The Toledo chronicle. [volume] (Toledo, Tama County, Iowa) 1873-1924, 1878-04-18

ouo AuAon AaSC - P4ycicduy utBtH-
Grating. There are some who argue,
and support their assertions by proof,
that we cannot now find those grand
specimens of manhood and woman
hood which shine in the pages of his
tory and look down on us from the can
vas of the painter. On the other hand,
observation teaches us that there still
are to be seen strength and beauty; that
men and women grow and flourish,
and that even If they are hot-house
plants, they bear within them large
fund Of vitality. But there Is something
else to be considered beside emere physi-
cal strength. We do not want simply
to rear savage race, who will "hurl
their lafices in the sun and leap the
rainbows Of the brooks An athlete
may be ignorant and brutal, beauty
vain and shallow, and unless intelli-
gence and stability of char acter are
added to physical charms and powers,
the structure is but half complete.
What we do see, however, to-day is
an absence of those characteristics
which were met with nj the men and
women who have left the stamp of
their greatness upon our country. Wedo
not hear of young men who will yet be
heirs to fortune takinga position with
the common sailor before the mast,
toiling in the factory, sweating at the
forge or following the plow, SO that by
experience and knowledge of all tho
details necessary to make up the per-
feet workman they may be fitted to fol-
low out some honorable vocation in
life. Nor do we find young women
throwing aside their frivolities, settling
down to the performance of household
duties, and by a thorough course Of
practical training preparing themselves
to rule in the kingdom of home. Nor
is this neglect of practical education to
be seen only amongst the rich. Even
those in humble circumstances have be-
come imbued with the same false ideas
as to what constitutes true dignity.
The terms workman and servant are
obnoxious to our ears, even although
they have been used by the greatest
minds to typify self-sacritice and devo-
ton. The poet tells us that though
thousands at his bidding speed,
And post o er land and ocean without rest;
They also serve who only stand and watt"
And the men who shook the world, who
sounded the death-knell of tyranny,
when they saw the world gradually
turning round to the dawn Of liberty
and truth, wished no better epitaph
than that of faithful workmen.
Both rich and poor, we have said,
have had infused into them those false
notions as to the social degradation
which would follow from manual labor.
The man who never used one of his
faculties for good, who is incapable of
any feeling or emotion other than that
of pride as he thinks of his ancestry,
which, by the way, has generally been
made up of a long array of BarOns,
who could not write their own names,
and whose lives were spent in sheep
stealing and general plunder, looks
down on everything in the city associ-
ated with trade, even although honest
industry, integrity and perseverance
are the factors which have built it up.
And the youth whose father may be
only a hard-working mechanic catches
the same spirit, and fritterss away his
days in idleness and dissipation.
The result is the Same. In the one
case the "hoodlum'' standing at the
street corner or in the bar-room, then
bringing up in the dock and ending in
the prison: in the other the lo"ngor at
the clubs, the frequenter of Delmonico's,
brainless and insane, with no thought
above the fashion of a necktie or the
shape of boot, and capable of no
more sentiment than treating her who
may love him "a little better than his
dog, little dearer than his horse"
The humorous paragrapher who wrote
that son once declared to his father
that he would never learn trade but
that he quickly changed his mind, for
in six months afterward he was mak-'
ing shoes in the Penitentiary, with all
his grim humor struck the keynote of
much of the crime and evil that afflict
the community. There is no royal
road to learning, neither is there any
to wealth and position. If the days of
a mans life, when the faculties are
ripening and when the impulses for
good or evil are strongest, are allowed
to slip past without an effort being
made to work and exercise self-denial,
ruin and disgrace will be the inevita-
BILE result. - Chicago Commercial AdUer-
tiser.