River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1879-07-24

We copy the following passages from
the baccalaureate sermon of President
Seelye before the graduating class at
Amherst college last Sunday as well
worth the reading and consideration of
the public generally:
Happiness only comes from a duty
done, from self-forgetting, perhaps self
sacrificing, labor. The most unselfish
heart, the most self-forgetting heart is
both the hottest and happicst heart.
Second-It is truth very easily and
very often overlooked that even the
means Of our most ordinary qualification
depend upon something back Of our labor
for them and back of our desire for them,
for neither the labor nol the desire orig
mates itself or is originated by It's object.
We. pride ourselves upon our civilization.
but when we come to look calmly and
closely at what is ours therein, at its hui
man contrivances and products, it is quite
possible that we shall find its glory grow
ing dim more than we shall find our
selves becoming dazZled thereby. Go
and ask these mighty achievements Of
human industry and invention, upon
which the present age prides itself,
ance of social inequality, or removing the
ills Of poverty, or staying the course Of
crime, or lighten1ng,in any actual degree,
the great burden Of human want and
wretchedness. 1T is questionable" says
Mr. Stuart Mill, ''if all the mechanical
inventions yet made has lightened the
days toll of single human being"
Look beneath the surface so smooth and
shining, of our northern civilization, and
see how with the advancement of science
and the increase of culture and the prog
ress of art, society is becoming more
restless under all the attempts to keep IT
in order and to give it peace.
The social disturbances Of the present
time were then skctched, when lie pro
ceeded to say: at is very easy for rs
know, in tacile optimism, to talk about
establishment of all these social disturb
ances through social science and econom-
ic laws, which men only need to be
taught and to follow and the perfect so
cial state should come. But men do not
follow social science and economic laws
by being taught them. Men may be
taught the laws Of health until they know
them perfectly, and yet may plunge in
sickness in defiance of these very laws, as
we find them doing every hour And
society might know all that social science
teaches, and yet be far from regulating
itself accordingly. Moreover, social sci
ence. if it could he carried out, would be
far from reaching the root of the troablc.
We build our citadel Of political econo-
my, and there with strong ramparts of
what we call social forces, and girt round
about by a bristling cheranr- de frtse Of
economic laws, we take refuge against
the invading forces Of disturbance and
social discomfort, and deem ourselves Sc
cure from all attacks Of communism or
socialism or nihilism.
| have yet 70 learn that economic laws
and adjustments, however firmly trusted,
however forcibly taught. however true
and perfect they may he in our apprehen-
sion, have ever of themselves created hope
and ioy. have ever removed the care OF
the capitalist or remedied the complaint
of the laborer, or made the problem of
work and wages any easier Of solution, or
really improved the practical relations Of
man with man. The question of society
is deeper than economic.
All social disturbance, all defrauding
and oppression and tyranny, all wrong,
in fact, of any sort, are only when one
seeks his own interest rather than anoth-
er's. and now we undertake to do away
with all this evil by convincing men
that they have made mistake respecting
their true interests, which, if they would
see it as il is, would rather require them
TO put away all enmities, and to live az
fellow helpers. IN mutual forbearanee and
mutual love.
Honesty is indeed the best policy, but
did any amount of policy ever make an
honest man. Men may bind themselves
together in various associations as they
may bind sticks in faeof for convenient
handling and use, but the union together
ike the branches Of living tree, with
the intertlependence and mutual help Of
an organic relationship, where each is
working for all and all for each, men
have no more impulse 10 accomplish
for themselves, yAd no more power to
produce by themselves, than have the
dead elements Of lAsture the instinct and
the energy to lift themselves ont Of death
into the mystery and beauty and glory Of
life.
0nly the breeding spirit and creative
Of Divine originator c2n give life 70
deAd matter, and only He who has life
iii himself, who Is the life and the foun-
tain .3f lifs.can quicken human hearts and
bind them together ID a fellowship Of
perpetual aove which IS also fQllness Of