Valparaiso University - Beacon / Record Yearbook (Valparaiso, IN)

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writes out diagnOSis and prescription in the form of an address to be given place after place and year after year at from fifty dollars to live hundred dole lars a repetition is not specially to be blamed, no matter how imperfect the diagnosis or how unscien. tifie the formula; if he can get the price that is his business. But as to graft, one cannot help thinking that the platform reformer has one of the most lucra- tive and safest of grafts. The dear public, however, which takes readily to predigested thinking and see- ond-rate moralizing never cares to think about this, and in all probability seriously expects the National Pharmacy at Washington to fill out the prescription. Milton got ten pounds, paid in installments, so Car- lyle tells us, for his Paradise Lost, and came near los- ing his head on the gallows into the bargain. Bryan. the papers tell us, has made something like $100,000 out of the The Prince of Peace, and, so far as I know, didnt even lose any votes by it. blame so gracious a personality as that of Bryan, and Lunch of that hundred-thousand I doubt not has gone for other than sellish ends. I do not blame at all, but I merely like to stop and think how much the Prince of Peace got for the unrepeated Sermon on the Mount. Notwithstanding what I have thus far said, one might doubtless from another point of View show that, in a sense, all genuine thinking, all honest ref: form, all great books, all sincere endeavor is a kind of advice. Even nature herself is indirectly admone ishing every man. The cold wind instructs us to put on warmer clothing, the hot sun advises us to keep in the shade, the ant and the bee teach us diligence, the singing bird gives us a lesson of joy, the rippling brook is eloquent of simple contentment, and the vast surging ocean speaks of majesty and power. All this, however, is indirect, unintentioned, suggestive, and therefore unobjeetionable and effective. Neither is it my wish wholly to break with eus- tom and propriety. With no ambition whatever to appear in the role of national adviser, I would gladly enough give you of this graduating Class advice if only I could advise as nature advises, if only there were any certainty that what I should say would be best for you, if only I could have my words certified to with the stamp, HCulruaranteed under the Pure Food Aetfi But I fear me much that a moral, intellectual or business chemist could find more than mere traces of alum. benzoate of soda and other deleterious sub- stances in my product, and could scarcely stamp it H99 per cent pureW All I could honestly say would be: Here is a package of advice put up under fairly sanitary conditions. It is just as good as Smithis or J ones,saand cheaper. Fletcherize as much of it as your appetite ealls for7 but remember that you do it at your own risk. In case Violent pains result, eon; sult your own discretion as to its continued use. Would it not be better, at least more modest7 for me not to compound out of stale materials some shredded morality and ask you to let it take the place of good wholesome bread and meat and I do not Wish tos' potatoes, or, dropping the figure, your own sense of What is just and right and honorable? May I not rather sketch for you a little picture that you can hang up for a brief time in your living-room and eventually in your attic? Once in a While for a time it may eateh your eye, and some line of it, or some suggestion in touch ,or grouping, or perspec- tive may reach your heart and stimulate your imag- ination. And then at any time it will be an easy mat- ter to take it down and put a better one in its place. May I not put my advice to you in the less arrogant and condescending form of a wish. a kind of god- speed put into concrete embodiment? Then, about What I would wish and l? ope for you in the coming. years is this: First. I would wish for you good health. Not that good health is always the basis of good work or that ill health necessarily precludes giod work. Weak, sickly, diseased bodies have strangely enough leoused time and again brave, heroic, creative spirits. To such an extent is this true that one is led some times to question the old dictum about a sound mind in a sound body. Neither is the perfect physical body a guarantee of superior creative power,enot at all. Perhaps the two most nearly perfect physical men in America tO-day are Frank Goteh and John Arthur J ohnson, and there are plenty of worse men. too, than either of them. And yet I can scarcely be- lieve that to be the champion wrestler and the great est living master of the toe-hold, or indeed to tibring back the baeonii from Reno, is comparatively speak- ing, a very lofty ideal. It is better to get a hold on menls minds and their hearts than on their toes, and there is better bacon to be brought back than that cured in Nevada. Therefore, while there is no need of despair for those whose physical endowment is limited and even heavily mortgaged, and ample in- spiration for them in the grim and usually uneom-. plaining heroism of a blind Milton, a dyspeptic Car- lyle, or Darwin, or Huxley, a nerve-raeked Mrs, Browning or an insanity-haunted Charles Lamb; yet, all things considered, a good body is like a good bank aeeount,-it gives one a sense of confidence and security both for his work and his pleasure, and frees him from the thousandfold vexations, worries and haunting, morbid fears that beset the ailing and tie poor. Next, I would wish for you good work, and pri- marily that you may be somewhat independent; somewhat, for no man in modern society is indeneii- dent to any large degree. so complex and interrelated is life and activity. Secondly, because I would have you give a fair equivalent for the privilege of livin g: and not be a parasite or a thief. Thirdly, because good work is a tonic for blue devils and misanthropy. Fourthly, for the value of the work itself to others. As to what good work is, I know no better statement than that of Ruskin. According to him it must have three qualities: first. it must be honest; second, it must be useful ;third, it must be cheerful. TWO pas- sages I quote from Ruskin without comment. iiLife

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latter, why should we believe that a man who is an acknowledged failure-eand even this pathetic ad- mission reveals a peculiar vanity, saying, as it were: I had great innate capabilities, but alas l-why, I say, should we believe that a man who has failed at every- thing else can be a success at giving advice? Then again, advice must be general or specific. It must deal with broad generalizations supposed to be applicable to everybody, at least to a elass or group of persons, such as principles of character and conduct; or with particulars suitable for the indi-r Vidual. Now, the diftieulty in the one instance is that few things in the way of advice are universally ap- plicable, and these few have become haekneyed by wearisome and trite iteration. Suppose I advise you to be honest. You have heard that a thousand times and it falls cold and dead; and besides I do not wish to plagiarize the Ten Commandments. Or suppose I tell you to work hard. You have also heard that; before, and, moreover, many of you work too hard already. As to individual advice, it would seem that the one who essays to give it is obsessed with a pre- sumptuous, overweening self-eonfidenee. How can I; or how can any man pretend to have the wisdom necessary to offer advice to you as a sort of guide; book for this interesting tour which we call life? In the first place, we havent been over the whole road. Then, too, how can we be sure that we have chosen the best or the worst read? About all we can do is to tell you some of the pleasures and dangers, the- wayside shade, the winding streams and the undu- lating plains lost in the mystic haze of the horizon that we have seen; or the ruts and stones, bad bridges and worse hills that we have found. But you know already that these will likely be encoun- tered on any road. We can, indeed, suggest a good equipment in the way of extra tires and accessories, or, in other words, reserve Vitality and reserve preparation; or the need of careful renewals of gasoline and lubricating oil, which is to say continued watehfulness that head and heart do not run dry; or we may advise caution and patience and taking no more than your share of the roacl-whieh needs no interpretation. This we can do, and little more. How can I be specific and urge you to choose a certain profession, to be a farmer, teacher, physician, lawyer. banker? Do I have any extraordinary intuition, any nlagie insight into your capacities, inclinations and ideals that enables me to tell in which you would succeed best? Shall I ad- vise you individually to marry early, late, or not at all; to live in the country or city; to seek many friends or few; to save money like a miser or spend it generously like a prince? This would be specific advice, but what possible value could it have ? Seareely any man has the wisdom to guide his own life aright, can see failure after failure. mistake after mistake along the back track. That sharp turn he should have taken on low speed; he should have remembered that a COW is naturally phlegmatie and non-exeitable; he should never have tried to make the big Packard take his dust. Memory and Medi- tation, one would think, might be parents to Mod-i: esty. To you young people starting out with your new machines, can I say with becoming humility much more than that I have found the game of life worth the candle, or the tour worth the garage bills, and to wish you heartily a safe and happy journey? Well, if it be presumptuous to proffer individual advice, either general or specific, what sublime assur- ance must the baccalaureate speaker, or the popular platform orator. have who engages to tell the country what it should do and forbear doing? I have noticed that such speakers usually believe in the provi- dential guidance of nations, but they also apparently think that Providence is occasionally negleetful, or that He is on a vacation; or, as Elijah Inoekingly said about Baal, Heither he is talking, or he is pursu- ing, or he is in a journey, or peradventure he sleep- eth, and must be awakedfiaand therefore offer themselves as a substitute. Without experience as statesmen, often with a superficial knowledge of the fundamental ideas of government and law and offi- cial responsibility, they point out in glaring, garish rh etorie the derelietion of the Senate and the House, of the justices of the Supreme Court, of mayors and aldermen and policemen. This thing of telling other men, especially men in otlieial position, their duty, in- stead of tending to ones own, is getting to be a pre- valent and contagious mania in this country. Only a few weeks ago Mayor Gaynor of New York City wrote a significant letter to the district superinten- dent of the International Reform Bureau who had protested against the exhibition of the Johnson- Jeffries fight pictures tthey wrote it Jeffries-John- son before the fightl ciIf it lay in my power? wrote Mayor Gaynor, ttto say whether the pictures sliould be exhibited it would not take me long to de- eide it. I do not see how it can do anyone anyagood to look at them, but will you be so good astonemem- her that ours is a government of laws and not: of men? Will you please get that well into your head? I am not able to do as I like as mayor. I must take the law just as it is. and you may be ab- solutely certain that I shall not take the law into my own hands. The growing exercise of arbitrary power in this country by those put in office would be fan more dangerous and is far more to be dreaded than certain other Vices that we all wish to minimize or be rid off, HWill you please get that well into your headtW he said. That letter. I think, is well worth getting into anybodyts head. This is not saying that there are not social and economic evils under our government, or under any government, but I should be very loath. if such a tling were possible, to turn the government over to the nopular orators and self-appointed reformers. Florid, popular oratory at so much per is as much, of a menace, one may honestly think, as the graft and corruption which serve as such profitable themes. The man who diagnoses national or social ills, and,

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without work is robbery: work without art is brutal- ity.H And again: HIt may be proved with much cer- tainty that God intends no man to live in this world without working, but it seems to me no less evident that he intends every man to be happy in his work. ll And just as I wish for you good work, so equal- ly I wish for you good leisure. Yonder is your field of work. I hope the ground has been carefully plowed, harrowed and seeded, and that you will see to it that proper cultivation is not lacking, and that God will see to it that the warm, life-giving rain shall fall in season. But yonder, too, surrounding your field, is a green hedge-row over-run with wild flowers and Vines, sweet with the fragrance of alder blos- soms, and the favorite haunt 0f warbler and thrush. I hope there is a strip of luxuriant grass along it with an occasional patch of wild strawberries, and here and there a stately tree for dignity and cool, refresh- ing shade. Equally, too, do I hope that you will not root out that hedge-row and replace it with a bar- baric and utilitarian barb-wire fence, or deaden every tree because it shades too much a few hills of corn. And will you not stop sometimes to rest in that shade, stop to chat there with a neighbor or to give a friendly greeting to the stranger passing along the way, stop to pick a few of those strawberries, or watch for a time the young rabbits playing along that grassy strip, or listen to the wild; luxuriant, full- souled melody of the thrush? You will lose a little time maybe, just as the barb-wire fence will enable you to have another row or two of corn around your field; but if, as Ruskin says, there is no wealth but. life, then you will be all the richer for your mar- gined7 tiowering hedge-row and your sweet, glad rest. I wish you, then, joy in your labor and joy in your leisure. The held, too, is not without its own beauty, the beauty of the waving crops of promise and utility, but is not the margin equally inviting? Sometimes, moreover, the margin turns out to be more valuable than the field. Charles Lambis work was adding up countless columns of figures in the bulky ledgers of the South Sea House, and faithfully enough did he do his work. Charles Lambis leisure was the Essays of Elia; that was his flowering, var- iegated and refreshing margin. There is joy in work only so long as the work is not brutally exhausting and deadening, is not without margin and without repose. I wish for you sufficient leisure to think about serious things, to see and appreciate humorous things and to love beautiful things. Third, my wish for you is a clear, cultivated mind that may be brought to bear both on your work and your pleasure. I should wish it to be first an open mind, not locked to truth and beauty either by ignorance or prejudice, not deceived by popular clamor, sectarian fanaticism, or the bias of bigotry, but letting in the sunlight and air of God from every side. Again, I should wish it to be an original, ereaw tive mind, not following in the beaten track of con- ventionality, even if, as I believe is true, a road made of fossil shells is a very smooth one, but rather a mind willing like Newtonis to voyage ithrough strange seas of thought alonef I should wish it2 too, to be a generous mimieits independence and origi- nality kept from eccentricity and dogmatisni by a hearty recognition of what is great and true in the work of every other mind. Lastly, I should Wish it to be a brave mind, freed from the oringing fear that makes intellectual and moral cowards of so many men, makes them keep their ear to the ground to catch the muttered rumblings of the dreaded mon- ster They, or prudishly shut-their eyes to the naked truth until some Anthony Comstock has put a shirt or skirt on it. HIt wont be long, i7 wrote Walt VVhit- man in a note to his friend Horace Traubel, Hanol I will be dead and gone: then they will hale you into courteput you into the witness boxeply you with questionsetry to mix you up with questions: this Walt Whitmanethis scainp poet-this pretender-- what did you make him out to be? and you will have to answer honest7 so help you God. Youill be speaka ing for me many a time after I am dead: do not be afraid to tell the trutheany sort of truth good or bad, for or against: only be afraid not to tell the truth.,, Those are words of a man who knew not fear; feared neither to speak the truth while living nor to have it spoken when deadesublinie intellec- tual and moral bravery. It is the thought, only spoken with brusquer, ruggeder insistence, of the dying Hamlet, and of that one who loved not wisely but too well: iiSpeak of me as I am; nothing extenuate Nor set down aught in inalieeW Fourth, my wish for you is a big, sympathetic, sensitive heart7 the capacity to love greatly what is greatly worth loving. And what is greatly worth. loving? Shall I say first, Nature with her ever- ehanging, everrrenewed and inexhaustible beauty; beautiful, in spite of some ugly aspects, in every greatest, every smallest revelation, crystal and grass- blade and flower, up to mountain and ocean and teinpestuous storm. Sweet is the breath of Morn, her rising sweet, With charm of earliest birds; pleasant the Sun, XVhen first on this delightful land he spreads IIis orient beams, .on herb, tree, fruit, and flower, Glistering with dew; fragrant the fertile earth After soft showlrs; and sweet the coming on Of grateful evening mild; then silent Night, With this her solemn bird, and this fair Moon. And these the gems of Heavin, her starry trainW Such beauty the sightless Milton saw in nature, saw with the eyes of memory and imagination. Beauti- ful, too, in what she eoneeals,-the hidden forces, the haunting mystery, the lure of the infinite. Next, what is noblest in the work of man: the creation of artists-divine music with its appealing witchery, great books with their diamond-shining truths set in the gold of beautiful imagery and mem- orable diction, great pictures and statuary glorifying religion and nature and heroic men, majestic build- ings and graceful cottages and gardensesymbols of