Ann Arbor High School - Omega Yearbook (Ann Arbor, MI)

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prison records show that over, half of the inmates have had a good edu- cation. Again there have been others, who without any college education became truly great. Patrick Henry, Roger Sherman, Benjamin Franklin, George Vtfashington, Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Jackson, and many other self-made men became great, not with the aid of a college education, but by struggling with poverty and ignorance. It makes no difference what advantages a man has, if he rises at all, he must do it by his own exertions. Every man is in one sense the maker of his own destiny. Labor is also happiness. The poor laboring man Who, whistling a merry tune, goes to and from his work with his dinner pail in his hand, is happier by far than the rich man who is idle. It is idleness thatis the curse of the world. An idle ,mind is the devil's workshop. I said a few moments ago that over half of the inmates of our prisons were 'educated men, it is a more .noticeable fact that the greater majority of them had no trade. They were 'idle men. We are accustomed to look at the rich man as the happy one and to covet riches, but wealth is not the hinge upon which happiness turns. It is labor. But if there are any here, who are going to make money their chief object in life-and I hope there are not-let me say labor is the only means by which you can gain-it. Labor is happiness because it is the means of escape from evil, and the open doorway of good. It is also a substitute for genius. Genius has been defined as the capability of laboring intensely. Genius differs from labor only in rapid- ity of execution. Labor ordinarily can do anything genius can: it ,accom- plishes by a succession of blows what genius does at one blow. And many strokes, though with a little axe, Hew down and fell the hardest tilnberedoakf' A genius is generally thought to be one who learns without study, is pro- found without meditation, and who can do anything without labor. Henry NVard Beecher says that such geniuses are usually found in schools and colleges and are known by being very conceited, very affected and very disagreeable. But a true genius is the man who has the power of intensity of labor. ' . - 9

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has made his name immortal? How did Newton discoverthose laws which bring man one step nearer his Creator? I-Iow did Beethoven write those great symphonies, which seem to transport one from this world of toil and care and suffering into the heavens resounding with angelic music? By hard and persistent' labor. Robert Fulton worked fourteen years on the steamboat before his efforts were crowned with success. Gray was seven years in writing his Elegy Thus we might go all through the list of modern inventors, poets, scientists, etc., and show that every- thing they ever accomplished, which was worthy of commendation, was achieved only by labor. But if there is nothing without labor, the question arises, VVhat with labor? I answer, success. WVith labor anyone may make a success of life. I say, anyone. VVe cannot a.ll become Milton's and Newton's and Beethoven's, but still. ' . - Lives of great men all remind us IVe can make our lives sublime, And departing leave behind us Footprints on the sands of time, Footprints that perhaps another, Sail-ing o'er life's solemn main, A forlorn and shipwrecked brother, Seeing, shall take heart again. N In Europe nobility of birth may make a man great, but in America., where all men are born free and equal, anyone may rise from the depths of poverty and scale the heights of fame. James A. Garfield says that we have no horizontal stratification which holds one class down forevermore, but Our satiiication is like the ocean where every individual drop is free to move, and where from the sternest depths of the mighty deep, any drop may come up to glitter on the highest wave that rolls. Garfield himself was a true illustration of his own utterance. Canal boy-presi- dent, poverty and ignorance-rhonor and fame! What caused such a mighty change? Labor. It is not always circumstances that make men. Hundreds of men have had a good college education and have made a failure of life. States 8

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1 Juqt as no ship can sail the sea in safety without a rudder, so we can- N sea of life without something by which not successfully traverse the great haracter. We may work hard -all our to steer, and that something is c . A h . . ' . . ' ' . a f o 1S lives, but if we have not character our labor is 111 vain In 11 VS . . . , 1 ' mb' ' onol-gotlo gnd mdustrious, but has no character, needs only alittle a ition to loooomo, not 3 greatman, but ,a-,devil-, incarnate. So we might form an- othor motto equally true, U Labor without' Character Is Nothingng for the only labor that will stand thetest of time, is that which is based upon and represents character. The work of Newton remains unchanged. Time, the great destroyer, may sink his name in oblivion, but his work will re- main forever.. Miltonls bones. have long since mouldered to dust, but the sublime lines which he wrote, the noble sentiments which he uttered, will remain as long as a love -for all that is grand and pure and noble survives in the minds of men. The fathers of our country who fought and died for liberty, at Lexington and Bunker Hill may be forgotten, but their noble deeds and heroic achievements will stand as imperishable monuments of patriotism. Martin Luther at his death left, No ready money, no treasure of coin of any descriptionfl and at one time was so straitened in circum- stances that he had to earn his daily bread by gardening and clock mak- ing, yet at the same time he was changing the character, not only of his own country,but of the world, and Luther lives to-day in the Protestantisin of modern Germany. - do Character is often confused with reputation, but there is a vast- differ- ence between the two. Every man is the architect of his own character, but his reputation is in the hands ofpthers. Slander may destroy reputa- tion, but character is impregnable. Lord Byron had reputation, but not a noble character 5 and, although he had wealth and fame, he made a failure of life, as his own words show: Nay, for myself, so dark my fate Through every turn of life hath been, I Man and the world so much 1 hate, T I care not when I quit the scene. Men of character represent the conscience of a. nation, men ot' wonius its int9u9Clt5' and While g911iUS'm2Ly be admired, it is elianietei' that wins respect. - IO '