new reserves

,
and resources in him G od s good en are never

.
’
perfect men The apo stles o f our Lord were far

.
from flawless But they were unite d by a common

.
danger a common task and a supreme devotion

, ,
to one w h o after thr ee years o f companionship

and instruction gave them no diploma but simply ,
“
said : I h ave called you friends .
”
O N B EIN G A GO O D AN IM A L
RAL P H WALD O EM ERS ON w h o so often flung ou t,

“
unforgettable phrases wrote : , A gentlema n
should be a good animal In that ascet ic cool
.
”
,
bloo ded New England thinker it might seem as

if the animal nature had be en completely sub
ordinated and forgotten But it w as a philosopher
.
,
not a prize figh t er who insisted that underneath

-
the career and conduct of the gentlemen must lie

the foundation of animal he alth Many a ph ilo so
"
.
pher has been a pe ssimist o r a cynic because h is

body was anemic or underdeveloped and never
m
once in his life had he known the j oy o f exube rant
m
,
overflowing audacious vitality Many a man has

, .
failed to be a gentleman o r even a true a n be

, ,
cause a defic ient vitality has made hi irrit able ,
d yspeptic easily discouraged and hypersensitive t o

,
“
the w h ips and stings of time
”
.
To keep the body fit is the first essential in

keeping the mind alert and operative the con ,
scien ce clear and the soul courageous and aspir

,
“
ing The word hale or health y is s imply an
.
” ”
“ “
other form of the word whole o r holy The ”
.
real holy man is not the Indi an saint w h o sits

on a bed of spikes or fasts until the bo dy atrophies
i nto s kin and bones but one who develops whole
,
n ess of personality w h o raises his total self phys

, ,
37
FACIN G LIFE
ical mental an d spiritual to its highest power
, , ,
.
“
Who is t h e strong man in college ? N o t the ”
One who can lift t h e he aviest weight or pull the

strongest oar Such men O ften collapse a f ew
.
years later because they are overgrown in o n e di

rection and underdeveloped in all others The .
strong man in college or out is one wh o can toil

, ,
for forty years without breaking down nervously

“
o r intellectually but under all the blud geonings
,
o f chance can remain erect resolute and t e

”
, ,
silien t To keep the body fit certain things are

.
essential .
Plenty o f fuel must be furnished to the bodily

engine Three good meals eaten with a g
.
,
appetite and in good company are always a means ,
o f grace Expensive menus are not only u nn eces

.
s ary they are a positive handicap A simple

, .
,
nourishi ng appe tizing table costs little ev en in
m
, ,
these days and every college is bound t o furnish

,
it to its stud ents before it demands an intellectual

“
output The Old German proverb Was an isst
— a man is what he eats is a gross
.
, ,
“ ”
e r i st -
exaggeration and untruth But when Oxford .
University for centuries makes the eating together

o f t eachers and students in the grea t dini ng hal l -
the central function o f university life our Ameri
m
,
can institutions may well cease to attempt maki ng

scholars o u t of students nouri shed at lunch count
ers and one ar ed chairs in cheap restaurants
-
.
N ightly sleep and daily exercise are required for

“
a good ani mal
’
S cholars used to th ink that by

.
”
shortening sleep they could ga in kn owledge It .
38
THE NEW EN VIRONMENT
w as defective knowled ge that allowe d them t o
think so The
. more sleep w e ge t if it be sound , ,
d reamless slumber the better we can work on

,
waking The kind of exercise we need must be

.
determined after consultation with some physical

director o r physician The major sports are al
.
ways popular but mi nor spo rts may be more use

,
ful Exerc ise is never an end in itself but a mea ns

.
,
to a greater end— self control and a hundred per

-
cent Of e ffic iency We play golf or tennis or we

.
go into swimming o r po le vaulting if w e are wise -
, ,
not to devel op o u r muscles not to be come a ,
Hercules or a S andow but to develop the nerves ,
that are imbedded in the muscles and so acquire

a nervous system that shall be an adjustable and
m
t ireless servant of the mind And many a man .
gets his be st ex ercise in hi s own room putting ,

“
h i self thr ough some daily dozen each morning
”
or evening and ke eping fit without any games

whatever Two hour s of work at maximum fit
.
ness are worth more than twenty hours when the

nerves are trembling and the mind is fagged .
Above all cleanliness physical and mental is

, , ,
essential to fitness When the bloo d flows free

.
,
the ski n open at every po re and all the pipes in ,
the bod y are discharging as they should then a
m
,
sense o f well be ing spreads through a man and it

-
is sheer joy t o be alive Many a man will give .
hours to cleaning the spark plugs of h is au t o o -
bile and yet let his own phys ical self rema in
clo gged by poor combustion and endangered by
“
constant knoc king Why should a man not treat
.
”
39
FACING LIFE
his ow n body as well as he treats a machine ?
Treat your body wi th honor and respect Do.
nothing to it or with it whi ch you would be

ashamed t o have your best friends know Then
.
wh en some great crisis comes and you must go

,
forth to a h ard fight you will have under y ou

,
“
a fit body boundin g with health as a steed
,
knows hi s
40
C LEAN M ANHO OD
WE may n Ot like the term purity ; it may sound ”
too much as if we expe cted angel ic whi teness and

ethereal delicacy in full blooded human being s
-
.
But certainly all of us like clean men— clean in

bod y and mind .
Physical cleanliness means that one s bod y is ’
well groo med— ski n nails hair hands and feet

-
, , , .
A noted college president has divided all students

into two classes— those w h o take a cold bath daily
and those who do not Certa inly such an ablu
.
“
tion is an outward and visible si gn of an inward
and spiritual grace . We may laugh at the
”
“
Englishman s de man d fo r his tub whether he
’ ”
,
be in London Cairo Bombay or Hongkong ; bu t

, ,
the tub is merely part o f the Englishman s keeping ’
fit and fitness is never laughable

, .
Still more impo rtant is the inner bath that is , ,
of the nose and throat and d igestive organs If .
the sewage system o f the body is clogged the ,
same results follow as whe n the sewers of a city
m
are stopped up with refuse To flush o u t the body
.
now and then is as essential as the flushing of the

city streets on a hot su mer morning A body .
that is clean and whole some withi n is the fit in

strument of a sound and wholesome mind .
And it is the mind which is chiefly concerne d

41
FACING LIFE
in the problem o f sexual cleanl iness If the e.
o ry and ima gination are kept cle an the foul dis ,

m
m
eases wh ich are the dark shadow of c ivilization will
not gain a foothold in the bod y Mo ral strength

.
is not greatly promoted by lurid pictures of dis

ease any more than temperance is promoted by
,
red and yellow charts O f the drunkard s stomach ’

.
We cannot scare men into moral ity ; w e cann ot

build strong manhood on the foundations o f
fear But we can realize that a clean mind will
.
have no taste for smut and is simply nauseated

by rottenness physical o r mental
, .
Th ere is noth ing wro ng in the sexual instinct ;

it is as natural as o ur hunger for food But when .
the sexual impulse takes the bit in its teeth and

overleaps all t h e barriers imposed by the tragic
experience of the centuries then it becomes the
,
tyrannical master and makes the man its slave
m
.
The slave Of hunger we call a glutton ; the slave o f

f —
drink we term drunkard ; the slave o sex instead
o f calli ng hi names simply read the appall ing
,
story Of Oscar Wilde The constant need of every

.
man is not to era dicate normal instincts and ap

petites but to regulate and use them in the service
of t he hi gher self and o f the entire soc ial order .
The sexual instinct may seem inordinately strong ,
as hunger was t oo strong and led to gross and

brutal fee di ng in the days of the Vi kings We no .
longer have to contend wi th gluttony ; that dis

gusting evil has nearly died o u t among civilized
men But sexual pa ssion with equally nauseating
.
,
results is s t ill t oo strong for many men Nature

, .
42
FACING LIFE
t ainted blood and wholesome prin ciples t o tho se
w h o shall come afte r us and bear o ur name is the
least an honorable man can do .
Recently a student who had been somewha t

,
wild and reckless sat at a table in a biological

,
laboratory looking th rough a microscope at a tiny

globule o f protoplasm Su ddenly he stood up
. .
“
I see it now he cried ; I am a single link be
”
,
tween the generati ons before me and those wh o

may come after I will no t be a rotten link in tha t
.
chain "
”
A FRAID OF T HAT WHIC H IS HIG H
THAT is the Old Testament description Of old

age : They shall be afraid of that which is high .
It appe ars then that age and decrepitude are not

, ,
determined by the calendar but by one s attitude ,

’
t oward l ife How o ld are you really ? The

.
,
answer must be given not in yea rs and days bu t ,

“
in tempe r and d isposition Whoever says : Tha t
.
is true but I d are not acknowledge it ; that is

,
right but I cannot live up to i t — h e is in h is

,
”
d otage whether his years be se ven teen o r sev enty

, .
“
Whoever says : That is right and true and there ,
fore at all haz ards I follow i t — h e is young and ”
t o be reckoned with .
We need men to—day w h o dare t o stand for

high standards in athletic sports Low standards .
are everywhere around us and in professional ,
baseball and football men are bought and sold

like cattle Every man w h o plays o n a varsity
.
team in any sport has constantly presented to him

the question wh ether he is afraid o f that which
is high Is it not necessary t o stoo p in order t o
.
w in ? Doe s not the Opposing college team include

men who were secretly hired t o play against us ?
Has not that team that other college a system
, ,
“ “ “
of scouts and athleti c scholarshi ps and pros
” ”
e lyt in g so that its team represents not the abili ty

”
,
but the purse of our Opponents ? Does not the

45
FACIN G LIFE
other team frequently ad opt underh an d methods
“
and ge t away with it ? Must we not meet the
”
opponent on his o wn level unless we are prepared
m
,
to face the cha g rin O f our own college and the

ridicule of the press ? Do w e dare to be what w e
profess to be ? What we really need is no t so
much a winn ing team as a strong team— o ,
strong t o stoop to foul play strong enough to ,
accept defeat wi thout w hini ng and victory wi th

o u t bo asting .
We nee d also hi gh standards in business life .
Thomas Carlyle tells us th at his fath er built many
m
stone cottages in S c otland which bid f ai r to last
mm m
a century so honest was the workmanship ; while
,
some oth er masons he said broke t h e Ten Co

, ,
an d en t s with every stroke of t h e ham er .
Thousands of workingmen by reduc ing their own

effic iency limi ting their output and th reateni ng
,
o thers who want to do thei r best are making ,
work di sh onorable and converting carpenters ,
builders and weav ers into industrial slackers They .
have become afraid to do their be st .
Into business enterprise the same fa int hearted -
ness cree ps and men w h o could face death o n

,
the battlefield without flin ch in g s imply do not

dare to conduc t thei r busin ess on any hi gher level
“ “
than devil take the hindmost What are you .
”
in business for ? I asked a college graduate With

”
.
“
excellent candor he answered : To make my little
pile and get out Suppose t h e soldier sh ould say
”
.
,
th at— you would wish to strip o ff his uniform .
Suppose the preacher should confess that his only

46
T HE NEW EN VIRONMENT
Objec t w as t h e sala ry or t he doctor tha t his only
,
interest was in the fees— y ou would not invite him

to enter your home again Why do we demand .
that a teacher in a public school shall teach from

love O f the c h ildren or love of learning and allow ,
a contractor who builds the schoolhouse to do it

solely from the love of money ? Why do w e de
mand that a fireman shall risk his life at midnight
with no thought of compensation in order to save ,
shoes from a burning store and expect the man ,
wh o sells the shoes to do so only to put money

in h is purse ? All such distinctions are unreal and
decept ive There is not one standard for the
.
preacher and doctor and fireman and another for

the business man A ll o f us must learn to live
.
for the same great aim for the commonwealth, ,
for the social order o f which we are a part for ,
the America that is t o be All o f us are s ilent .
partners with the state and o ur aim is not simply

,
money in the purse— if we render valuable service

that will come of itself— but new wealth and joy
and efficiency in the life of humanity .
Are we afrai d of anything so high ? Inverte

brate men and women are afraid and conceal their ,
fear behind a mask of scorn or cynicism What .
can hold us to the ideal in the face of the easy

sc oifin g aroun d us ? There is deep truth in the
motto carved in brown stone over the entrance to
a great Y M C A building In t h e stone is cut
. . . . .
the figure o f a human hand grasping a cross ; and

underneath are only three words : Tenso e t teneor
— I hold and am held
“
.
”
TI IE'
PE NIN G OF CO LLEG E
m
O
It was an American poet wh o writing in the ,

“
autu n said : The melancholy days have come
, ,
the saddest of the year Surely Bryant was n o t

.
”
writing in New England Here the gladdest days .
in t h e whole twelve months come in autumn .
When there is a tang and sparkle in the morni ng

air whe n the harvest moo n or the hunter s moon
,
’
“
lingers long in the eveni ng sky when the precio us ,
fruit o f the earth has been gathered in when the

”
forests put on the rich colors of some rare Persia n

rug wh en college gates swing wide and students
,
are crowdi ng th rough— then the man w h o does

not feel the inspiration and the summons t o invest
mm
h is life in something wo rth while must be both
deaf and blind .
We ay well contra st ou r opening this morn

ing with the open g a f e w years ago during t h e
World War Then we ha d plac ed the college
.
under military control Every dormitory was a

.
barracks and armed guards were at every gate .
Man y a time in October and November 1 91 8 , ,
I sto od on the campus in the frosty morning t w i

light to see the st udents pour o u t o f the dormi
m
tories be fore breakfast At 6 O clock came the
.
’
reveille at , roll call on the c ampus at 6 : 3 0 ,
ess in the Union and then followed a fif t een

,
SI
FACIN G L IFE
hour program of study and drill until taps soun d ,
ed at 1 0 o clock and every light went o ut in

’
every win dow All of us then were of one heart

.
and soul No individual thought of his own safe

.
t y but only o f his country and of human liberty

,
.
A ll student o rganizations disappe ared as by magic .
There were two organizations o nly the army and ,
the navy and every able bodied student over

,
-
eightee n years o f age was in o ne or the other and ,
t h e fifty or sixty students w h o were inel igible were
a lmost in d espair Wh at un selfish ness w e had

.
,
what teamwork what devotion to the common

,
good " The S A T C w as no t a complete suc

. . . .
cess ; its def ects and failures we all could see but ,
it did mean a great democracy a noble fellowship , ,
a supreme devotion .
This yea r thin gs are wholly di fferent and w e

rejoice But the same high stern virtues are
.
,
needed in days of pe ace as in time of war No .
arme d guard— then each man must guard the

citadel of his ow n soul"N O bugle call now— then
each man must h ear the summons of his country
to unselfish citizenship No drill master n ow .
-
h —
s outs the orders then each man must order his
ow n life must keep hi s body fit his mind keen
, , ,
his soul unstained No call n ow to shield Paris

.
from the advancing terror— then each man o f us

must protect American cities from ignorance and
vice from radicalism and reaction from t h e dis
, ,
integrating forces of greed and vice and anarchy .
Militarism is an arti ficial control to whi ch

liberal minded men submit in time of supreme
-
52
THE WIDENING H ORIZON
danger but which they soon come to resent It is

,
.
t he exact opposite o f liberal training It subst i .
t u t es external control for inner authority official ,
o bedience in place o f inward consent and treats ,
men— necessarily and rightly— as anonymou s

u nits as mere cogs i n the milita ry machi ne
, The .
libe ral college on the other hand holds that no

, ,
t wo men are alike t h at d rill is subordinate t o in

,
sight an d reflection that obe dience is worthless

,
unless it springs from conviction and that the ,

“
psycholog y of the crowd must be replaced by ”
the quiet determina tion o f a reasoned faith .
Does the Opening o f college mean the opening

o f min d s ? Are we intellectually curious ready ,
t o welcome n ew points o f vie w ready to exchange

“
,
“
ideas with our neigh bors ? Giv en to hospita lity ”
is the N ew Testament description o f the ideal

man But hospitality is more than e ffusive greet
.
ing o f strangers it is more than the opening of

,
bolted doors It means the ope ni ng of the mind t o

.
strange truths and entertai ning those truths long

,
enough to find o u t whether we want to adopt

’
them into o ur family or to send them packing

into the street .
Co llege is absolutely useless unless we bring t o

it genuine intellectual interests All of us are .
born like kittens with the eyes shut Some men

, ,
‘
.
come to college wi t h eyes still closed The greater .
interests o f life have not gripped them Th eir .
existence is not vicious but hopelessly trivial

, .
Even t o di sc uss a rea lly weighty problem o f in

d ust ry politic s or religion as all European st u
, , ,
"
53
FACIN G LIFE
dents constantly do is t o queer oneself irre
,
”
t rie vably
. Listen to the c onversation in the fra
t erni t y house the field house t h e boarding house
, ,
does it ri se above the level o f the talk at C0

Island ? But the world does not look to the Island
fo r intellectual leadership and it does look— h ow
,
a l
e g er y l— to the one institution which embodies
all i ts chie f hope s and loyalties the America n col
,
Interes t ed men are always interesti ng A man .
w ith no dee p seated enthusi asms for any cause no

-
,
c o nvictions for whi c h he will live o r die no de ,
sire t o follow up any truth is not only a parasite

, ,
but a bo re He is not even interesting to himsel f

. .
But a college o f genuine in tellectual en thusiasms

will draw to i tself the ablest minds as soo n as
m
,
th ey find out what is going o n Sir Wal ter Scot t

.
went to the uni versity wi th only a superficial

s attering by way o f preparation and could not ,
keep up wi th his comrades 1n the classics But he .
“
foun d a true yoke fellow in John Irving en
-
”
,
t h usiast ic over mediae val romance Every Satur

.
day the y would take a few books from the library ,
stroll o ff to Sa lisbury Crags and read themselves

away from college dons into the fascinating com
pany of King Arthur s court Charles Darwin
’
.
made li ttle progress at C ambridge until he dis

covered Professor H enslow w h o every week kept
,
o pen house t o the undergraduates With him .
yo ung Da r win tramped over the countryside ,
drinking in not only knowledge o f the natural

world but cultivating an en thusiastic de votion to
54
THE WIDENIN G HORIZON
scientific research which recreated him and sent
him forth t o recreate the world Of thought .
Wh at shall the Opening o f college be to us this

year ? The mere unlocking of doors and the
sweeping out o f dusty rooms ? Or shall it be
the Openi ng O f the heart to friendshi p of the
,
mind to n ew truth o f the soul to the inflowin g

,
55
NE W M OTIVES TO O LD VIRTUE S
THE change in the characte r of college songs in
m
the last fifty years is at least suggestive A half
m
.
century ago our fath ers in the American colleges

could fin d no nobler song than Ubi sun t O poculd , ,
elts— Where
“
d ulcio is the drin kin g cup ,
sweeter than honey Embryo preachers and mis

”
.
si on ari es and total abstainers gravely sang on ever y

“
college occasion : Come landlord fill the flow
m
, ,
ing bowl or melodiously professed themselves t o

,
”
“
be rolling reeling home by the light of the
,
oon T h e poin t is not that the young men of

.
”
to day have turned aga inst strong drink but that

-
they no longer sing about it Such songs would to .
d ay be inconceivably ins ipid o r at least out of key ,
with present day activities The typica l college

-
.
song to day is not convivial but athletic ; not a

-
call t o relaxation and self indulgence but a c all -
,
I
to heroi c defense of the fair name o f their college

The change in college singing—a small matte r
.
in itself— indi cates a change in the center o f grav

ity and a new de votion to the welfare O f the whole
body demandin g strenuous e ff ort on the part of
m
,
e ach one The whole college life is built t o day

.
-
not on the idea of contributing t o the pleasure or

the kn owledge or the advance ent o f the indi
vidual student but on the ide a that each student
,
5 6
m
FACIN G LIFE
Ten Com andments because we are afraid o f th e
smoke and thunder o f Sinai is t o become a cower
m
ing creature In driving an automobile we keep
.
to t h e right not because of the policem an at the

,
street co er but bec ause we clearly see that

-
th rough the general observance of that simple

rule safety and happiness are promoted through out
the c i ty and the nation But in England t h e rule
.
is reverse d and safety and happin ess are secured

“
t hrough the rule that one mus t kee p to the left
Whenever w e can find a rule of action that pro
motes safety happiness and well being among all
,
-
nations and th rough all t h e ages that becomes f or ,

“
us a divine command Th e un iverse
. says Mr ”
, .
“
Henry Ford is set in a certain direction and
, ,
when you go along with i t that is goodn ess ,

‘
.
’
If you don t you are getting an admo nitory kind

’
o f experience .
We must therefore not despair if the older

, ,
types of exhortation and exhorter no longer make

“
much impress ion o n o ur crooked and perverse
generation . The truth is it is neither crooked
”
nor perverse t o demand that men spe ak to us in

the language of the pres ent day and urge motives
that make present appeal Never was there so .
much moral sensitiveness as to day never so much -
urge toward sheer altruism so much desire t o ,
make our life coun t in the total life of our time .
But that sensitiveness does not come to the surface

in the face o f thre atened penalty whether it be ,
a fine o r suspens ion from college or the ultimate

, ,
terrors o f Dante s Inferno It does emerge it leaps

’
.
,
58
THE WIDENIN G H ORIZO N
and glows when we hear of a chance to live so

,
intensely or die so nobly that all the life o f o ur

generation is made finer and better .
When Jacob Riis published H ow th e O th er

Half Liv es his friend Theodore Roosevelt read it
, ,
and at once went down to lower Manhattan and

climbed the creaking stairs to congratulate the
writer As Mr Riis was not at home Mr Roose
. .
, .
velt simply left a visiting card after writing on

,
“
it : Have read your book and came to help .
”
“
Those words came to help might not be a bad
”
obituary any o f us.
59
TWO KIN DS OF HYP O CRIS Y
EVERY n ormal man hates hypocrisy But do w e .
reali ze that there are two kind s o ne the reverse ,
o f the other ? Th ere is the hypocrisy of pretend
m
in g to be better than w e are and there is the ,
hypocrisy o f pretending to be worse meaner and ,
s aller than we really are The first kind is held

, .
i n general abhorrence ; the second ki nd is exceed

in g ly common to day -
.
'
There is something in the native American tem
per which c o mpels the steady repression o f t he
best Doubtless it comes to us from the English
.
stock— so di ff erent from the emotional te mpera

ment of the L at in s l— Wh ich always shrinks from
the sli ghtest betrayal o f feeling T h e Englishman .
habitually uses und erstatement o f his deeper con

“
victions He talks of doing h is bit when he
.
”
“
means laying down hi s life He says rather .
”
“
when he means with all my heart As f or
shed ding un dig nified tea rs no calamity could com
,
pel him t o do th at Stern self repression exer

.
-
c ised through ma ny ce nturies means that men ,
o f Saxon heritage will never betray to any spe c t a
tor —sometimes not to the closest friend— their

sympathy or afiec t io n or rel ig ious devotion
, , To .
such a man there seems something indecent about

60
THE WIDENING HORI ZON
exposing one s heart to t h e gaze of the public or
’
,
even t o the gaze of wife or child .
Indeed w e have known men who by a strange

perversion of modesty deliberately see k t o appe ar
worse than they are Men Of the old New Eng .
land ancestry sometimes wish to be thou ght

“
hard — that is the reputation they covet To
”
m
.
seem sympa thet ic toward a debtor is to be thought

weak and flabby Hence they cultivate a harsh
.
anner wear the v i sor down in every encounter

, ,
conceal all private benevolence and cultivate a

reputation for exacting the po und of flesh They .
take a curious pride in hi ding their generosity

and exhibiting t h eir inflex ible d emand for justice .
In truth all of us whatever our pedigree are

, , ,
“
usually ashamed of o u r best S hy as a girl is an
”
.
o ld phrase but there is no human being so shy as

,
the average youn g man He positively blushes to .
be discove red in an act o f kindness is sometimes ,
a shamed o f hi s loyalty t o h is mother o r his faith

“
in G od and Often wants to be considered tough
, ,
as if toughness were ident i cal with strength He .
conceals his love of po etry and his reading of the

Bible keeps down un der the decks his romance
m
,
and his religious faith and keeps on exhibition ,
only the co nventional pose o f the college man .
Is such posing co edy or tragedy ?

Pray w h y should the worst in us get itself
,
e asily uttered and the best be crowded down and

,
suppressed ? Why when w e get up in the morn

,
ing shou ld all our petty irritations and cri tic isms
,
be spoken out and vented on a ro om mate whil e -
61
FACIN G LIFE
our sympathy and courage an d confidence are
shamefacedly concealed ? Is it not arrant h ypoc
risy ? Why do we spill over our ill humor so
easily and choke back all our faith in God and
man ? Why do w e so lightly utter o ur poorer
se lves —in cheap music bromidi c conversation
st ale humor in knocking and crabbing —and
, ,
“ ” ”
,
hide away the nobler self which the poor dis ,
tracted world so deeply needs to day ? -
Self expression is the watchword in some quar

-
ters to day We are told that long enou gh have

-
.
o u r instincts been repress ed that all sorts of evil

,
c o nsea c es will follow un less w e give free rein
to t h e des ires that lie deepest in t h e hidden re

cesses of the mind I quite agree But what de
. .
sires are really deepest— those which w e share wi th

the monkey and the hyena or those which w e ,
share with the saints o f yesterday and the heroes

o f to day ? Let yourself o u
-
t — yes I recommend it ,
.
But see to it that you let o u t that fin er and

nobler self that has so long been concealed from
those you love be st Taboos and conventions and
.
inh erite d fears and se nse less inhibit ions have so

made cowards of us all that we have kep t our
best selves under lock and key This is the char .
ac t eristi c hypocrisy of the American college .
62 .
C OMMUNE VINC ULUM
A LL st udies an d stud ents said Cicero have a

, ,
“
common bond so mething that gives them unity
”
,
and solidarity Wh at is it that unites educated

.
p ersons to day
-
?
A century ago all educate d men had been
through the same curriculum When the gradu.
ates o f Harvard then met the graduates o f Brown

o r Yale or Amherst they were all o n a level of
common knowledge and discipline All were

.
“
equally familiar with intellectual and moral phi
losoph y and equally ignorant O f what we now
c all modern sc ience The classical quotations o f
.
Burke in the English Parliament fell o n ears which

had been trained to de t ect any misplaced accent ,
and the speeches o f Charles Sumner and Edward

Everett were full o f literary a llusions that formed
the commo n stock o f all educ ated men But now
m
.
our young men and women are trained in many

differe nt types o f school— classical vocational , ,
technical i li tary— before they enter college and

, ,
those graduating from the same college in the

same year may never have met in any classroom .
“
Are educated pe ople then d issevered discordant , ,
belligerent ? Has the old uni t y given way t o

”
anarchy and chaos ? Far from it All minds edu

ca red in the modern spir it hav
.
e two things th at
63
m
FACING LIFE
bind the together —a common method in attack
ing all problems and a common View of the uni
,
v erse
.
All men who have imbibe d the modern spirit

have adopted the same method of study— patien t
obse rvation of facts classification of the facts
, ,
inference verification conclusion We may call

, , .
that the scientific method the inductive method , ,
or what we will It is the method pursued by the

.
astronomer studying the surface o f Mars by the ,
archeologist t rying t o decipher an Egyptian in

scription by the engineer studying the cause of a
,
railro ad accident and by all men w h o truly live

,
in the modern world It is indeed not th e onl y

.
method of finding truth The child may learn .
truth from its parents by authority The trav , .
eler in a foreign land may learn truth from the

natives by testimony But every living man edu
, .
c at ed in the last fifty years longs t o pass beyon d
authority and testimony and examine the facts

for hi mself and from the mass of facts by patient
,
study to draw out the truth The joy of actually

"
.
thus discovering some bit o f new truth is the

keenest intellec t ual satisfaction the mind can
But ed ucate d min ds have another bon d : they

think of the universe not as a finished fact but
an u nfolding process They do not conceive the
.
world as completed six thousand or six million

years ago but as still being c reated still in proc ess
, ,
of bec oming in accordance with unchanging law

, .
Wh at a man thi nks o f the uni verse is immensely

64
FACIN G L IFE
“
f undamental law o f the Kingdom is first the
blade then the ear then the f u ll corn in the ear
, , .
”
But however we suppo rt this view o f the world

,
as an evolving process it is the grea t unifying

,
force in modern thinking the o ne conception

,
which holds educate d men together Belief that .
the world is process is as much a test o f e d ucation

as belief that the earth is a globe A man may .
deny it if he will but then he speaks another

,
langu a ge and w e need not talk with him fur

,
ther.
Here then is the great and notable bond among

, ,
all the college and universit y graduates of the

world : they attack all t h e problems and diffic ul
t ies of life in the same w ay and they see all l ife
,
and the whole world itself as a constantly unfold

ing disclosure—o f what ? To all serious men it is
the disclosure o f thought ; to me an d I hope to -
you— it is the revealing o f I nfinite Thought .
66
TH E S NARE OF PREPARATIO N
MAN Y students suff er from the fallacy of for

ever get ting ready Th ey are victims o f what
.
“
Tolstoi calls the snare of preparation Many .
”
o f us think of t o day as simply a dull preparation

-
f o r to morrow a sort of poor waiting roo m in a

-
,
-
railroad stat ion bleak and desolate enough where

, ,
/
w e must sit until the train is ready to carry us

to some happier place But a l ife Spe nt in waiting
.
rooms a life of preparation days is a life neither

, ,
o f r el igion nor common sense .
We have seen American travelers in Europe liv

ing in the same obliviousness to present oppo r
t u ni t y
. They are always getting ready to see the
great sights On the steamer from New York
.
they are bu ried in the g ui debook to London In .
“
London they are rea ding up o n Paris In Paris ”
.
“
they are reading up on Rome And in Rome ”
.
they are busy negotiating for a stateroom on the

steamer back to America The thing they want .
is always round the corner an d their ceaseles s ,
occupation is gettin g ready to see to know Soon , .
they are at home again without having lived one

,
vivid day of glowing present experience one day ,

“
of fin e careless rapture
, .
”
A famous preacher looking b ack over a twenty

,
five years ministry said he realized that for a

’
,
67
FACIN G LIFE
quarter century he had been s imply g etting rea dy
m
for next Sunday Many a housekeepe r spends the
.
sprin g in preparing t o close he r house for the sum

er
, and her summer in planning how t o Open
her house in the autumn .
In the g rammar or grade schools children are

preparing for the high schools The hi gh schools .
“
and academies we frankly call preparatory
schools because in them the emphasis is all o n
”
somethi ng b eyond which is supposed to be the

,
real thi ng In college o ur students are preparing

.
for business o r professional caree rs ; then they are

preparin g to secure a competence f o r old age ; and
then—d o they hear the voice o f the ancient
“
prophet c rying Prepare t o meet thy God ? But
,
”
why not meet Him far back in sch ooldays o r at

the fires ide ? Sh all we spend our years in b reath
less pursuit o f the next thing ?
The great reform in education would be to
“
abolish preparatory schools and make school ”
,
life a fine and worthy thi ng in itself so that if ,
the student never goes any further he has still

had a rich and enlarging experience under large
ded great souled men and women In a real
,
-
.
school we are not getting ready to live— we are

“
living The best prepara t ion f or life is participa
.
tion in life .
”
If the lif e of school an d colle ge is to day ner -
“
vous and anxious and involved in the snare o f
preparation it is because such is the life o f our
”
,
nation The faces of the people Opposite us in

—
.
t he s r
t eet c ar are sel d om seren e they are tensely
68
THE WIDENING HORIZON
watching for the corne r wh ere they are to alight .
When you talk with some people you are que erly
conscious that they are not looki ng at you but ,
beyond you They are looking at the man jus t

.
beh ind y o u in the crowd or thinking of so me ap

pointment to be met We call such fol k absent
.
minded because their bodies are in one place an d

,
thei r minds in anot her And when they are for

.
ever preparing for the next thing the th in g they ,
have in han d is done feebly and badly .
One of the greatest golf pl ayers seen in re cent

yea rs in America was asked to write out the secret
o f hi s succe ss and he did so The pith of what
, .
“
he wrote is this : Play each shot as it comes with
’
o u t regret over past mistakes o r worry over future
trouble . If I had frette d over m issing my

tee shot o r bothered about the lie o f the ball I
, ,
wouldn t have had a chance Make up your mi nd

’
.
to accept a bad lie and some bad luck as part of

the game and to be expected .
”
Not only in pl aying games but in the heaviest ,
respons ib il i ties of l ife the carefree atti tude of a

co ncentrated min d is the chief essential to suc
cess A famous American banker recently wrote :
.
“
My own method has been to live each day as
though it were the only day I had to live and t o
crowd everything possible into that day Pay n o .
attention to the clock or t o what you are paid ,
but wo rk an d live for all there is in it— just as

you would play football— an d everything else
will take care of itself .
”
Are w e advocating Oriental in di fference or ,
69
FACIN G LIF E
m
negligence o f the future ? S urely not . The
banker is not careless o f the future ; the golfer is
m
not indifferent t o the final score But those en
.
kn ow that the only way to make the future se

cure is t o live whole heartedly in the present o
-
ment to be present minded to fli ng one s total

,
-
,
’
self into the work o f each morning Goethe put

.
this into u nforgettable words when he wrote ,

“ “
W0 da bist sei alles Wherever be
”
, art ,
wholly there "”
70
’
M A KIN G UP O N B s M IND
WHE N a man is facing the necessity of a vital

decision how doe s he make up hi s mind ? When
,
he stands at the crossroads and must turn to the
m
right or the left what are the elements which de
,
termine a wise decision ? America was two an d
m
m
o n e half years in maki ng up its
-
i nd t o enter the
Worl d War and it went into that war with
m
,
fla g purpo se and undi vided soul because the

nation ha d waited until it w as s ure o f its d uty .
How can the individual facing his own proble

reach a decision as clear and compelling ?
The first step is t o sec ure information t o be ,
come sure o f the facts T o choo se blindly is prob

.
ably to choose wrong N 0 amount o f good in t en
m
.
tion or altruistic purpose or pious aspiration will

take the place o f plain knowledge o f the facts
volved Shall I invest in a certain railroa d
.
stock ? The first essential is to know the history ,
the Officers the financial condition of that railroad

, .
Shall I enter a large university or a small college ?

The first need is to know somethi ng about the
Opportuni ties the atmosphere the ideals the
, , ,
product of several American institutions De

, .
ci sion without facts is delusion .
The second step in wise decision consists in

taking counsel All aroun d us are men or women
.
71
FACIN G LIFE
who have live d longer an d deeper than we who ,
have grope d and c limbed wh o have known pre

,
li minary fail ure and pe rmanent success Why not .
t a lk with a few of those w h o have se aled the sum

'
mits before us? If a man is t rying to d ecide
whether to be a physician or an engineer he can ,
n ot deci de alone an d in a vacuum The experi .
enced physician not only can give him information
regarding the profession but can expoun d its

,
strength and its weakness its requirements and

,
its satisfactions and i t s relation to other ki nds of

p ublic se rvice .So the experienced engineer s esti ’
mate of his o wn calling is invaluable to One wh o

,
stands on the threshold and queries whether he

should enter No on e adviser is enough ; each new
.
o n e may cast a new ray o f li ght on our problem
or give us a new angle of vision In the multi .
tude o f counselors there is wisdom provided that ,
w e surrender to none o f them but keep the de ,
c ision wholly with in oursel v es .
A thir d element in wise d ecision is absolute

candor and un selfish n ess A man cannot be a
.
good j udge when passion o r appetite or preju dice

is plucking at his sleeve If a man is secretly o r
.
unconsciously biased hi s j ud gment is warped

,
m
and unt rustworthy If in the s ubc onscious self
.
“
there is already a resolve t o g et rich quick or a ”
m
,
violent repugnance to certai n kin ds o f work or ,
a determination n ever t o live in certain places of ,
course candid consideration is i sible and the
final decision is a matter of emotion rather than

reason . Only when on e is ready t o do anything ,
7 2
FACING LIFE
of action because we may regret it The only .
regre t will come from failure t o act at
C h oose w e ll y
, ou r c h oic e is
B rief an d y et en d less .
74
GOO D EN G LISH
WHE N a noted teacher o f engineering w as re

c en t ly d iscussing the kin d o f education neede d to
d ay he said that t w o attainments above all others

,
are re quisite to the successful engineer : insight

into other men s minds and ability t o express one s
’
,
’
o w n thought in the mothe r tongu e It is o f the .
second requirement that we wi sh t o speak now .
It is not engineers alone wh o fail in the use o f

the English language but men in every occupation
,
and profession The engineer Ofte n cannot wri t e

.
a brief clear letter or render a report on a com

, ,
plicated proc ess so that others can know what he

i s talki ng about H e h as valuable ideas in h i s
.
“
brain but he cannot put them across an d when
,
”
,
he attempts to explain a process o r a machine he

simply befogs and bewilders everybody Ameri .
can o ffic ers in the Spanish American War had the -
same diffic ulty and often a careful pe rusal O f

,
their dispatches left u s still ignorant o f what w as

going on in Caribbean waters To day the officers .
-
in ou r banks tell us that their clerks cannot write

letters th at are at the same time d efinite and
courteo us explicit as t o detail an d Winsome in
m
,
manner And when our young people g o outside

.
o f the business world and try t o discuss so cial
and political proble s , to deal with music and at :

75
FACING LIFE
an d poetry an d religion they often stammer an d
halt or seem possessed o f a du b spirit How
,
then can w e acquire a good mastery o f the mother

m .
tongue ?
We must first learn t o think s ince clear think ,
ing usually means clear writing Fog 1n mental .
processes means a hazy style of speech A muddy .
mind emits mu ddy sen tences One student being . ,
asked in an examination to describe t h e structure

o f a cert ain ki nd of timber wrote :
. The stru cture
,
i s composed of color s ize and weight , That

sentence was grammatically perfect y et it means ,
nothi ng There is n o trouble with the syntax yet

.
,
it conveys no idea because there was no clear cut

,
-
idea in the stu dent s min d Out of nothing

’
.
,
nothi ng comes an d ou t o f confused mental

,
processes iss ue only confusing paragraphs whi ch

befog all discussion and leave all readers in the
dark The s t yle o f Professor Huxley was limpid
.
,
lucid crystalline because hi s mind was in

, , ,
“
own phrase a clear col d logic engine
, , If Sain .
”
“
ue l Johnson had a s t yle whi ch made little fishes
talk like whale s it w as because the movement o f
,
”
his own mind w as ponderous an d at times eleph an

tme .
Another way of acquiring goo d English is

through association wi th those wh o have it Fine
manners—ih conduct or in speech—are not taught
.
so much as they are caught There is a happy .
contagion o f language that comes only th rou gh

close association with writers or speakers w h o
possess a varied strong and lucid vocabula ry and
, ,
76
THE WIDENIN G H ORIZO N
m
a an d cogent style This is e ss entially the
fl exible .
idea of Oxford University where there have never,
been any entrance exa i nations in English an d

where no English course is require d after entrance .
“ “
How then I said to an Oxfor d professor do
, , ,
the students acqui re thei r English ? H e smiled

”
,
“
as he answered : English cannot b e taught ; your
endless blue penciled essays seem t o u s beside t he
-
mark All we ask is that students by reading and

.
conversation associate with their betters Then .
style comes unbidden an d unconscious Of .
course Oxford has not ha d t o deal with the po ly

,
glot population of America B ut there is much .
tru th in the Oxford point of view The vulga r .
“ “
he don t and it ain t will never b e cured by
’ ” ’ ”
blue pe ncils but by intimacy wi th preceptors or

,
tutors or friends wh o have never descended into

the swamps o f slovenly speech an d by intimate , ,
constant contact with the great writers of Eng
m
land and America Above all is the King James
.
“
version o f the Bible a well of English u n defiled .
”
Many an u ntutored Christian brought up o n the
m
m
,
sinewy sentences, the pithy proverbs the tender ,
appeals t h e ajestic visions o f Moses Isaiah and

, ,
St Paul has a co
.
, an d o f the vernacular which
the uni versity graduate mi ght well envy .
A nd that l ea ds us t o say that good English

in the last analysis sprin gs o u t of good character .
The man wh o has a cowardly or unclean mind

will be s u re to spill out his internal fear o f smut ,
an d no rules o f gramma r can help him The man .
who is c oarse an d v ulgar inside emits a vulgarizing

77
FACING LIFE
Speech that c oa rsens the life o f the whole
If he is inwardly vile he should at least
,
fouln ess to himse lf and not expectorate over the

whole campus But s uch reticence is not long
m
.
“ “
poss ible . Wh at y o u are said Emerson speaks
, ,
so loud I cannot hear what you say .

”
V ainly does
an y man t ry to separate fine speech fro fine
“
living. A greater tha n Emerson said : Out o f
the abundance of the heart the mo uth speaketh .
”
78
B E F ORE EXAM INATION S
THERE are two classes of students w h o may

make a poo r showing in any examination The .
first class is composed of the nervous sensitive , ,
high strung students an d the Other class includes

-
the nonchalant and blas é .
The nervous hyper sensitive stud en t fears any

,
-
unusual test and is never at his best under strain .
For him antic ipation is even worse than reality ,
j us t as a swimmer shivers far more on the shore

o f the lake than after he h as plunged in But .
what sort of life is it that can not stan d a sudden

“ “
strain ? An unexamine d life said Socrates is
”
, ,
not worth living What sort of battleship would

.
”
it be which could no t stand a trial trip ? Wh at

woul d be the value o f an automobile whose engine
'
could not be safely teste d before it leaves the ,
builders ? Whatever cannot be subjected to emer

g e n c y tests is essentially unsound an d un fit for
daily use No mainspring is put into any watch
. ,
no incandescent bulb is ever sold until it has been ,
tried o u t by subjecting it t o tests more stringent

than ordinary uses can impose Indeed there is .
solid satisfaction in passing a har d tes t success

fully The man wh o is examin ed for a life in
.
-
surance policy and pronoun ced soun d in every

,
Vital organ find s his exami nation d ay reassuring

,
79
FACING LIFE
and inspiri ng But the man who dares n ot apply
.
f or a physical examination lest it should disclose

,
some defect in him has already proved himself a

,
mental defecti ve and moral delinquent .
On the other hand some students never do well
m
in examinations because they carry an assumed
superiority an d in difference t o all tests Th ey de .
clin e t o worry an d ostentatiously neglect to pre

pare B ut the man wh o never rouses hi mself t o
.
meet an e ergency never discovers hi s own po w

ers Through pride or indi fference he lives habit
.
ua lly below par exerting perha ps only fifty pe r

,
cent of his potential energy He can never com .
pete with men of less abili t y w h o are using one

hundred percent o f t h e energy they possess .
If the college Faculty should abolish exami na
m
tions the students would at once reestablish them
,
.
In fact students alr eady have their entrance ex

a i nat ions f or every student activity and impo se
more rigorous requir ements than any Faculty ever
dreamed of N o man can join the glee clubs or
.
the drama t ic organization until he has been tested .
“
To make a v arsity team in athletics or deba t ing
”
means that o ne h as been through many a c ontest

wh ich has weeded ou t the l esser men T o become .
manager of a college publication demands two or

three years of the hardest kind of competi tive
struggle N o Faculty ever imposed so prolonge d
.
and severe a test on any undergr aduate All st u .
dent organi zations decline to receive new m embe rs

Without rigi d se arch ing examinations an d wi th
, ,
fine spor ting spirit the newcomer wi llingly sub

80
FACIN G LIFE
vions career is unde r the searchlight an d all he
,
h as done and said for years is scrutinized by thou

sands .We might as well get used to these tests
n o w take them rationally calmly even smi lingly
, , , ,
putting every ounce of energy into honest prep

aration an d accepting the result with no ali bi ,
but wi th an hon est wi llingness to be j udged by

o ur o wn output . To such a test in college or
,
afterward a student may go with quiet confidence

—as the runner goes t o the track or the ball play
,
er goes t o t h e h at
‘
8:
ANA LYSIS
WHE N a chi l d looks out o f the window at a dis

tant forest it sees nothing but a green blur or
blotch on the horizon All the parts of the for .
est all the tree s shrubs vines mosses are sw al

, , , , ,
lowed in that undi fferentiated blur outsi de the

window But a f ew y ears later as the child grows
.
,
up he begins t o break up that forest into its com

,
ponent parts He learns t o distinguish pine

.
,
spruce hemlock cedar ; learns where the winding

, ,
paths run where the birds bui ld their nests ; he

,
has analyzed the confused blur into its elements ,
an d for the first time really begins t o know the
m
That is the only way to know anything Anal
m
.
y si s is the in dispensable first st ep in all knowl
edge Some en seem t o go through life as if in

.
a confusing i st N o ide a is for them sharply

.
defined no statement is exactly true or really

,
false and all things are nebulous and indistinct
m m
.
,
But the educated man attacks every idea or in

st it u t io n with thi s too l o f analysis and obeys the
ancient Roman o t t o z Div id e e t i pera— Di

' “
m
.
vi de an d conquer The process may be danger

.
”
o us; of course it is " It may be pa inful to the
student or his friends , it may seem at ti es t o

un settle the foundations of t ruth o r o f society ;
83
FACING LIFE
b ut wi thout it nothing is understood an d all edu
cati on is impossible .
The conception of matter has un dergone mos t

radical changes in the last century d ue largely ,
to ever more searching analysis We used to .
thi nk of molecules as the constituent particles of

every material substance ; then we dissolved them
into atoms now into ions or electrons ; and stead
,
ily relentlessly we are dissolving the visible uni

, ,
verse into t h e invisible energy from whence it

sprang .
So the student must trea t the social an d eco

nomic ideas wh ich un derlie society Private prop
.
e rty the concept io n o n which o ur economic world
m
,
is bui lt where di d it originate ? Was all prop

,
e rt y once held in common ? Is the world moving

toward a larger d eg ree of com on ownership ?
H as any citizen an absolute right t o anyth ing or ,
are all hi s righ ts but tentative and tempo rary ar
m
rangements ? Will the state some day assume—o r
m
resume control ? -
Similar questions mus t be
aske d about the fa ily Was its original form .
monoga ous ? What did Abraham think Wh at ,
d id Plato write about polygamy ? The student

,
w h o is afraid to ask such questions ha d better

no t elect any college courses in economics o r so
ci al sc ience or ethic s .
So we must procee d in the study of the Bible .
To view it as a solid block is not to understand

'
it
. The student w h o wants to understand will
d issect it into books and will ask o f each o ne
, ,
When ? Where ? Why ? To whom ? He must

34
THE WIDENIN G HORI ZON
distinguish between the prophetic and the prie stly
elements bet ween the historic and the hortatory
, ,
must study authors pe riods tendencies and must

, , ,
fearlessly face all facts A man might worship

.
the Bible without ope ning it or by o pening it

,
only far enough to find a f ew favorite v erses .
B ut until he analyzes his Bible he ca nnot know it .
Thi s process of di fferentiating ideas of disen ,
tangling essentials h as always been considered

,
perilous Socrates w as compelled to drin k t h e

.
h emlock be cause he persisted in doing it He .
w as esteemed a menace to the state because he

insisted on following every idea back to its nest .
“
Roger Williams was enlarged o u t of Massa ”
c h uset t s because he thoroughly analyzed the claim s
o f the magistrates in Bo st o n and S alem Indeed .
analysis may be superficial or contemptuous an d

so fail of all real result But in o n e way or an
.
other all of us must take ou r ideas to pieces be
m
fore we can unde rstan d their validity o r the worl d
behind them .
Some years ago I received a letter from the

proprietor of a large department store asking me
t o recommend an employ ent manager to take
charge of abo ut two th ousand employees The .
writer enclosed a chart o f the quali ties requisite

for o ne holding such a position The first sen .
“
tence on the chart was this : He must be a good
analyzer . It was no professor of logi c who wrote
”
that but a hard headed business man He di d

,
-
.
not demand that the applicant for the responsible

position sho uld ha ve any previous expe rience in
85
that line o f business but simply an d chiefly that
,
he possess this indispensable power to analyze
m
.
Then the wri ter pointed ou t tha t only through

such analysis can a manager discover the limita
tions o f other men the possibilities in en an d
, ,
the way to educate men out o f limitation into

possibility The man wh o w as finally selected is
.
n o w the president o f one o f o ur largest colleges .
After all analyzing is simply thinking and the

, ,
whole object o f the college cour se is t o teach us

to thi nk—c learly closely accurately serenely
, , , ,
“
and t o the point As a man thi nket h in h is
.
heart so is he sai d the ancient Preacher An d

”
, .
“
a modern preacher h as a dded : If he doesn t ’
th ink he i sn t
,
’
.
”
85
S YNTHE SIS
SAD in dee d is the fate of the student wh o can

merely pull things to pieces He takes the first
.
step in knowledge and cannot take the second .
H e can d isintegrate and dissect and d ispe rse an

English sentence an institution a po litical the
, ,
ory, a religious faith but is powerless to com

,
'
bine and construct So h e becomes a man of
.
shred s and fragments like Shakespeare s ped ant

,
’
,
“
who had been at a feast of languages and stolen
all the scraps
”
.
What is the use of a mechanical engineer wh o

can take apart a steam engine b u t cannot set it
,
up again and make it work ? Wh at is the use

o f a teacher o f English w h o can point out all the
flaws in a Freshman theme but cannot himself

,
write anything we care to read ? What is the

use of a r eformer w h o can show us the dangers
o f monopo ly in trade the horrors o f alcoholism

, ,
the menace of easy divorce but has in mind no

,
plan or principle o f social advance ? One of the

most famous reformers o f the last generation car
t ied with her constantly a symbolic hatchet ,
whi ch on occasion she did not hesitate t o use as a

physical weapon The world nee ds not only the
.
hatchet of the reformer but the trowel o f the

,
builder ; no t only the power t o hack and slash

87
FACIN G LIFE
at thi ngs that are but the po wer t o reveal and
,
create t h e thi ngs that o ught to be Many a Bib .
“
lical scholar can show us all the mistakes o f
Moses but cannot explain wh y the Bible in spite
”
o f all mistakes has created literatures and codes
o f law and turned the stream of history Many a .
psychologist can or thinks he can— resolve the

-
soul into the prima ry elements of sensation but
m
,
cannot tell wh y the soul of Prospero is worth
m
more than that of Caliban or what is the sig ,
n ific an ce of o u r inc o rrigible faith in hu an free

do and responsibility .
Indeed th at is the trouble with all modern
m
—
thinking ir is so hi ghly specialized that each
scholar is confined to his own water tight com -
“
p a rt en t and, no o n e is left t o see life steadily
and see i t whole .One man teaches algebra an

”
,
other geome try another calculus and nobody

, ,
any longer teach es mathematics One ph iloso .
pher explains to us K ant another Hegel anothe r

, ,
Bergson but nobody seems able to construct a

,
philosophy by whi ch he would advise us to live
m
or is ev en willing t o li ve himself The college .
“
catalogue shows all knowledge taught in de
p art en t s o f study
”
— divisions as imaginary as
the lines of latitude and longitude o n t h e earth s ’
surface Real knowledge cannot be thus pigeon

.
holed and any important problem lies 1n all the

,
departments at the same time If a railroad acci .
“
dent h ad oc c urred near this city what depart ,
ment would we se nd up the road to study the

cause o f t he accident ? Does the problem lie in
88
m FACING LIFE
m
ay act as a s ort o f vertebral column f or a soft
and slouchy personality But the greatest syn
.
thesis ever achieved in human hi story is e bodied

“
in the famous phrase the Kingdom of God
, .
”
Wh en God becomes t o us the Supreme Reality ,
an d His will o ur highest joy then li fe is redeemed

,
from being d esultory and spineless and achieves

,
that inner unity which is the secret of both peace

an d powe r.
90
ATTEN TIO N TO READIN G
GIVE attention to reading wrote the Apostle ,
P aul and when facing the end of life in Nero s

’
,
“
prison he begged young Timothy to bring the
books but espec ially the parchments
, In every .
”
college the l ibrary occupies a cen tral po sition .
Fifty years ago the l ibrary b uil ding w as a place

to store books To day it is a place in which to
.
-
use books What are some o f the ways of using

.
them ?
First o f all there is rea ding for pleasure A
man ought t o do some reading for the sheer de
light o f it The best test of a man s character ’
.
is his use o f his leisure What does he do when

.
he doesn t have to do anything ? When the neces

’
sary tasks o f the day are over an d his mind can
roam whe re it wi ll where then does his min d

,
g o ? A man ought t o have some boo ks t hat are

t o him a wellspring o f enjoyment re ading them ,
not because society expects it not be cause tea ch ,
ers exact it but because his o w n nature craves

,
it It is good for a student to tur n h i rn self loose

.
in a big l ibrary as a colt is turned out to grass .
Unless a man has a pe rverted mind he knows what

is good for himself and may follow the bent o f
,
his ow n nature Wh en Charles Evans Hughes

.
was worn with the exh austing insurance investi

91
FACING LIFE
g at ion she foun d recreation in the novel s of

Dumas . When Theodore Roosevelt went into
Africa he carried the famous pigskin library ,
more than half of whi ch consisted of the works

of the gre at poets When Mayor Gaynor had a
.
leisure eveni ng he betook hi mself to Epictet us the ,
Roman slave whose clea r and lofty thought c omes

,
like a northwest wind bracing and cleansing

, .
Read some books for no earthly reason except

t h at you want to ; and the man th at doesn t want ’
to read at all— may the Lord have mercy on h is

mind "
m
Some books we read simply for informati on .
Before traveling through a strange country w e

read t he gui deboo ks Before buying an au t o o
.
bile we read about styles mecha ni sms costs the

, , ,
experiences of other men In the study of his .
tory or sc ience we go constantly to the library ,
using the books simply as the tools with which
m
we work It makes little di fl eren ce to us then
.
w ho the writers are if only they are competent

, ,
o r what their method ay be ; w e simply want
m
the facts they have to give A scholar cannot .
live and work apart from the great reserv oirs of

infor ation I have invit ed scores of schola rs t o
.
accept appointment as teachers and in nearly ,
every case one of the first questions has been :

“
What l ibraries wi ll be accessible ? Without ”
the l ibrary the scholar cannot know what has

been done and so stumbles and fumbles in wha t
,
he does himself .
But we often read boo ks because w e are seek

92
THE WIDENING H ORIZON
ing personality the po wer o f a great human

,
breath i ng through the printed page The books .
o f mere inf ormat ion are always getting out of
date ; the books of personality are forever young

and vital Take down from the libra ry shelf
.
3 treatise on physics or chemistry publ ished

twenty years ago What can it tell you about
.
the X ray or the radio active substances or the

-
,
-
decay of matter ? Take down some book on

mechanics used by your father in college What .
can it tell about the gas engine an d the aero

plane ? But take down from the shelf the living
thought o f Plato B urke Carlyle Lincoln and it
, , , ,
i s as modern as if written yesterday as enduring ,

“
as the starry heavens above or the moral law
within .
”
The almanacs and geographies an d en
cyclopedias mere receptacles for information are
, ,
always on their w ay to the ash heap But the .
prophets poet s and thi nkers the great pe rsona li

, ,
ti es w h o blazed a pa thway fo r civi lization and

education and religion— these are intellectual stor
age batteries to which we keep coming that w e
may be charged from their undying energy .
Finest and highest of all the objects o f readin g

is thi s— to find and feel the truth If there is .
one vir tue the college man o r woman prizes above
all other s it is the love of truth in spe ech in

, , ,
con duct in attitude toward li fe We wa nt more

, .
t han facts ; w e want the tru th which is the in

t erpret at io n o f facts the understandi ng of the
,
'
relation of facts to on e another and t o ourselves .
Th e one gr ea t cry of the worl d restless and eager ,
93
FACIN G L IFE
and longing is for the
, disgui sed truth Wha t
un .
is true in economic theory ? The man that can
m
tell us will remold o ur entire industrial life What
m
.
is true i n the realm o f heredity and environment ?

The man that can tell us will re ake both the
fa ily and the school What is true in Bible
.
study ? The man that can answer that will guide

all our religious thinkin g He wh o dedi cates his
.
life to truth seeking and gives to the world be
m
-
fore he di es some new truth t o live by is doing ,
more for c ivilization than if he built a score o f

ills or banks or hospitals .
I stood some time ago in a long procession at

t h e laying o f the cornerstone o f a great labo ra
tory in an institution which had several labora
tories and no library A scientist w h o is known in
m
.
“
all civili zed lands stoo d near I said : Are not .
t h ese laboratories evi dences of o ur progress ? ”
“ “
Yes he answered and also of ou r i sun der
, ,
standing The library is far more important In

. .
the laboratory we discover nothing but we tes t ,
and verify and apply what we have discovered
m
elsewhere For a new discovery is simply a new
.
combination of o ld ideas and that new and sur

,
prising co bin at 1o n 18 most li kely to occur to a
m
man not when he is handling things but when
, ,
he is pondering thoughts In t h e quiet at

.
osph ere of the libra ry the leaders th ink out their
ideas and use the labo ratory— o r the world it

,
self— to te st the results of solitary thought .
94
N EW YEAR MO RN IN G
F O R all of
o f us it will
we pass into
us this is another year ; for some
be a rea lly new year Auto atically
I9 2 But for many men the new
. m
year will be really an old one like the mechanical
,
repetition o f a phonographic record with the ,
same o ld raspi ngs and scrapings attach ed to the

tune ; while for others the new calendar will mean
novel achievement original a dventure and fresh
,
service t o the worl d .
In the year 1 91 7 we saw America summone d ,
by a menace to huma n civilization rise into a ,
unity a heroic devotio n a capacity for sacrifice

, ,
unparalleled After the signing o f the Armistice

.
,
w e saw o ur country fall back i nto a slough o f

party spirit narrow nationalism and extravagant
, ,
expenditure The New Year which now we face

.
,
which we are soo n t o create of what sort shall,
it be ?
Perhaps the best w ay we can help the world
to day is simply by thinking It is vastly easier
-
.
t o fight than to think yet all fighting without

,
thinking is sure to end in defeat It is much .
easier to work than to think but the harder a ,
man works without thought the more damage ,
h e doe s T o think means to put t o oneself some

.
one of the ur gent questions o f the modern world
95
FACIN G LIFE
an d force ourselves t o fin d the answer When
M arshal Foch w as asked how he wo n the fin al
“
victories in the Great War he answered : I did ,
it by smoking my pipe What he meant was

.
”
that he refused t o get excited declined to lose ,
his head at a sudden crisis and insisted on quietly

,
thi nking out each problem before plunging into

action . Behind the thundering guns w as the
small quiet man w h o d id not shout or run but
, ,
simply took time to thi nk .
Amid the reactions an d confusions that have

followe d the W ar o ur on e greatest need is the
thinker . The problems bristle before us like ,
the Sphi nx whi ch would d evour those who could

not guess her riddle What is democracy ? How
.
can an expanding nation be true to a written con

st i t u t io n ? How can w e reconcile patriotism and
the international mind ? What are the rights and
duties of employer and employed ? How can we
make industry democratic and yet keep it e fficient ?
Every po litical problem has now become an eco
nomic one and every economic problem leads us
,
straight into ethi cs into problems o f persona lity
m
,
and character and the moral basis o f the entire

social order .
A certain type of i n d is afrai d of the dis

c ussio n whi ch is the essence of education There .
is a dogmatic kind o f mind to which everything
m
appears black or white every issue already clear
, ,
every man a pure pa triot or an enemy o f the

Republic But education means discri ination
. ,
clarification by disc ussion ; it means hearing both

96
E
L SSO N S N O T FO UN D IN B OO K S
TH E Emperor Marc us Aurelius at the opening

of h is Medi tati ons recounts his indebtedness t o h is
various teachers H is inventory of benefits t e

.
ceiv ed is startling in i t s obliviousness to all that

“
we commonly mean by a course of study .
”
F rom my grandfather Verus I learne d

good morals and the governmen t of my tem
per .
From the reputation an d remembrance of

my father mod esty and a manly character
, .
From Apo lloni us I learned freedom of will

and undevi ating steadi ness o f purpose
and how t o receive from friends wha t are
esteemed favors Without either being hum
,
bled by them or letting them pass unno

ti ced .
From Alexan der the grammarian I learne d

, ,
t o refrain from fault fin din g -

.
From Maximus I learned self government
m
,
and not t o be led aside by anyt hing ; and

cheerfulness in all circumstances and to
do What w as set before me without co pl
mg .
Not a word is here sai d about his courses in lit

erat ure or history o r music or the art o f govern
98
m
“
study .
THE WIDEN IN G
ent ; not a wor d about what we commonly call
But this great emperor w h o knew how
”
H ORIZO N
t o rule both the Roman world and hi s own soul ,
looks back o n simple homely lessons in freedom

, ,
manliness steadiness cheerfulness as the greatest

, ,
benefits derived from famous teachers America .

,
with all its vast annual expenditure for schoo ls ,
i s often oblivious t o the hea rt and soul of true

e ducation— the traini ng of the will in the s imple ,
indispensable virtues The immediate need of our

.
schools is training in the homely qualities and atti

tudes early learned by Marcus Aurelius with out ,
“
which all knowl edge will vanish as an insubst an
tial pageant faded .
”
If these lessons are then so valuable w h y not

, , ,
have them definitely taught by teachers appointed

for the purpo se ? Some writers would create vir
t uo u s students by compulso ry courses in ethics ,
o r the Bible or by required atten dance at lectures

,
o n temper ance sexual purity co mmercial honesty

, , ,
or the duties of citizenship In the New England .
college o f a hundred years ago Christian character

w as supposed to be promoted by a required course
in Christian Evidences long since abandoned as ,
u seless.
The truth is that character is seldom promoted

by a frontal attack ; it i s t oo subtle and inward
and spiritual t o be inculcated by exhortations dis
guis ed as lectures We do not become honest
.
t hrough l ect ures o n hones t y or courageo us by ,
electing a course in courage and its attendant vir

t ues Character i s a grea t stream of devotion
. ,
99
self dedication and high endeavor flowing all
-
through a man s life and tha t stream is fed by

’
,
many rills from many unsuspected sourc es The .
professor o f physics may make his chief cont ribu

tion by giving the student lessons in un failing
c o urtesy fair mindedn ess and j u dicial temper
,
-
.
The professor o f che mistry may impress his stu

dents chi efly by h is accur acy in the use of Eng
lish and his be aring as a gentleman The teache r .
o f mathematics may produce a lifelong impressi on

“
when he quotes Plato s great saying : God
’
geometrizes The teacher of history may suc

.
”
o ecd in showin g what Froude meant when he

“
wrote : History is the v oice o f God forever
sounding across the c enturie s the laws of right and
“
wrong If such sayi ngs are dragged in they
” ”
.
,
wi ll fail; if they are allowed to leak o ut as the

i nevitable coro lla ry from the facts they are seen ,
as t he necessary implicati o n o f genuine stu dy .
We do not need t o tag th e f acts with moral les

sons ; we need only to let the facts speak f or them
selves Not by employing a teacher of virtue

.
shall we ma ke men vir tuous but by letting each ,
c ou rse o f study reveal t he forc es at the hea rt o f
nature and the inexorable law that whatsoever

,
men o r nations sow that shall they also reap

, , ,
.
We are grateful t o our teachers chiefly for les

sons n ever announ c ed in any catalo g ue or requi red
f or any deg ree —fo r the outflow and overflow o f

personali t y Wh en Emerson gave at Harvard
.
h is Phi Beta Kappa address in 1 8 6 7 James Russell ,
Lowell was among his de lighted listeners After .
1 00
FACIN G LIFE
The student wh o has always assume d that he
had a soul somewh ere hidden away in his brain
e nters a class in psyc h ology and hears much about
“ “
consc iousness or the subconscious but noth
” ”
,
“
ing about soul and again he is puzzled and per
,
”
t urbed .
The student in biblical literature hears for the

first ti me of the two Isai ahs or in social science ,
’
realizes that slavery and polygamy were once

esteemed virt uous and honorable or in history ,
learns o f the frailties o f apostles prophets and ,
martyrs o r in philosoph y be c omes acquainted for
m
,
the first time with the pantheistic conception of

the world Naturally h is faith is jolted and he
.
passes t h rough a critical and sometimes pa f ul

experience What suggestions can w e ma ke at
.
such a time ?
The first thing to be said is that eve ry li ving
m
man has got to face these di fficulties whether he
g oes to college o r not They are not
. peculiar to
the college ; they are found in the bank and the
m
i ll in the Pullman car and on the ferry bo at
, ,
and unless a man lives un der a glass case he has

“
g o t to face the specters of t h e i nd and lay
them . Why not in college ? There is no better
”
place in which to think one s way through the ’
un dert and come ou t into the sunshi ne .
Remember also the d ifficulties of unbelief— far

greater than any possible di ficu lt ies in beli eving .
Is it hard to be lieve still in the existence of t h e

soul ? But is it any eas ier or simpler to believe
that all human l ife and hu man history can be 61
1 06
THE DEEPENING FAITH
plained by atoms an d electrons and che ical f or
mulas ? If you cannot explain the origin of the
m
world can you explain the world by be lieving i t
,
had no origin ? If you cannot lon ger believe in:

a God wh o is like your childish picture of Him ,
can you find any peace o f mind o r satisfactory

explanation of the world in denying that G od
exists ? I can see more di fficulties in reli gion tha n
m
any student sitting before me ; but I know that
the y are nothing compared with the di ffic ulties o f
cheap skepticis and arrogant unbelief .
In any case d o not give up the faith you hav e

until you are sure you have found something bet
ter It may be the religion of your home town
.
w as crude and inadequate but it was at lea st

,
sincere and it so changed human lives that there

,
must have bee n a core of truth in it What w e.
all need is no t t o believe less than we did but t o ,
believe more —t o believe in something more spiri t
m
ual more real more vital than the pictorial and
, ,
“
dramatic conceptions of childhood .Build thee
more stately ansions O my soul is good ad
, ,
v ice Only let us no t move out of the old house

.
till the new one is roofed in .
Always carry the open mind and keep first

t hings first Our faith in George Washington
.
does not depend on o u r acceptance of the story

o f the cherry tree and the hatchet ; and our faith
in the Bible or in Christianity in no way depends

o n believing that the sun stood still to help
Jo shua o r that Jonah compo s ed his hymn while
,
“
inside the great fish .
”
1 07
FACIN G L IFE
A student abou t to graduate complained t o h is
college president that he could not believe this
“
and that . But you are living wholly in your
“
negations said the pres ident
, Go t o your room
.
,
take out a sheet o f paper and write down all t he

thi ngs which y ou do believe beyond question and
on which y ou are willing to act Somewhat
.
”
“
chagrined t he student obeyed He wrote : First
m
, .
,
I believe that the life of the Nazarene is the life

I ought to live now and I am willing t o try it
, .
”
Then a sec ond proposition occurred to hi and ,
then a thi rd and soon he had covered the paper

,
wi th his newly disc o vered creed Whoever acts

.
o n what he knows soon come to kn ow more .
1 08
FACING LIFE
journey and dares to say with R obert Louis
m
,
Stevenson
My ist ress st i ll p
t h e o en roa d ,
A n d t h e b rig h t ey es o f d an ger .
The truth is no man ever achieved grea t deeds

unless he was first a grea t believer He may not .
accept our propos itions but he must at least be

,
li eve in certain principles and ideals hold certain ,
kinds o f l ife as everlastingly worth while and ,
repudiate other kinds o f life with everlasting

hatred o r he could never have toiled and dared and
,
suff ered as heroes always do Unless Marshal Foch .
were a great believer in France could he have ,
turned the awful t ide of battle in 1 91 8 ? Unless

Lincoln had un swervingly and passionately be
liev e d in the principles on whi ch America is
foun ded would his leadership of a divided land
,
have been poss ible ? Unless Roosevelt had fer

ven t ly and unfalterin gly believed that aggressive
fighting f o r the right is the greatest sport in the ‘
world would he have attained the moral leader

”
,
ship o f America ? Take away from such heroes

o f the race the belief which nerved them to their
gigantic task which consoled them on dark days

,
and steadied them in days of triumph and you ,
have plucked the heart out o f the hero and left

him helpless and sprawling .
Moreover a great triumphant belief in some

,
eternal principle in some unchanging value in

, ,
somethi ng worth living for and worth dying for ,
releases us from sc ores of petty fears and inh ibi

I IO
T HE DEEPENIN G FAITH
tions an d makes us pass over obstacles as a flying
eagle over stone walls in the pasture .
When the soul is nourished by great faith it

shakes off paralyzing fears and is set free from the
pigmy cares that prey upon it ; it no longer lives in
slavery t o a formula but in freedom from all the
,
little formulas that have clogged the steps and

impeded the journey Whoever can honestly re
.
peat fo r example the Apostles Creed as embody

, ,
’
ing certain vi tal truths is thereby set free from

,
a thousand paralyzing doubts and sc ruples and

superstitious fears .
“
I believe in God the Father Almighty — then ”
I cannot believe in any other god s or any d emons

that can hurt me .
“
I believe in the Holy Ghos t — then in no ”
“
other ghosts whatever
”
.
“
I believe in t h e Holy Catholic Church — then
no t in any church that is un catholic narrow pro , ,
vinc ial exclusive

, .
“
I believe in the forgiveness of sins — then n o
sin of my childhood or early manh oo d can enslave
I believe in the life everlasting — then not in

death for myself or any that I love .
That creed is a Magna Charta an Emancipation ,
Proclamation We may not understand every

.
phase of it but at the heart o f it is a power that

,
“
inspires and thrill s and enables This is the .
victory that overcometh the world even our ,
faith .
I I I
THE A
SO CI L M ESS AG E O F RE LIGIO N
m
C HRIS TIANITY began in Palestine as a social move
ment began with the selection of certain young
,
men their detachment fro their o ld occ upa

,
tions and their organi zation into a band of cru

saders . It did not begi n with a ne w set of
propositions to be believe d but with a new kind
,
of life to be live d It di d not a nnounce any creed

.
concerning the nature o f Go d or the origin of
m
man o r the plan of salvation —all that came
“ ”
later in the teaching of the Apostle Paul an d the

great theologi ans w h o succeeded h i The origi . .
nal Christian movement began with the

ment of a Ki ngdom that was not in the sky but ,
“
at hand and wi th a summons to every man to
”
,
enter that Kingdom at once and work for its ex “
m
p a ns ion C
. h ristia ni t y was the announcement o f
a new social and spiritual order and a call to ,
every hu an b eing to subordinate all physical ,
financial and personal interests to making tha t

Ki ngdom come
m
.
For centuries the church almos t ignored this

idea and although the Ki ngdom is mentioned one
,
hun dred and twelve ti es in the four gospels it ,
is seldom mentioned in the purely in dividualistic

endeavor to convert single separa t e persons But
, .
t h e supremely important question is not what a
1 12
FACIN G LIFE
t ation .He kept His message fun damen tally re
ligious heart searching Go d seeki ng But He
,
-
,
-
.
never tried to save souls alone or bodies alone ; He

tried t o save the entire personality— body and soul ,
and whatever else there may be in the total self .
An d He did not dream of working a change in

the single man leaving that man isolated like a
m
, ,
statue in an art galler y He welcomed the man

.
into a fellowship a n ew Spiritua l and social order

, ,
a new cooperation with all other Christian en

o f every cree d and nation a fellowship so coherent
,
“ '
and enduring that he said : The gates o f Hades
shall no t prevail against it .
We mus t then re turn t o the original Christian

message if w e would transform the world or e ven ,
“
help it That the Holy Supper is kept in deed in
.
whatso w e share with another s need that all

’ ”
,
ritual is useless unless it expresses and reaches the

heart that all doc trine is lumber unless it issues
,
in life and that an a ctive enthusiasm for humanity

,
i s no appendage o f religion but is o f its very es

sense— all that is part and parcel of the primitive
gospe l th at flowed from the lips and fell from
t h e hands o f the Nazarene .
1 14
H o w To THIN K o r GOD
WHAT we think of God determines what we

t hink o f all else in the u n iverse T h e most search.
ing and revealing question we can put t o any

“
man is What is your idea o f G od ?
For centuries men be l ieved that God is power
un mitigated arb i trary power
, And believing that
.
power is the ultimate reality they tried to exercise

,
such arbitrary power themselves Believing in a .
celestial despot they became despotic Believing

,
.
that God was a military Chiefta in they adopted ,
w ar as the means of progress and the test of great

ness That w as the doctrine of Mohammedani sm
.
w hen it swept over northern Africa and southern

Europe and almost put Christianity to rout That .
is the doctrine o f the earlier books o f our Bible ,
where God is represented as primarily a military

“
general the God of the armies o f Israel
, Be .
”
lieving that the Israelites went forth to battle

,
with fierce glee an d stopped at nothing t o wi n

V1 c t o ry .
More bloody and ferocious d elight in confli ct

can be found nowhere in literature than what w e
find in the books o f Joshua and Judges They .
show us what men will do when they worship

she er power Many passages are li ke Lord Bryce s
.
’
report on the Armeni an atrocities Says the book .
1 1 5
FACING LIFE
of Deuteronomy s Wh en thou comest nigh unto
a city if it will make no peace with thee ,
thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth We .

”
may compare that with the proclamation of the

German Ge neral Stenger issued in Belgium on
“
August 2 8 1 91 4 : Beginning with to morro w no
m
-
more prisoners are t o be taken The wounded .

,
wheth er prisoners or no t are t o be put to death , .
No living man is to re a in behind us .

”
The result is t h e same in Israe l and in Germany ,
a thousand yea rs be fore Christ and two thousand

years after Faith in God as dictator o f the uni
.
verse as a being o f arbitrary irresponsible power

, , ,
c reates arbi trary irresponsible cruel men , ,

.
When t h e idea o f sh eer despotism became nu

te nable men took refuge in a somewhat nobler
,
c onception that o f God as lawgiver and moral

,
g overnor When
. the R oman law covered the
known world men began naturally to think o f
,
Go d under legal forms as the announcer of law ,

“
and t h e judge t o punish law breakers The last -
.
judgment then became a celestial court where all

”
,
the sons of men were t o be legally acquitted or

co ndemned .
There is truth in such a conception but not ,
the deepest truth Jesus taught men to say Our.
“
Father not Our Judge
”
,
The legal analog y is .
”
never complete The God of the lawy ers is not

.
adequate t o our human need The family and the .
home not the courtroom and the bench are the

, ,
clearest interpreters of God .
We turn therefore to the most amazing an d

, ,
1 1 6
FACING L IFE
knock down the ma dman without ceasing to love
,
him Love can restrain the drunken man or the

.
,
drunken nation without any surrender to the

,
bitterness of hatred Divine love coun ts among

.
its resources both heaven and hell .
We are then to think of God not as powerful

, ,
d espot not as mere judge in a celestial court ;

,
still less should we try to think of Him under

“ “
barren abstractions l ike be ing o r substance ” ”
“
or the He is Love ; he is a ff ectionate ,
forth putting pu rpo se the everlasting self giving

-
,
-
o f the Infinite The only way to maintain faith

.
“
in such a God is to be like Him He that .
dwelleth in love dwelleth in God an d so cannot ”

,
1 1 8
W HAT IS T H E U SE o r PRAYER ?
A C HINE S E student going o u t o f chape l the other

“
morning said : At a certain po int in the service
the leader says Let us pray , What does he
‘
.
’
mean by it ? Does he expect to change the order

o f the world by talking ? Co nfucianists do not
t ry to change it but to conform to it What
, .
does a Christian mean by Let us Surely ‘
that is a fair question Does prayer work ? If .
no t
, let us stop it as a meaningless survival o f
primitive superstition But if it does work
.
,
does really achieve changes inside or outside no ,
man living can a fford to neglect that means of

achieving his highest purpo se .
As regards changing t h e order of the worl d ,
three fourths of all ou r praying doe s not aim at

-
that Three fourt hs o f t h e letter which a student

.
-
writes to his father is probably not a request for

money o r for anything else It is a confidential .
chat ; if the student and his father are really in

sy mpathy it is simply talking things over to the
m
,
great benefit of the wri ter and the pleasure of the

reader Mediaeval wri ters used to say that most of
.
real prayer is thanksgiving confession com un , ,
ion not mere begging for someth ing

, .
Yet as the student s letter may culminate in

’
a real request so prayer does at times include real

,
1 1 9
FACIN G LIFE
pe titi on a re al asking God so do something for
,
us or in us Does it work ?
m
.
That 13 part of a broader question still Does .
my desire my volition cou nt for anything 1n de

, ,
t er i n in g the future ? If I am a mere cog on the

w heels o f a soulless uni verse o f course my prayer
,
avails nothing ; but neither does any other desire

I express o r any purpo se I cherish My desiring .
,
h0ping willing are all futile whether expressed in

, ,
prayer or in action Those w h o deny the possibili

.
ties o f prayer may logically go on— and often do

-
to deny the po ssibiliti es o f change through any
human e ffort of any kind They say in t h e so l
.
“
di er s phrase : If the bullet has my nu mbe r it
’
Wi ll get me Why struggle against the inev

. it
able future ?
Yet i t seems strange that a man should think
it po s sible to pray to everyone except God The .
student prays to his father to his roommate t o , ,
the college dean— who is sometimes besieged with

“
petitions — and is God less powerful or resource
”
f ul than they ? Even Professo r Huxley said that

t heoretically there w as no more di fficulty in pray
ing for ra in than in reque sting the gardener to
water the garden We know that a request to t h e
.
gardener in many case s does work Are we sure .
“
th at t h e New Testament command Let your t e ,
quests be made known un to God has no philos ,
0ph y behind it ? If by aski ng my friend to enter

'
a certa in college o r choose a certain profession I
can ch ange h is entire future and shape hi s career ,
am I sure that putting up a request to the Eternal

120
FACIN G LIFE
most men have prayed Either prayer is the most
.
widespread and in destructible of all h uman delu

sions or it actually works changes in ou rselves
,
and in the world around u s In ourselves o f

.
—
course ; every psychologist knows that In
world around us ? —only he wh o has tried it
.
rz a
m
W H O was J E SUS ?
WHEREVER Jes us Christ went on earth en began
m
to ask wh o He was There was something about
.
His pe rsonality so novel unique and pungent that

,
whoever met Hi experienced a new sensation

' “
.
As He entered Nazareth the people said : Is not

this the carpe nter s so n ?
’
Remorseful Herod
”
“
c ri ed : Who is this of whom I hear such thi ngs ? ”
“
Puzzled Pilate on the judgment seat said : W h o
art thou ? What sayest thou of thyself ?
m
One answer to that question died out of the
world centuries ago While He lived His enemies
.
“
called Hi deceiver No respectable man o n
.
”
the globe to day spe aks or thi nks of Jes us as

-
d eceiver .
Then men began t o give the answer which w as

revived in the nineteenth century by Strauss and
Renan— that Jesus w as an innocent fanatic wh o
saw visions and heard voices and exercised a
strange hypnotic power Truly He did have vi
.
sions and h ear voices But the turning o f the

.
stream o f human hi story the molding of the

,
mightiest nations o f the world are not to be

,
explained by the hallucin ations of a Gali lean

pe asant Only the very credulous can believe
.
that.
So the church at the Council of Nicea on the

,
12 3
FACIN G LIFE
edge of the Sea of Marmora in the year 3 2 5 put , ,
on rec ord the m ost elaborate and famous of all t h e
definitions of Christ Do you remember the care

.
fully wrought phrases ? I believe in on e Lor d

Jesus Christ the So n of God begotten of the
, ,
Father only be gotten that is to say of one sub

, ,
stance wi th the Father God o u t of God Light , ,
out o f Light very God out of very God begotten

, ,
not made Does anyone to—day understand those

.
”
“
phrases ? W h at is the meaning of begotten not ,
made as applied t o a divine being ? What is

”
,
the meaning of that antiquated idea o f substance ?

What did the church fathers mean when they
spoke of God as three pe rso ns in one nature an d ,
o f Christ as t w o natures in one person ? You

see we are involved in the laborious intricacies of
Greek metaphysics We are using conceptions an d
.
phrases whi ch tru e or false are al ien to the worl d
m
, ,
in which we now live and which make Christ ,
seem quite unreal an d remote from all our hopes

and fears and struggles Even to Sir on Peter the .
“ “
words nature and person would have con
” ”
vey ed no meaning ; they were not invented as

theological terms u ntil after he was dead .
We return therefore to the simple stateme nt

—
, ,
“
the New T estament The Word that is ”
of .
,
the innermost expression o f God as your huma n ,
word is the best possible express ion of what y ou

are — the Word became flesh and dwelt amo ng
“
us.
”
After all the ques t ion who Jesus Christ was
,
is not one to be decided by church coun cils o r

p rofesso rs or ecclesiastics It is a practical matter .
1 24
FACIN G LIFE
to His unique personality His matchless leader ,
shi p One o f t h e foremost Jewish rabbis has t e

.
“
c en t ly written : Who can compute all that Je sus
has meant to humanity ? T h e love he has inspired ,
t h e solace he has given the good he has engen

,
dered t h e hope and joy he has kindled— all that

,
is unequalled in human hi story Among the g reat .
and t h e good th at the human race h as produced ,
none has even approached Jesus in universality o f

appeal and sway .
”
However the words may stumble in which we

,
try to say it the longer we live t h e clearer becomes

,
the convi ction of all educated men that Jesus w as

“
right when He sa id : He th at hath see n me hath
seen the F ather Matthew Arnold depicted the
.
”
despair of skepticism when he wrote
N ow h e is d ead ; f ar h en ce h e ie s l
l
In t h at o n e Syrian t o w n ;
A n d o n hi s r av g
e w it h sh in in eyes g
T h e Syria n st ars oo d own l k .
But Wh ittier came far closer to th e eternal f act

when he said
War
A
m
,
p he
resen t
sw ee t ,
is h e ;
t en
lp
der , e ven y et
A n d f ait h h at h st i it s O livet ,ll

l
A n d o ve i t s Ga i ee ll .
126
W HY TH E B IBLE ?
O N this desk lies each morning—an d h as lain

there fo r a hundred and fifty years— a copy of the
Bible Why should it stay there longer ? This
.
book is two thousand years old and more We .
would not think of reading in public a boo k on

medicine even fifty years old Why put at the .
center of the morning assembly a book which on

its own statement originated be fore the Dark Ages ,
an d is mainly confined to events that occurred in

a Syrian province about the s ize o f New Hamp
shi re ? Mr Wells history of the world s urveys
’
.
G reece Ro me Persia all Europe Asia and

, , , ,
America and Opens to us a sky measured by light

,
units and an earth a hundred million years old .
Why exalt to the place o f perpetual honor a boo k

that knows nothing o f Europe and America ,
nothing o f astronomy or any other science and ,
nothi ng about steam electricity and g as engines ?

,
But what could we put there o n the desk in

place of that Bible ? Surely not so me compendium
o f science— that would have to be revis ed at
least once a year Surely not Mr Wells History

. .
’
— which was revised before it w as published .
S urely not some medical work made antiquated ,
by Pasteur ; not some treatise on international law ,
o u t o f date sin ce the Lea gue o f Nations was estab
1 27
FACIN G LIFE
lish ed
. We need at the center of things a litera
ture which cannot get out o f date and that litera ,
tur e is the Bible .
Most of us recall DeQu incy s famous distinc ’
tion bet wee n the literature of knowledge and the

li t erature of power An almanac a geography an
.
, ,
encyclopedia belongs t o the literature Of knowl

,
edge ; a novel a poem a se rmon belongs to the

, , ,
literature o f power The books of knowledge are

.
always on their way to the wastebasket ; the books
m
o f real pow er are freshest when oldest like so me ,
rare violin.
Why do en persist in reading the Gettysburg

Address o f Abrah am Lin coln ? It conveys no
information wh atever ; no o n e new fact has it
added t o the world s store But the world is
’
.
deluged with mere information and its great ,
need is not facts but their meaning Lincoln

, .
showed us the relation of the facts the meaning ,
of the sacrifice at Gettysburg and of all sacrifice

throughout the ages and therefore his address wi ll
,
last as long as the Potomac flows into the sea .

‘
Wh y d o we persist in re ading still that Fifty

“
first Psalm with its worldwi de cry Create in me "
a clean heart 0 God ?

, The psa lm gives us no
”
information regardi ng the cardiac muscles still ,

“
l ess regarding the Freudi an complex or any of ”
the transient hypotheses of psych ology But it .
es the most poignant longing of the human

race in one i mmortal prayer Can it ever get .
out of date ?
W hy do we still put at the center o f thin gs
12 8
FACIN G LIFE
Here are passionate psalms of j oy an d grief , af
f ec tionat e epistles o f friendship, glowing
that came to John on his rocky island and death
less parables spoke n quietly to little groups on th e
hillside And all o f its emph asis is no t on en
.
cycl opedic knowledge but on personal power not ,
on info rmation but o n characte r .
This boo k will be at the center o f things a

thousan d years from n ow The world can never
.
“
do without it aga in You will find wrote
.
”
,
Field Marshal Roberts the great English Christian

,
“
soldier to his tr00ps you will find in this small
, ,
book guidance when y o u are in health comfort ,
when you are in sickness and strength when y ou

”
are in adv ersity.
1 30
RE LIGIO N IN THE CHOICE OF A C AREER
IF eligion is goo d for anything it ought to help a

r ,
man in choosing a career Religion '

is recognition
.
o f an d co oper ation wi th t h e ev
, erlast in g trend of
,
t he universe No one of us c an successfully Op

.
‘
pose the s weep of human history and the power

behind it Religion is going as the universe goes
.
,
no t as the village goes in which I happe n to live .
It is surrender and allegiance t o the personal

p o we r at the heart of the worl d .
If that power is mere chance —b ut w h y discuss

t hat ? Science has ma de chance unthinkable .
If that power is nonmoral like gravitation o r ,
c he mical a ffin ity then my life may safely fli ng

,
aside all morality and seek only to w in the game .
But if that power is one that makes for right

eou sness th en no plan o f mine can pe rmanently
,
succee d unl ess it too uses right means for a

, ,
right end But h ow can one know the career

.
through whi ch he can best reach that end ? Tw o

su ggestions may be made .
Choo se the career that will give your inner self

the clearest expression G od never me ant us t o
.
m
resist forever our o wn nat ure He never meant .
that w e should express another man s opini ons ’
another s temperament another s ambition To be

’ ’
.
,
y high est possible self is t o perform my highest

1 31
FACING LIFE
possible public service When the rose a dorns it
m
.
self
, adorns it too t h e garden When Goethe
, , .
”
wrote that he may have been an egoist but he w as ,
betrayed into truth What w e in our best o

.
ments long t o be that probably we were meant

,
t o bec ome
m
.
Let a man take an inventory of h is own en dow

ment Have I a facility in dealing with mate rial
.
thi ngs or in dealin g wi th ideas ? The answer ay

i ndicate whether I am t o sell shoes or sugar or t o
m
,
“
sell ideas as a teacher or a lawyer Am I at my
”
.
b est when fitting mto a struct ure someone else

has built o r in building a new stru cture f or y
,
self ? The answer may in dicate whether I am t o

be a complacent al derman or possibly the minister
o f a prosperous city church ; o r whe t her on the
other hand I shall be explorer missionary an d 're ,
former o f society Do I val ue the English lan

.
guage chiefly as a means of getting on in the world ,
as one of the three useful or do I d eli ght

in using the mother tongue to interpret the lights .
an d shade s of character the play o f motives t h e

, ,
un foldings of mind ? The answer may show

whether I am t o conduct a business office or t o
write plays I must express myself or fail dis
.
mally The pine tree would have poor success in

.
t rying to be an elm and the born engin eer would

,
be miserable if forced into a symphony orchestra .
m
B ut another and nobler counsel is this : Choose
t h e career through which y o u may most e ffectively
impress and s erve your fellow men Every decent .
an be li eves we are in the world not f or what we
1 32
FACING LIFE
it ; wh en it triumphs y ou shall know the greates t
,
joy that comes to men
m
”
.
Expression of oneself an d impression on t he

World— those two clues both sanctio ned by
,
faith
, ay help us t o find ou r calling
.
1 34
TH E U SE O F SU ND Y A
I N every year there are over seven weeks of Sun

days Does it make no di fference how one spends
.
seven weeks each year ? Some men spend each

Sunday so that it gives them fresh vision and in
spiration for all the pro saic tasks of the week It .
is like climbing a mountain s ummit and seeing

at a glance all the contours of the country through
which one is traveling Then the man descends t o
.
trudge over d usty roa d s with a n ew un derstanding

o f the whole journey Other men spend Sunday
.
in pure loafin g in going to seed mentally an d

, ,
when Monday comes they are less desirable citi zens ,
less helpful frien ds less useful men than on the

,
m
Sat ur day before .
Can we make an y su ggestions as t o th e bes t

use of those seven weeks ?
m
I. Make Sun day in an y case difierent fro the
oth er six days T o make it like Mond ay is t o lose
.
it For the busin ess man t o go t o his office open

. ,
h is mail and submit his j aded

,
i nd to all the
the previous wee k is t o banish Sun day ,
o u t of life For the student t o give the day t o

.
the same program o f studies the same feverish ,
support of stu dent activi ties as on other days is, ,
t o lose S un day altogeth er Emerson says of one

.
gol den d ay which he faile d t o utiliz e

1 35
FAC IN G LIFE
m
the Day
Turned an d d epart ed , l
si en t ; I, too l ate
U n de r h er so e l n filet saw th e scorn.
z .Resist at all hazards the commercialization

“
o f Sunday It may be said : If a group o f small
.
boys w ant to play a game o f ball in a vacant lot
m
o n S unday afternoon where is the wrong ? Sure ”
,
ly there is none John Calvin played his game of

.
bowls on many Sundays and was the better f or it .
But if we build a high fence arou nd that vacant
m
lot and hi re famous players and establish gate
m
, ,
receipts and costly advertising and excursion

tra ins we are sim y surrendering Sunday to co
,
e rc i al exploitation There is no surer path t o .
unpopularity in New York C it y than to propose

a surrender of any port ion of Central Park t o
m
business enterprise That park is a reservation .
in s pace as S unday is a reservation in time and

, ,
both should be jealously g uarded from co mercial

ion by those who fear not God nor regard
man .
3 Make
. Sunday a day o f physical mental and ,
spiritual re creation We call it a day of rest

-
.
,
but rest is not dolce far nien te To sit stolidly in .
a chair and mope or dream is not rest S unday .
cannot be successfully kept a vacuum— nature ab

hors that Rest for body and mind is change re
.
,
freshment intake and outlook God s great out

, .
’
o f doors is calli ng
-
and t o get acquainted with ,
forests and meadows to learn to know birds and ,
wildflowers t o gaze into sunset and starlight— all

,
that is a fine use of Sunday Books and music and .
1 36
FACIN G LIFE
Sabbath He burst into righteous in
,
What is the Sabbath f or if not for exac

, that ?
“
Wherefore it is lawful to do well on t h e Sab
bath day Law ful to do w alk —that was His con
”
.
cept ion o f the day of rest .
1 38
FACING LIFE
As we look ou t over a bewildere d and disillu
sio n ed world a world that has victory without
,
pe ace and without bread what view should w e ,
take that o f the optimist or the pessimi st ? Th e

h -
pessimist po ints us t o the wars still going on to ,
the starving multitudes in migration to t h e dying ,
children to the halting League of Nations to the

, ,
race hatred s more bitter t h an ever before and ,
asks in what respect the world is better off than

in 1 91 4 The optimist points t o the va ni shing of
.
absolute mon arch y from Europe the discarded ,
scepters and crown s the triumph of de mocratic

,
principles the vast wealth of America the superb

, ,
ideali sm and heroism shown by the average man

everywhere and tells us that in the great struggle
,
Right has defea ted Might and the world may well
rejoice Whi ch has the truth the optimist or the
.
,
pe ssimist ?
I am reminded o f the answer given by a stu dent
in an examination in Biblical literature One ques .
“
tion on t he paper read thus : Wh at is the char
acter of the lands be yond the Jordan ? To whic h ”
“
the student sagac iously replied : That depends
on which side of the Jordan you are on .
I take my stand on the side o f youth an d ,
youth never de spairs Let the o ld li ving o n a

.
,
deficit of energy despair if they must ; youth with

,
its surplus believes in the imposs ible ra llies around ,

“
the ideal and crie 3, It shall be done
"
Youth .
”
loves the challenge o f diffic ulty and in true sport

ing spirit wants n o game that is not a hard one .
B ut if youth is t o retain its buoyant optimism

1 42
PERSISTENT P ROBLE MS
th e college itself must offer to our students t he
t wo t hings they most crave —O pportunity f or per
sonal friendship and for personal achievement
m
.
Friendsh ips be come very d ifli c ult when one is lost
m
in the crowd and the recent vast increase in num
,
bers ay make college life impersonal and in

hu an Some institutions are already swampe d by
.
crowds of students whom they cannot refuse an d

for whom neither buildings nor teachers are avail
m
able In one university a professor of ec onomics
.
has been lecturing to a class o f fifteen hundred
m
students A ll inti acy all persona l contagion
.
,
under such circumstances is impossible and the
m
, ,
long range lectur e be co es a Big Bertha fired hit

-
or miss at an unkn own crowd The true educa .
t io n al process de ands somethi ng v ery di fferent .
Real insight and enthusiasm for knowled ge are

n ot the results o f w holesale lecturin g but of retail ,
m
and personal contacts in laboratory libra ry and ,
home Wh y is it that increase in quanti t y means

.
a subtle change in quality ? Why do big things
m
so easily beco e bad things ?
The other essential to opt imism is genui ne de
oc rac y The college boa sts that it gi ves every
.
man a chance It as ks not t h e size of a man s ’
m
.
purse or the len g t h of his pedi gree ; not what he

carries in his trunk but what he has in brain
m
,
and heart But we must understand what de oc

.
racy really is It is never intellectual equality

. .
It is no t lev eling all men down to a dull ed ioc

rity. Democracy does not mean tha t one man is
as good as another but that all are good enough
,
1 43
FACIN G L IFE
m
to have a voi ce in saying wh o the best ones are .
Democracy doe s n ot mean dislike of excellence o r

é i nen ce It means not that all are equally
m
p re .
able but that each man shall have the chance t o

,
develop the ut most ability he possesses and to rise

t o the su mit if he c an whether in scholarship
, ,
in athletics in dramatic or musical organizations

, ,
o r i n general leadership o f student Opinion . A

true democracy is a socie t y where excellence is
d emanded high abili t y is recognized an d every
, ,
man is big enough to rejoice if someo ne else is

bigger A fair field and no favors and joyous
. ,
acclaim for those who rise t o the greatest heights

—where such democracy exists faith in the future
shines clear an d
1 44
FACIN G LIFE
i n train sto pping at every wood pile and arri v
t o ,
in g nowhere in pa rticul ar ?
Our great danger in the c omplicated mode rn
world is not loss of conscience but loss o f per
spe c t ive ; not th at w e w ill surrender to open evil
but that we shall be gradua lly and insensibly sub

merged in t h e clutter o f fairly good things that
do n ot matter .
In selecting a newspape r as a daily companion

the great question is not regarding its politics bu t ,
i t s perspective It cannot print a thousandth part

.
o f the happenings o f the previous day From all

.
the mass of events do ings and sayings it must

,
sift ou t t he vitally significant the typical and

, ,
throw them up in bold headlines relegating t o ,
the corner or crowding ou t alt og et h er the million

’
other things that are the sawdust and refuse of

civilization .
The troub le with the moving pictures is no t

that they represent crime and vice as tri umphant ,
for th e y usually do not The trouble is that they

.
give boys and girls a false presentation an untrue ,
pe rspective Real life isn t so "Real life does n ot

.
’
“
c onsist mainly o f the eternal triangle In real ”
.
life we do not see every evening that impo ssibly

beautiful maiden captured by the impossibly ugly
villain an d rescued by t h e imposs ibly courageous
hero Real life is much more interesting than
.
that .
The tro uble with college life is not that it is

vicious but that it is so often trivial These
, .
1 46
m
m
PE RSISTENT PROBLEMS
student activities — musical dramatic social
”
athletic— have we ever serio

,
appraised th em
and decided how many of them are worth while ?
Some of them a fford a fine training for after life
and some of the are a mere frittering away of
time and energy into utter futility Does any .
, ,
serious man thi nk that the comic monthly

published by many colleges is worth what it costs
the pr oducers ? Are the innumerable organizatio ns
“
Which figu re in the college annual representative
”
o f any real facts and would the college h e poorer

,
if most of them were decently interred ? The

danger in th e American college is not that stu
dents will become false hearted but tha t they
-
will become scatter brained

-
.
Vi rtue d oes not consist in ke eping o u t of

things but in get ting into things worth while
, .
m
Is only crime interesting an d is goodness dull ? It
,
“
must be confessed that Virgil s pius Aene as is ’
n ot a thrilling hero that Shakespeare s villain s ’
give life to hi s plots and that the Victorian novels

were often prope r t o the point of being insipid .
Mere negative goodness is always repellent and ,

“
t he boy who erely keeps o ff the grass make s ”
a poor leader of men .
But a positive an d heroic virtue is far more

interesting than all the pirate tales of all the
books Is go odn ess dull? Ask Wilfred T Gren
. .
fell as he steers his boat northward along t he

shores of Labrador to wrestle once again wi th cold
an d ignorance and disease Is a coura g eo us li fe
.
1 47
FACING LIFE
insipid ? Ask Herbert Hoover as he turns asi de
from making a fortune t o make a life of public
m
se rvice There is no romance like t h e romance
.
o f doing one s duty There is qui t e so

’
.
thrilling as being a decent an .
1 48
FACIN G LIFE
into morbid broo ding or into a cynical in di fference
which paralyzes efiort What is the remedy ?
.
Physical fitness is t he prime requisite in attain

ing true perspective An unsound body creates
.
nervousness and unsound mental conditions an d

plunges a man into a blue funk Exercise .
”
,
sleep and good food furnish the stuff wi th which

we th ink When the blood lacks oxygen the
.
,
mind lacks clearness and courage When the .
sewage system o f the body is clogged the eyes o f ,
the mind as well as those o f the body grow dim

, ,
and clo uded A sluggish body ungroo med and
m
.
,
unstret ch ed means an anemic mind and a flabby

,
purpose Get physically fit and then see how hard

.
,
i t is to keep your pessi i sm "

One must also insist on intellectual self deter -
mination After all am I to go around irritate d
m m
.
,
“
and sore merely because others do no t applaud
”
my going ? Shall I c ultivate u nhappi ness by

watching my ow n shadow and esti ating the i
pression I make on oth ers ? Tha t is an unmanly
o r unwomanly attitude rebuked long ago by ,
Matthew Arnold when he looked at the steady

,
m
constellations in the evening sky and wrote
m
m mm m m l
U n afirig h t ed by t h e si ence rou n d t h e ,
U n dist rac t ed by t h e si h ts t h ey see, g
Th ese de an d no t t h at t h e t h in s w ith ou t
l
Yie d t h e l
o v e, a ent , sy at h y
g
p
th e
m m
use .
To revolve steadily in the orbit of one s own ’
duty never h ast g never resting is to find the

, , ,
peace whi ch always goes with fir purpose The .
1 50
PERS ISTENT PROBLEMS
planet Mars does not watch Jupiter an d Siri us ,
never pauses to learn what Orion thinks o f its

performance in the sky We are he re not to re
.
flec t public o pinion but to create it

, The shy .
student o ff in the corne r of college life may be

t h e future lea der o f men while the pre sident o f
,
the Senior class an d winner of a dozen fictitious

honors may never be heard o f again College .
prominence is exceedingly transient and means

little Roosevelt was not prominent at Harvard
.
,
nor John Hay at Brown nor Calvin Coolidge at ,
Amherst One was weak in body another deli

.
,
c at ely fastidious in mi nd whi le the third kept his

,
“
o w n counsel and the world s co arse thumb and ’
,
”
finger felt no spe cial promise in them So much .
the worse for the world "

But the great remedy for isolation is of course
m
, ,
unselfish effort for t h e common good The selfish .
life must be — thank h eaven l—«a lonely one R e .
lease from morbid regrets an d foolish i agining s

comes through a determin ed eff ort to help the
“
li ves next t o us I even I only am alon e ”
, ,
well why stay alone when hundreds need your

,
strong hand ? Why whine when you mi gh t ,
cheer ?
Shakespeare s twenty ninth sonnet is a wonder
’
-
ful triumph over the subjective moo d of self
m
mm m
m
ll al o ne b ew eep
m m
I a y o u tc ast st at e ,
Wi sh in g e li ke t o o ne o re ric h in h ope,
F eat u re d l ike hi , lik e hi wi t h f ri en d s po ssessed ,
Desiring t h is an s art an d t h at an s scope
’ ’
.
1 51
FACIN G LIFE
What is th e remedy ? Nea r the en d of t he sonnet
“
we find it : Haply I thi nk on th ee and soo n
”
,
“ “
Shakespeare is at h eaven s g ate Was thee a
’ ” ”
man or a woman ? We shall never kno w It .
w as so meone outs ide his own c ircumscribed and

wounded and sensitive soul and in living for an
,
other he found
1 52
FACIN G LIFE
of thecity that lieth foursquare ? That of the
Persian Omar with h is fasc inating bitterness or ,
that of Robert Browni ng who wrote

I find ear th not g rey , bu t rosy,
T h e h eavens n o t ll
d u , bu t f air o f h ue ;
p
Do I stoo ? I uc pl k
a po sy ;
Do I st an d and stare ? A s b ue’

ll l .
It is clearly impossible that all human experience

should issue in good cheer Literature is replete .
wi th the utterances of the disappointed the dis ,
c o urag ed, the embittered What sort of experi

.
ence is it then whose res ult is assure d confidence

, ,
and radiating hope ?

The great essential t o a really successful ex
e rien ce is that it shall be an active forth putting
p
-
o f energy . A pa ssive attitude toward life is an

invitation to defeat and the certain forerunner of
pessimism The mere spectators at the game o f
.
“ “
life furnish all the croakers an d the knockers ” ”
m
.
There is nothing more demoral izing than t o sit

forever on the bleachers and critic ize the strong
en w h o have plunged into the game If you .
enter t he field house on the day of some great

athletic contest you will fin d among the players
,
st ern resolution and the joy o f combat ; wh ile

feeble faith or outspoken pessimism are abun
dant among the men whose only fun ction is t o
m
adorn the grand stand -
.
Men used to think of God as the mere beho lder

o f a finished world They con ceived Hi as aloof
.
,
wrapped u p in His o w n beatitude doing nothin g ,
1 54
PE RSI STENT PROBLEMS
since t he fir st six days of history save t O lis te n for /
several thousand years to His self commanded -
praises But to praise in the Deity wh at we rep

.
robate in humanity is not the mark o f a reverent

mind N o w we have come to think of Him as
.
immanent in creation as moving in the world s ,

’
“
forces afllic t ed in o ur affliction aspiring in our
, ,
aspiration and battling for the universal righteous

ness in and through our little private battle To .
gain and hold that conception is to be steadily o f

g oo d courage .
A tour among the alumni o f an American col

lege is an inspiring experience because o f the con
stant di scovery that men wh o in their college
d ays were col orless or unpromising have now be
come signi ficant figu res in the world Of course .
,
the reverse may be true in so me cases But gen .

_
erally a man s development during the twenty

’
y ars after graduation is a fascinating study an d

e
a gen ui ne surprise The man has been so enlarged

.
by responsibility that his ow n cla ssmates are

ai az ed at his resourcef uln ess and power of leader
n
sh p.
John H ay was a man in whom n o college frien d

coul d see the promise of diplomacy o r statesman
ship In that fair faced stude nt with the long
.
-
hair un der the broa d brim no on e saw a leader ,
o f men He was the littera t eur the critic in those

.
, ,
e arly da ys a man o f sensi tive di scernment and

,
exquisite taste Even at the age o f sixty when

.
,
he became Secretary of State h is chie f reputation ,
was as a poet The n suddenly called to confront

.
,
1 55
FACIN G LIFE
the great tasks of treaty making of international
-
arbitration of the preservation o f ancient empires

,
and of justice t o manki nd the idea list flamed into

,
the statesman and his greatest work was found

t o be far beyond all that he had dre amed for him
se lf in college days
.
To all irresolute oversensitive souls there comes

,
o u t o f history o ne command : Believe in you rself

and your fellow men "In the un plumbed deeps of
personality lie the inexhaustible resources of God
m
.
The gold mi nes may be worked out the co al be ,
exhausted the oil wells run dry but in the so uls

, ,
of en and o f nations are untouched reservoir s
o u t of which shall yet c ome the wis dom and power
and gui dance that the world needs A mind that .
i s closed to friendshi p and to action must be cy ni

cal and despairing A man th at i s co worki ng
.
-
wi th hi s fellows and his God finds each

new reasons for hope .
1 56
FACING LIFE
between boasting and servility ; courtesy is the
m
golden mean between flattery and contempt ; and
all virtue is the steady avoidance of excess on the
one side or the other N e qui d ni is— noth ing

.
t oo much— was the motto of the S to ics a motto ,
paralleled in the curious exhortation found in the

“
book o f Proverbs : Be not righ teous overmuch .
”
The World War w as naturally followed by a

period of unrestrained excess and all kinds of
intemperance D uring the War all barriers w ere
.
lif t ed the Ten Co mmandments were abolished by

,
Christian nations and we went to the limit in

,
mee ting a foe that w e thought recognized no law

save t h e law of the jungle Did we then dream
.
that by signi ng the Armistice we could restore

the commandments and rebui ld the fences ? Every
m
where we have seen intemperance —in violent ,
heated langua ge in glaring headlines in extrava

, ,
gant expenditure based o n unli ited profit eering
m
,
in the headlo ng plunge into pleasure in the craze ,
for savage syncopated music in erratic provoca , ,
tive costume in reckless driving and a devil ay

,
-
care attitude toward life If the Ameri can col

.
lege is t o mean thoughtfulness a truly critical ,
evaluation of lif e it must stand as a breakwater

,
against th i s flood of futile excess .
College jo urnalism has usually bee n conserva

“
tive and refused t o become yellow Coll e ge ”
m
.
dramatics usually observe t h e limits o f decency

and honor But social life in the Ameri c an colle ge
.
is t o day thoroughly i nte perate It unfits our

-
.
1 5 8
PERSISTENT P ROBLEMS
stud ents for either work o r play It is exhausting .
to purses and nerves devitalizing to min d and

,
character Any limit as to hours o r expenditure

.
o r garb or manner is resented as a Puritan rest ric
m
tion s ui ted only to a kindergarten Our social
m
.
l ife has become bizarre outré limitless " Yet

, ,
limits are esse ntial not only t o virtue but to e ,
j y
o en t itself . Unlimite d indulgence means
merely ennui an d boredom and exc essive pleasure ,
is a form of pain .
Anyone can smear a sheet o f paper with chalk
m
or i nk ; the etcher us ing a thin sharp tool and
, ,
limiting himself t o a few clear lin es makes a ,
notable picture Anybody can produce iscel
m
.
lan eo us noises ; the musician confin ing himself to ,
seven no tes in the octave o u t o f that rigid limita

,
tion produces harmony Any an can allow his

.
life to sprawl like a rank and noisome weed ; the

temperate man is on e whose life is trained and
pruned into shape liness and frui tage Does that .
mean total abstinence from cert ain kinds o f amuse

ment or indulgence ? It certainly does But .
what is vastly more impo rtant— it means that in

all amusement recrea tion sport enjoyment on e
, , , ,
“
shall be a ble to say : I am th e master o f my fate ,
the captain Of my so It means deliberate self

limitation in the interest o f real happiness As t o .
exactly what is right and what is wrong w e ,
may no t agree O ur fathers and mothers en cour

.
_
aged the lottery and frowned on the theater ; the y

saw little w rong in alcohol and much in the novel .
1 59
FACING LIFE
But they ha d what w e most ne ed t o day— delib
-
c rate self control

-
, mastery of the inner powers a

,
“
well tempered soul
-
. Add to your
temperance ; St Paul s
” ’
i s no t y et
date.
1 60
FACIN G LIFE
rower world had the capacity for voluntary at
,
tention which we have lost With fewer things .
to think of they did better more consecutive ,
thinkin g Their world w as static and ours is in

.
constant movement We live in the age o f rest

.
less music o f darting automobiles o f speeding

, ,
aeroplanes o f moving pictures a world wh ere all
m
, ,
is in flux We take snapshots o f reality and we

.
“
have small Oppo rtunity for time expo s ures As .
“
t ro n o y in Six Weeks Spanish at a Giance
”
,
”
,
are a lluring titles for textbooks an d have deceived

thousands There is no knowledge Worth having
.
except that which comes through prolonged atten

tion the focusing of the mi nd o n some object
,
until w e see into it and thr ough it and beh i nd it .
The international golf champion concentrates

his total personality on a little gutta percha ball
lying i n the grass Hun dreds are following
.
,
watchin g t hat ball roll t o the edge o f the hole and

drop in an d the result is cabled instantly t o
,
Europe .
Now suppose it is not a white ball we are fol

lowi ng but a chemical reaction o r a passage in
, ,
Goethe s F aust or the ideal of the Pilgrim fathers

’
, .
There is as keen joy in chasing after laws in science

and meanings i n hi story as in any game ever
played But the first ques t ion is the same —the
.
same requi site f or success everywhere in life —Can

you concentrate ? Is your mind foggy and flabby
‘
or tense and muscular ? Is your mind a pleasant

blur or a tool with an edge ? Do es your thinking
,
1 62
PERSISTEN T PROBLEMS
end like a broom in a multitude of small straws
, ,
or like a bayonet in point and power ? ,
When we look at some blurred an d confused

“
photographs we say the camera was out of
focus .
”
The trouble with the modern world is
that many minds are out o f focus and see nothing
sharply defined They get a glimpse of so me n ew
.
social theory di mly apprehended some economic ,
principle partly understood some po litical doc ,
trine whose origin an d result are hidden in a mist ,
and proclaim i t as the panacea for the woe s of

“ “
the world Democracy
. self determination ”
,
-
”
,
“
equality “
progress — those great c onceptio ns
”
,
”
float cloudlike before us an d we enthusiastically

follow But have we ever defined those far
.
soundi ng syllables ? Have we ever seen clearly

what those words mean and have w e been able ,
“
t o put that meani ng i nto language understanded
o f the people ? The tra gic disillusions whi ch fol
”
lowed the World War were the inevitable result

o f vagu e visions great phrases undefin ed superb
, ,
ideals that hovered and flickered above us whi ch ,
no man had ever captured o r subj ected to adequate

examination Those ideals were o f great and
m
.
permanent value But if we ask exactly what.
“ “
men may reasonably expe ct of progress or de ”
oc racy and when and how we are down on

”
, , ,
the earth again and have need of attention defi ,
ni tion an alysis —
, in short o f the neglected process,
we call study Invertebrate molluscous minds are

.
the co nstant so urce of illusion and disas ter Minds .
1 63
FACING LIFE
th at co me t o a focus and see things straight and
clear are among the most precious assets o f any
“
c o u ntry
. Some one h as written Fanaticism con
.
sist s in redoubling your e ff orts when you have
m
lost your aim So 1 t is with cynicism pessimism
.
’
, ,
ma t erialism and all the discouraged and disco urag

,
ing isms around us —they arise fro blurred

“ ”
vision of half truths T o-

. cl early is t he first
step in
'
1 64
?
FACIN G LIFE
consists in d oin g great things with small means .
Why then does i t so often vex and gall us to

be forced to economize ? One reason is that we
l ive in a new country of supposedly boundless t e
sources W e like the men w h o pour o u t their
m
.
po ss essions fre ely like a flowing river We like

, .
“
the free spender the man o f generous an d
,
thoughtless charity The s all economies long

.
practiced by every European seem t o us t o denote

meanness of spirit But the really mean man is
.
the on e w h o spe nds so freely that he can never

give or w h o piles up debts that he cannot pay
, .
The on ly reason w e have any working capital in

this country to day is because our fathers and
-
'
mothers di d not spend all they made each day .
Fort y years ago in Califo rnia it was thought

mean to use any c oin smaller than a fiv e cent
‘
piece If a purchaser asked for exact change he

.
“
might hear the storekeeper say : Here take your ,
nickel and go .In the olde r civili zation of New

”
England many o f the fortunes have been made

by calculating the meaning of an eighth of a cent
o n a yard of cotton cloth But neither California
m
.
nor New England has yet begun t o practice the

economy familiar to all E urope for a t housand
years And in Asia it has been still more fa i liar
. .
Was it meanness of S pirit which sai d on a Judean

“
hillside : Gather u p the fragments that nothi ng
be lost ? ”
Sometime s the reason we hate economy is that

we shrink from exactness in our mental proc esse s .
1 66
PE RSISTENT P ROBLEMS
Many students live in a fog groping about in a ,
curious vaguenes s an d irresponsibility They can .
not tell how much money they borrowed last

week nor when the debt becomes due They have .
no t figured out the cost of the last railroad jour

ney an d have no conception of the total expe n di
ture o f their first year in college But the man .
wh o does no t kn ow where eve ry penny comes

from and where it goes t o is conducting his life
on a policy that wou ld ruin any store or bank o r
mill in six weeks The man w h o wants to be come
.
an e fic ien t leader of indus try in the future should
begi n by efli cien t management o f his o w n life

t o day
-
.
To economize one s time is still more important

’
.
“
How t o L ive on Twenty four Hours a Day was
-
”
the suggestive title of a small boo k published sev

eral years ago We are all equal in this that w e
.
,
all have the twenty four hours in the day ; we dif

-
"
fer simply in the w ay we use them Lord Kelvin .
and Tolstoi an d Roosevelt had no longer day

than you have ; they merely used the days while
y ou and I have squandered them .
Whether it be time or money or strength the _ ,
real pleasure of life is in accepting inevitable boun

daries and de monstrating that w e can do fine
m
work in spite o f them We may be compelled t o
.
“
live o n Mai n Street but are not compelled to
m
”
,
have a co monplace and sordid spirit .
Sto ne w all s do not a prison k

a e
N or iron b ars a c age.
1 67
FACING LIFE
We may live in a log cabin an d cherish a palatial
mind We may come to know what the Apostle
.
“
Paul meant wh en he described himself as poor
yet ma king many ri ch ; having and
t ossess ing all as”
y e
p
1 68
FACIN G L IFE
teache r o f econo mics may believe in large social
con trol or in the doctrine o f ld ssez faire the ,
tea ch er of biology may hold to Darwinian evolu

tion or to its opposite the Biblical teacher may
,
believe in on e Isaiah or i n twenty ; but the steady ,
unfettered se arch for truth and the cordial w el

come to it when found is the first charac t eristic of
a Christian school .
A college which is narrowly denominational

will find difli cu lt y in remain in g Christian Th ere .
is no such thi ng as Presbyt erian chemistry o r Bap

t ist biology or Methodist mathematics Member .
ship in a Christian church is unfortun ately no

guarantee of a Christi an attitude on the pa rt o f the
teacher or the student The college that demands
.
a Congreg ationalist chemist or an Epi scopalian

teacher of Greek is o f course su bordinating abil
, ,
ity and character in its teaching sta ff to the n eces

sities o f denomi national propa ganda and cannot
,
hope f or the con fidence of the public Tha t is .
no t the way t o make education Christian .
What we really need lies beyon d all tests and

creeds and formulas The really essential thi ng
.
cannot be expou nded i n any course of study It
m
.
comes through the ha ppy contagion o f pe rsonality .
The on e essential thing is t o exalt character as
m
the supreme ai in educati on and character t o
m
,
day finds its dynamic in Christian faith Char .
acter is not something added to a curric u lu but ,
so e t hing involved in it We cannot disse ct ou t

.
the C hristian f aith an d give it in a single course

of lectures. The Christian ideal of lif e the Chris,
1 70
PERSISTENT P ROBLEMS
tian attitude toward the universe is involved in ,
every course ensh rined in every library It in

, .
spires the interrogation of nature in every lab

oratory and it ma kes history as Froude found it
, ,
“
the voice of God speaking across th e centuries .
”
Religious leaders teach ing o r ta ught make a

, ,
religious institution ,and suc h leaders are likely

to sh un all creedal tes ts and seek institutions
“
where the mind is free and looking for more
light to break o ut of God s word The dire ct
’
.
”
control o f c olleges by annual chur ch con ventio n s

is fatal t o ed ucati on and in t he end injuriou s t o
,
the ch urch If a college is planted by the chur ch

.
,
t h e church must nourish an d control it for a

time and then— let go " The church fough t f o r
centuries t o attain self de termina ti on free do m
-
from external c ontrol and having attai ned it it

, ,
c annot no w de ny that freedo m t o its ow n o ff

spring A Chri stian college is not one con tro lled
.
by dogmatic tests and formul as but o n e as free ,
as the church itself free to inte rpret the ide als

,
of the Nazarene and apply th em t o every problem
o f the age.
“
The teacher who sits in the sea t o f the sco rn
f ul should not occupy any chair in a college
”
founded by a Christian church He is t oo small .
an indi vidual for so l arge a pos ition He w h o .
scoffs at rel igious faith is a pett y person of ,
blurred vision and perverted judgment We will .
not ask him t o s ign o ur creed but w e do demand ,
that he respect all creeds for which noble men

have been willing t o live and di e H e can at .
171
FACIN G LIFE
least refuse take his daily bread from the ha nds
to
o f those whose faith he a ffects t o despise S uch
teachers are rare indeed and the new psychology
,
will soon make them impo ssible Most of the .
teachers at whose feet we have sat have taught
m
mm
us t o cry with Tennyson :
Let
But m
kn w l d g
o
ore
e
of
e
re
g row f ro
v erenc e in us
or e t o
dw ell "
o re,
17 2
FACING LIFE
college graduat es but among the street urchins in
N aples or lower M anhatta n Sh akespeare was dis .
covered not at Oxford but outside the Globe ,
Theater holdi ng the horses of wealthy patrons

, .
In American colleges we learned long ago that

the sons of o ur leading famili es are u sually left
far behind when bro ught into competition wi th
an unknown Chi nese or Japa ne se student When .
Chi ef Justice Taft was governor general of the -
Philippines he tried t o impress on his assistants

and subordinates the idea that the United States '
was t o play the part of big brother to the F
pinos And Ameri can soldiers with the rolli cking
.
,
h umor o f their calling use d to march through the
m m
,
s t reets of Manila singing :

He
B ut h e
ay be
sh an
’
a
t be a b ro th er o f m
b roth er of Wil lia H Taf t
ine .
.
,
B ut Christi anity says to us : You cannot d ecide

that— i t w as decided by the process of creati on .
You can ackn owledge it — o r deny it at your

"
m
P e ril
.
”
Th e domain in which now there is clearest nee d

o f bring ing the sub erged brotherhood to the
surface is th e domai n of industry Here is the .
region of peculiar sensi t iveness and delicacy But
m
.
in n o other regi on is it n ow so imperative to dis

cern and asse rt the divinely established brother
hood Surely en w h o are engage d in the same
.
t ask of producti on making things under the

,
same roof whether by swe at of the brow or the

,
brain ought to live in mutual un derstandin g an d

,
74
PERSISTENT PROBLEMS
sympathy Once all manual labor w as controlled
.
by the feuda l system under which the laborer ,
went with the land Later Europe invented the

.
appren ti ce system which in time gave w ay to the

,
wages system of our o wn day The wages system .
meant freedom to come and go t o work or rest , ,
and marke d an immense so cial advance .
But it also meant social separation —a n d there

lies its never sleeping danger It means that em
-
.
ployer and employed are often held together not
m
,
by a common interest in their task not by a com ,
mon loyalty to the enterprise that both hold worth

wh ile but simply by a cash pay ent and cash
, ,
payment alone furnishes no stable bas is for civi

liz at ion . Instead of expressing brotherhood it
seems to deny it A pay envelope never yet
.
bound men together ; it may drive them far apart .
N o possi ble increase in pay can bring increase in

mutual understanding The trouble is not in the
.
pay whether more or less but in the broke n

, ,
brotherhood It is in the loss of u nderstanding

.
,
the v ani shing of the sympathy which usually ex

i st ed under the apprentice system and often un d er
feudal ism and the separation o f the business
,
world into t w o suspiciou s an d hostile camps on e ,
trying to get the most money for th e least pos

sible labor an d the other trying t o get the most
,
labor for the least po ssible pay That is not .
brotherhood it is legaliz ed battle ; it produc es not

,
a stable civilization but an economic chaos .
Now the most f ar sigh t ed industrial leaders are

a
planning f or better things not to create frater ,
I7S
FACING LIFE
ni ty ,but thro ugh the organization o f mode rn
business to express and promote it Cou ld c ollege
.
graduates se rve the ir gen erati on in any better way ?

Whoever can make even one small business u nder
.
takin g a genui ne experiment in teamwork is

bringin g to the surface the bes t in human nature
and building up portion of the of
1 76
TW O PRIN CIP LES O F A CTIO N
m
As a stu dent nears the end of his college cou rse ,
the question is forced upon him : What has col

lege life given e ? Have I got o u t of it any
definite goa l to aim at any clear s t andard o f
,
val ues any phi l osophy of living ? One rec ent

,
“
grad ua te defined a college course as passing in
forty semest er exami nations .
”
If that is all— a mere quantitative result a ,
me re passing of tests and gaining the appropriate

tag— the college c o urse is merely an expensive
way of wasting four years The real question is .
wheth er the college has given us something more

“
th an courses something deeper than a diploma
”
m
.
,
Has it given us insight into wh at is worth whi le ,
a scale of moral val ues a principle o f action which

,
w e can carry into all the struggle and tu ult

t hat lie beyond Commencement day ? Two grea t
principles of action we re formulated by the phi
lo sph er Kant Either of them wi ll furni sh a light
.
in dark places and bo th o f them may illuminate

,
o ur liv e s
.
Th e first pri n c1ple Ka nt enunciates is this

Treat every h uman being as an end never as ,
only Can anything more revolutionary

.
be imagined ? Most of us are treating human

beings every day as on ly means by which we profit .
I 77
FACIN G LIFE
These creatures a roun d us are the butcher t he ,
baker the candlestick maker laborers for our

,
”
,
comfort tools t o be used in o ur ow n achieve

,
men t In the factory we fit t in gly call them

.
“ o
h ands because we use them to achi eve our de

,
sires not theirs We of ten hire them and fire

, .
them card catalogue them and blackli s t them

,
-
uti li ze them in a hun dred ways for our advantag e
m
,
not for theirs They are the hands by which w e

.
grasp the cloth we need the sugar we want the

, ,
fortune we are ever elt in g And so long as o ne

.
section of the community is hands and another ”
section is brains the industrial problem will t e
m
,
m ain an d o ught t o remain ominous an d over

, ,
Im anuel Kant woul d change all this He
m
.
bids us remember that each man is not only a

mean s— as o f course he is—bu t is also an end in
himself and that the whole factory i ll college
, , , ,
city the entire uni verse and God Himself exist

, , ,
t o give growth and joy to that one man Is no t .
that an upsetting conception ? N o wonder John

“
Morley wrote o f the volcanic elements in the
Sermon on the Mount " ”
Kant s second principle o f livin g is no less f ar

’
“
reaching : So act that the law of thy life might
well become the law for all mankind Most of .
”
us crave the privilege o f living by except ions
from the universal moral law We a pprove the .
Ten Commandments as a general code for the

rank and file but we c rave special c onsideration
,
17 8
m
PERSISTENT PROBLEMS
an d pti on in o ur own
exe case. We praise t he
law and hope to avoid it .
The artist thinks a dull , drab morality proper
m
f or descend ants o f th e Puri tan fathers but f or ,
“
h imself he wants art for art s sake The man of
’
.
musi cal genius aflir s that he cannot be bound

by the conventi ons o f the Phi listine public The .
“
fin ancial operator cann ot be t oo scrupulous
”
when dealing with the silly folk who should never

“
have ventured into the street All o f us gravely
.
advise the college Freshman t o observe rul es that

are goo d for F reshmen no t for us
, .
B ut is not th is heaping of obligation on Other
m
men s shoulde rs a spe cies of hypocrisy ? Can the
’
clear—eyed worl d long be lieve in our sincerity if

w e live o ne thing and reco mend another ? We
need the moral upset t ing which would come t o
the whole world if Kant s principle —it is no t a
’
rule—were really adopte d S uppose a father

.
shoul d really live by the code he recomme nds to

his son ? Suppose each stu dent should spend his
eveni ngs as he w ould like other students t o spen d
m
theirs ; or treat all women as he wants all men to
t reat his fian c ée ; or feed his o w n mind on the
pabulu he can recomme nd to all the mi nds
around him ; o r play that part in pol itics which
he wants all other men to play— would there not
m
be a clarifyi ng and s implifying of life in o ur
vicinity ? If w e should try out Kant s two prin ’
c iples f or on e yea r we should change foreve r so e

part of t h e world .
I7 9
FINDIN G PLA CE
’
ON n s
THE graduate of a school of architecture expects

t o be an architect ; the graduate o f a dental school
to be a dentist But the gradua te o f a li beral co l
.
lege wh at is he fit for ? The very purpose o f his

,
liberal trai ning is to make him larger t han any

special task an d enable him to c h ange if need be , ,
from one task t o another without serious loss .
The small man knows in his Freshman year just

wha t he is goin g t o do His range is narrow and
.
hi s possibili ties so few that li fe s t ret ches before

him as the stee l track li es sharp and clear be fore
t h e locomoti v e engineer But the larger a man
.
is t h e greater his perplexity o n the day of h is

,
graduation from college We congratula t e him

.
that he does not posse ss the ce rtainty o f a one

track mind .
Such a student should remember Eme rso n s "

’
“
pregnant de claration th at our attrac tions are pro
m
portioned t o o ur d estinies Whatever supremely
.
”
attracts us that we cannot perm anently escape

,
.
We were not ade forever t o work against the

grain A violinist forced by his father to become
m
.
an engineer a born philosopher compelled to study

,
accounting— the se are familiar t ragedies due t o

human stupidity When I do find y task it
.
1 80
h is
, m
understa nding of the most abst ract o f all th e
scienc es mathe atics That un de rstanding makes
.
t h e diff erence be tween engineer and mechani c .
Another question : Are you at y our best
m
2 .
when fitting into a str ucture some one else has

built or in bu ilding a new structure f or your
,
se lf ? Are you a an of creative initiative or a ,
man o f ada ptation and adjustment ? The farmer

has t o create and turn the passive soil into crops;
,
the post office clerk does as he is told and is happy
m
t o be relieved o f further respo nsibilit y .
3 . Are you working f o r qu i ck retu rns or f or

so ething f ar away ? For the positi on you can
g e t w h en you are tw en ty fi ve years o ld o r the
-
place you may occupy at fifty ? If you demand

swift pecuniary returns keep out o f all th e prO
,
a
fes sions out o f all scien t ific or historical research

, ,
o u t o f all religious effort B ut reme mber Brown

.
m
ing :
O h , if w e draw a c ircle p re at ure,
d g
less o f f ar ai n,
k
Greedy f o r qui c ret urns o f pro fit ,
B ad is o ur b argai n .
4 . wo rki ng for your single self or

A re yo u
for the enti re soc ial order ? If the first is your
object you can give your time to stock specula
,
tion or attach yourself t o some political boss

,
.
If t h e secon d is you r goal you will no t be perma ,
ne nt ly sati sfied with any business o r profession

w hich does not visibly minister t o the welfare of
society T o manipulate sec uriti es so that one can
.
1 82
PERSISTE NT R
P OB LEMS
extra ct profit from the Operatio n is a job so

a
petty that no liberal mind can long stay in it To .
create v alues— whether by raising hay or making ,
shoes or designing a bridge o r playing the violin

, ,
-
is to leave this world a little richer and bet ter
beca use w e have been in it .
But wha tever o ur calling we nee d to remem

, ,
ber that the chief requisites to success are

the ol d fashioned virtues—accuracy promptness
-
, ,
fidelity acceptance of responsibility— the vi rtues

,
which we often neglect as o u t of date They will .
g o out o f d ate wi t h the multiplication ta ble and

’
the alphabet not before With out them we ca n
, .
"
no t climb to any po si tion wh at soever The .
elevator to success is not running ; take the stairs .

”
1 83
HO W TUDIES TRAVE L
S
CICERO in defending his friend Archi as def en ded

, ,
also the studies whi ch he had purs u ed through

life He said : These studi es nourish youth and
.
delight old age they travel with us Do

.
they ? How much of the m can the college man

remember ten yea rs after graduation ?
Can you give th e pluperfect subjunctive o f a
Latin verb t o day ? Can you now explain the
m
-
di ff erence between a cosine and a cosecant ? Can

y o u rememb e r any of the formulas of your Fresh
man course in c h e istry— beyond H z O ? Have
w e not flu ng as ide o ur studi es as fast as we fin
“
ish ed t he requi red work and forgotten them
”
"
gladly ? Or do they in some real sense travel
with us through days dark and bright through ,
the trad es and the professions through the office
m
,
and the mill ? What is it that really rem ains be

hind when all details are forgotten ?
The chief residuum of hu an study is the
power to understand and interpret other men s ’
minds A ll mi nds are really parts o f one mi nd

.
,
but the parts have fallen into separation and mis

"
under standing The col lege is the interpreter s
.
’
h ouse where minds are reassembled in mu tual

”
,
u n derstanding . To see into the operation o f ot h er

1 87
F A C IN G LIFE
men s minds t o know how the other half thinks
’
—that is the chief requisit e to achievement every

,
where A ll engineers tell us that the great fail

.
ures in t he engineering profession are due not t o

any lack o f mastery of materials but t o lack of ,
insight into human nature The engineers under .
stand their materials better than they un derstan d

their men They can figure out strains and
.
stresses better than motives and ideals They .
know what will hold up a bridge but not w hat ,
will hold together the workers who must buil d it .
The most practical cour se o f study I had in

w as a course in Latin under the gray
headed but intensely human Profes sor L I
had thou ght the old Latin authors were dull and
dead but he made them rise and stride abo ut and
,
talk to us As he sat behind the high desk in the

.
dingy second floor room beaming interpreting

-
, , ,
“
chuckling over some curious felicity in Horace ”
o r Juvenal the whole Roman attitude toward life

,
seemed to come cl ear and that Roman civiliza

,
tion so strangely li ke o ur o w n revealed its

, ,
strength and weakn ess its glamour and its ,
despair .
We study Dante not to accumula t e knowledge ,
but because we want to loo k through the eyes

that had looked on hell unafra id and t o under ,
stand that master mind and his century We .
value Eur opean history as a revelation of the

human spirit economics as the study of methods
,
of hum an intercourse and engineering as the

,
me thod by which man shapes nat ure to human

1 88
FACING LIFE
ining the min d o f Russ ia or China in ev al ua ting
m
,
a politi cal platform in forec asting the future of

,
the League of Nati ons Facts soon go from us and

.
often are not worth re embe rin g But methods.

,
i nsights a ppreciations understandings val ues

, , ,
extracted from many studies as attar of ,
abide and t ravel wi th

us th r ou gh th e years.
1 90
C ONTIN UO US EDU CATIO N
ON E o f the strangest ideas is that a man s e duca ’
tion is confin ed to the years he spends at school

o r in college Not a thousandth part of what we
.
know was gained or ever could be gained in any

, ,
school Knowledge comes streaming into us every

.
conscious moment of o ur lives— through eye and

ear and nostril t hrough taste and touch through
, ,
experiences bright and d ark through surprise and ,
accident and d isappointment through success and ,
failure— a nd the infin itely larger part of educa

tion comes either before o r after school .
A child learns by absorption from other lives ,
and acquires more knowledge i n its first five

years than in any subsequent t en years of living .
He learns how to walk and sit how to coordinate ,
the muscles of the hand how to use eyes and ,
tongue how to articulate the queer sounds of our

,
English speech or o f some other language Merely .
learning to walk an d to talk involves more of the

ed ucational process than all the years that follow .
A ll the sciences physical mental and moral must

, , ,
be studied in elementary fashion before the child

is ten years old Later he may learn t o swim to
.
,
skate t o ride t o shoot ; to have poise and courage

, ,
in the face of d anger swiftness and acc uracy in

,
1 91
decision, d pow er
an to see in t o ot h er people ’
s
motives and to judge correctly their actions Some .
o f the best educated men of the race have had
little to do wi t h schoo ls We cannot forget tha t

.
Lincoln taught himself tha t Sh a kespeare left
m
,
school at fourteen th at Charlemagne coul d

,
scarcely read or write .
After the l ast exa i nation of college h as been

passe d and t he ribboned di ploma is triumphantly
exhibite d then come s the scho ol of life itself
, ,
and every college graduate should plan for hi s

ow n c o n t inuous e ducation Some alumn i stag
“
nate soo n after gradua tion and become mere

“
praise rs o f times past They want their colle ge
.
”
t o r emain forev e r in sta tes quo and th ey become ,
reactionaries in economics in politics and religion

, .
Pl ato provided for all w h o would be magistrates

in h is R e ublic a course of study lasting un til
p
the y w ere fifty years old and any shorter c ourse
,
will certainly give us incompetent leaders t o day -

.
What are the elements in this continuous edu ca

tion o f o ur graduates ?
The daily occupation of any man the respon ,
sibili ti es and tests of his bus iness or profess ional
m
life ought to compel him to incessant study Of
,
.
course there is a di fieren ce in tasks The g ar
m
.
denet s work forces hi to invention ingenuity

’
, ,
acquired ski ll wh i le the work of the t i cket cho p -
per in th e subway a y be a deadening routine .
But most positions in the modern world carry ‘
with them the demand for steady growth All .
business d evelops the so— call ed industrial vi rt u es

1 9 2
m
m
FACING LIFE
the best minds in Arnerica and fill up th e vac ant
plac es in h is o coll ege curriculum .
Th e book of nature li es e v er open t o an observ
m
ing eye . A tramp through the wood s in M ay or
October a persistent study of t he sta rry sky on
,
a winter s night, t h e knowledge of the haunts of

’
birds and their mys terious igrations familiarity ,
with a colony of bees and their socialistic organ

i z at ion— those an d a t hous an d other av enues of
m m
knowledge stret ch invitingly before a college
m
g rad ua te wh o h as d etermined n o t t o go t o seed .
The rea l of art so long quite neglected by

,
t h e t radition al college entices many a

, an into
'
m m
novel happi ness . Architecture and usic paint ,
ing an d scul pture spread their hoarded treasures

,
before us and if w e enter tho se realms of gold w e

,
mm
ay enjoy t h e sa e experience as Keats desc ribes :
m
Th en f elt I li ke so e wat ch er o f th e skies,
Wh en a new pl anet swi s int o h is ken .
m
If the A erican college is a finishing sch ool ”
—pathetic ph rase l—it is a failure It may be it .

,
“
should be a pla ce o f beginnings a genuine co
, ,
194
AN INDUS TRIA L R
C EED —I
O VER twenty years ago Alfred Russell Wallace

declare d that if we should review the great sci
,
en t ific discove ries and inventions of human his
tory we would find that thirteen o f them— li ke

,
the steamboat the electric light and the telephone

,
— were made during the ni neteenth century ; and

—
that only seven like the printing press and the
m
barometer— were made d u ring all the previous
history of mankind And since Wallace wrote
.
that we have invented the auto obile the sub ,
marine and the aeroplane The modern world

.
di ffers from the ancient world chiefly in the mar

velo us development of machinery In the Unite d
m
.
States it is c alcul ated that the machines at present

in daily use add as much mechanical power as if
every hu an being in our hundred millions ha d ’
th ir ty slaves working for him constantly B u t .
are our machines our slaves o r are we the slaves

,
o f the machine ?
Does human nature keep pace with its ow n in

ven t ion s? Th e power loom is an immense advance
m
on the old hand loom but is the man behind the
,
loom an advance upon hi s grandfather ? The chief

factor in all progress is t h e hu an factor Th e .
advance o f the world depends not o n water power;

1 95
or stea
.
m
o r electrical, power but on human
power Wh at then do we thi nk o f humanity ? , ,
,
What is our creed with regard to the human be

i ngs who daily toil for us and with us ? My creed
contains two main articles :
Fir st : I beli eve in the inequality o f men Men .
are no more alike in their abili ty t o devise create ,
and a d minister th an they are in the color o f thei r
m
eyes and hair When all men grow six feet tall
.
,
all men may atta in the same brain pow er or heart

power Some of the timber that i s floated down
.
from the forests of Maine is made into the asts

o f sea g oing vessels some into chairs and tabl es , ,
and some into cheap lead pencils We cannot .
ma ke seaworthy masts o u t o f the cheap pencil

“
t imber All ye are brethr en says the New
.
,
Testament but brothers are never duplicates
m
, .
Here lies the di fference between a family an d a

club When w e form a social club we select per
.
sons o f the same tastes the same ideals the sa e , ,
fin ancial standing and we found t he club on the ,
m
principle of likeness The family on the other .
,
h and is constructed o n the princ iple o f unlike

,
ness At the head of the family is the funda

.
mental Oppositi on o f sex male and fe ale c re

ated he them In the f amily s ome are old and
.
”
some are yo u ng ; a certain few are stal w art b read
winners and others the chil dren an d the aged

, , ,
contribute to the home no t what they earn bu t ,
what the y are Out of t his inequality springs .
t he strength an d bea uty o f family life i n which ,
o ld and you ng strong and weak are bo und t o

, ,
r 96
FACING LIFE
in every chapter o f scienc e —the everlasting an d
everlastingly desirable inequa lity of men .
Is that the whole truth ? Is there not a sec ond

a rticle in the creed ? But that will come in another
t alk'
(i 23
1 98
AN TRIA L CREEH
INDUS
TH E second article in my creed is this : I beli eve

in the perpetual brot herhoo d of men .
Years ago a United States S ena tor stood up in

“
the Capitol at Washi ngton and said : Bus iness is
w ar. The commander w h o lost a battle through
the activity of his moral nature would be the
derision and the jest of history That po int of
.
”
view is now wholly ou t o f date It leads us back .
to the jungle The law of nature is something

.
deeper than the brute law of battle .
We all know how the idea of ruthless industrial

c ompetitio n has spread through out the world It .
is a kind of perverted Darwinism a wholly ,
justified inference from natu re which is supposed

,
“
to be red in tooth and claw We have heard
.
”
a thousand times how the great beasts of the for

est prey upon the smaller ones ; how the largest
m
fish in the sea devour the l ittle ones ; how in every
garden the flower s and weeds contend for space ,
until the frost comes and puts an end to the su

mer struggle The inference is easy and millions
.
,
of men h ave dra w n it If that is the law of t he

.
world that the weak must go t o the wall in order
m
,
that the strong may survive and become still

stronger if the law of ruthless battle is the fun
,
d a en t al principle of existence w h y then should

,
I 99
FACIN G LIFE
it not be the law of my personal life ? Why not
m
the law of Wall S treet and S tate Street and every ,
bank and mill and store ? If the stron g must tri

umph over the weak let e be found among the
,
stro ng and crowd my c ornpet itor till he d ies "

That was the international ph ilosophy o f Ger
many in 1 9I 4 and it is the industrial c ree d o f
,
millions of shrewd b usiness men to day -

.
But' he w h o says that the law of battle is the

o nly law of life h as s urely never looked into a
bird s nest for there he would see strength giving

’
itse lf for weakness an d experience devoting its elf

,
“
to ignorance T here he would see mutual aid
.
”
as a deeper law than mutual competition an d ex

termination Any floc k of birds that will not
.
fly together when they g o southward shall all lose

the way Any flock o f sheep that will no t S tand
.
together in the winter storm shall perish Th e .
world is so built that any purely selfish species

if it ever existed— must have di ed o u t long ago .
Only creat ures that stand together can Stand at

all ; only those that cooperate can survive .
Thi s cooperation lies at the foundation o f all

success in industry Your competitor is not your
.
enemy to be trample d un der but you and he are ,
both servants o f the social order which is greater

than either and both may w in or both may lose
, .
The Chambers o f Commerce and similar orga ni za

tions which have had extraordinary growth in
America in the last fiftee n years are an organize d
recogni tion o f the principle of mutual aid as the
e ssential both t o pe rsonal s u ccess an d to public
2 00
FACIN G LIFE
hood but f or the brotherhood of unequals f or
, ,
the genuine partnership o f men who are unlike

but united in some noble task then o ur system
,
may have centuries yet to endure Nothi ng can

.
poss ibly endure wh ic h deni es either in words or

,
i n de eds the
, brotherhood o f
2 02
WH AT IS AM ERIC A ?
Is America a mere geographical expression , a piece

o f territory lying between two oceans ? Is it a
form o f government , so that if we amend our
constitution w e have changed America ? Or is
it a hundred mill ion people filled with a c ommon
purpose throbbing wi th one loyalty united in
, ,
o ne hi gh resolve ?
Wh en we picture America to ourselves do we

see any clearly defined figure o r only a sort o f
,
radiant mist ? The small boy usually thinks o f

“
America under the familiar figure of Uncle S am .
”
Th at figure evidently represents a man of peace ,
for he carries no sword or rifle He is evidently .
a man of ideals as we learn from the stars that

,
bespangle h is hat and coat But what ideals ?

.
Wh at is the spirit that animates and prope ls this

huge bo dy composed o f forty eight states now -
more powerful th an any other national body on

earth ?
If I wishe d to give to some foreigner a con
c ept ion of the Ameri c an spi rit I would ask him
t o read t w o documents in wh ich the soul of

'
America is incarnate First I would h ave him

.
“
read Lin c ol n s Gettysburg Address where the
’
,
deepest conv ictions o f t h e American people found

2 03
FACING LIFE
an utterance so simple and so sublime that n ot
o n e syllable shall ever be chan ged or lost .
Then I would ask my foreign friend to read

“
so me o f the rugged li nes in Emerson s Boston ’
Hymn . Do y o u remember them ?

”
mm
Th e w or d o f t h e Lord by ni gh t
m
T o t h e w at c hi n g Pilg ri s c a e,
A s t h ey sat by t h e sea side,
m m
-
A n d fill ed t h eir h ear t s w i t h fla
m
e.
My an gl
e , is F ree d o ,
h is na e
C h oose h i t o b e y o ur in " k g
ll p
He sh a cu t at h w ay s east and west ,
m
A nd f en d y o u wi t h h is win g .
W e g rant no du ked o s t o t h e f ew ,
W e h o l d lik e righ t s an d sh all ;

Equa l Su n d ay in th e pew ,
on
m
On Mo n d ay in t h e Ma ; ll
F or w h at avai or l
o w o r sai , pl l
l l l"
m
Or an d o r i f e, if f ree do f ai
In those lines is embodied the faith whi ch has

created America fa i th in freedo u nd er law If
,
.
the United States could speak with a single

its ultimate beli ef it would say again : , My
angel h is name is Freedom
, .
But freedom is of various kinds No land has
m
m
.
all kinds equally developed We started here with .
t h e idea that relig iou s freed om w as the one grea t

essential It is difficult for us to i ag e h ow
.
dangerous that idea everywhere seemed in the

se venteenth century Kings and queens and .
magistrates and bish ops honestly believed that re

2 04
FACING LIFE
labor eight
m
hours a day Uni versal suffrage
o r t en
is logically and evxt ably followed by some form

o f representation in industrial councils Wha t
.
that form will ultimately be none o f us is wise ,
enough to say There will be many experiments

.
,
some succee ding some failing and all leading

, ,
to that teamwork in industry which shall banish

the misu nderstanding s due to ignorance whi ch ,
shall enable employer and employed to cooperate

in mutual confidence which shall in industry as
,
in politics
Ri ng ou t t h e t h ou sand w ars o f old ,
Rin g in th e t h ou san d y ears o f peace .
Americ a stands for faith in freedom To cher .
ish th at faith and it ou t in action is t o be

an American .
2 06
THE M EAN IN G O F C HAN G E
W E live in an age of transition Did you ever .
hear anyone say that before ? — di d you ever hear

a speaker fail to say that in h is openi ng senten ces ?
That all th ings are in flux that the world of yes
,
t erd ay is pa ss ing into the world o f to morrow -
that the fashi on o f thi s world passeth away ”
this has always been the theme of the moral ist

and the poet But what distinguishes our age
.
from all that pre cede it is that in o ur day t h e

universal proc ess has been speeded up and the ,
changes which u sed to require a century may now

be made in a few weeks Augustus Caesar sailed
.
in about the same sort o f ship as Commodore

Perry on Lake Erie ; between the two ages there
was little progress in navigation But the oil .
burning ocean liner of our day and the submarine

and the aeroplane mean that more progress has
been made in mastering the sea in the last fifty
years than in the previo us two thousand We .
can hardly accustom ou rselves t o on e apparatus or

one process before another appears and th e world ,
“
goes as Tennyson said spinning down the ring
, ,
ing grooves o f change .

”
Is the speeding up of all
life a good or an evil ? What are its social and
ethical implications ? It certainly implies and in
volves a great peril and a great Opportunity .
2 07
FACING LIFE
The obvious peril 1s t he loss of stand ards the ,
slipping away of all criterions of judgment When .
a man travels rapidly from land to land one o f ,
his first sensations is an inner confusion o f stand

ards He fin ds th e soc ial customs o f o ne nation
.
denounced by another as immoral or absurd ; he

finds the lottery en courag ed in one region and pro
h ibi t ed in another ; finds a Continental Sunday in
m
o ne nation and a Puritan S un day in another ; and
he may if his character be a shallow o n e return

, ,
ho e befogged devitalized and with no perma

, ,
nent standards to live by T oo long residence in a

.
foreign l and will de Americanize and may de

moralize any o n e o f us .
The same result follows when we do not go

around the world but when t h e world revolves
,
rapidly aroun d us Modern l ife changes as fast as

.
a moving film and sometimes leaves us passive

s pectators o f bewildering change H ow shall we .
pronounce on these new fash i ons in dress new ,
kinds of music new forms in literature new

, ,
defiance o f o ld conventio ns new manners and ,
customs in so c iety new ideas of right and wrong ?

,
It is easy to drift with the tide or easy to get ,
out of the tide into a monastic cell How .
can we remain like a good ship in the ti de and

, , ,
yet be superior t o it because w e know the points

of the compa ss and the port to wh ich we go ?
In that last phr ase we have the clue The .
points of the compass have not fluctuated and the ,
polestar is still shi ning Abo ve all the und ulating

.
surfaces of life shine the constellations of the

2 08
FACING LIFE
The swift changes that threaten us also summo n
us The world is wa iting for our message if we
.
have any It is alive and needs live men to lead

.
it Le t us no t moan like the nerveless Hamlet :

.
Th e w o rl d is ou t o f j o int ; 0 c ursed spite,

That ever I w as bo rn t o set it rig h t ,
but rather cry with Rupert Brooke as he sailed
m
,
to the hard campaign in Gallipoli :

N ow Go d be
-
d who hath
t h anke , at ch ed us
2 10

FacingLife 10792349

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

FacingLife 10792349

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

FacingLife 10792349

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

FA CIN G LIFE

All Rig h ts Reserved

epri nted S e pt e be r 1 928 ; N ov

They are t oo brief t o allow logical development

and they do not pretend to have any clear con

ing the ﬁrst four groups do have some corre

spo n den ce wi th the four c ollege years whi le the

last group is addressed to those w h o are leaving

larger world beyond it .

T o all W hom I have known as students un der

salutations mingled with happy memories To .

them and t o the graduates of many other colleges

I send my Wish and h Ope that they may accept

TEM P TATION S UPWARD

W HAT S TUDIE S ARE M O S T USEF UL ?

THE TYRANNY OF DEM O CRA CY

THE O PENING OF CO LLEGE

COMM UNE VIN CULUM

O P TIM IS T OR p ESSIM IST ?

THE CU RE F OR LONE LIN ESS

THE M EAN ING OF TEM PERAN CE

W HAT IS CHRIS TIAN EDUCATI ON ?

FIN DING ONE S PLA C E

HOW S TUD IE S T RAVEL

A N IN DUS TRIA L CREED—II

T HERE are many temptations en say in the , ,

modern college and so there are Wherever there

is life there is t h e testing of life There are no

temptations in the cemetery but we have no de ,

sire t o be carried there T o be alive is t o feel

to choose t o grapple an d a good life is a good

ﬁght If we go outside the college into the

bank the law Ofﬁce the subway the political

caucus—are there no temptations there ? The

college cannot abolish tempt ation but it can pro ,

vide te ptations upward allurements and sedu c ,

t ions into the higher life

The whole business o f t h e Faculty is t o furnish

the laboratory and hand hi the microsc ope or

natural curiosity they try to S tart hi interro

gating nature searching for facts and laws Then

t hey take him i nto a class in English They let .

h eat 0 the sun n or the furious winter s rages

tant lands an d seas my Odyssey O f battle Does .

he respond ? Doe s his p ulse begin t o beat an d

hi s imagi nation begin to work ? Or do es he still

They explain to him the Corinthian col umn the ,

grouping o f the ﬁg ures in the Sistine Madonna ,

the marvel of Coro t s light streaming thr ough the

gnarled tree s of the forest Does he respond ? Or

er o f moral and spiritual progress ; they let him

hear Abraham Lincoln o r James Bryce or Cardi

he respond an d de dicate his life to the se rvice of

but you cannot make him thin k All we can .

do is t o furnish the temptation to thi nk to un ,

derst an d to se rve t o lead humanity and make it

as V ivid and Winsome as poss ible .

In the old G reek mythology when Odysseus and

shut out the te mpting strains But when Orpheus .