Rock Island daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1886-1893, 1888-09-20
AN OBJECT IN LIFE.
HOWARD DISCUSSES THE QUES-
TION, WHAT ARE WE HERE FoRf

the Fool Dieth-Mistakes Which Par
ents Make-An Aim, However Humble,
Is a Good Thing.
The average man is a fool. And he dieth
as the fool dieth.
Quietly sitting in your New England home,
contented with your breakfast, comfortable |
In your surroundings, a peaceful atmosphere |
suggesting an everlasting freedom from un- |
pleasant activities, take piece of paper'and |
write on it the names of the great of the |
earth. Put down men and women great in
any line-mental, moral, physical, financial.
Include statesmen, financiers, writers, ora
tors, inventors, explorers, humanitarians,
aye, and if you will, put in those who are
noted simply for length of days, or personal
prowess, or height or weight.
How many have youl Oughtn't that list
to be longerl
What are We here for? Oughtn't there to
be an aim for every human being besides the
mere getting of bread and butter, providing
of a shelter and clothesl Parents may with
some degree of justice say: 'Well, it is too
late now for me to have an aim But it
seems to me, when they have gotten that far
In the sentence, the faces of their children
should rise before them, and the thought
born on the instant, that their aim should be
to give their children an aim, should be
thenceforth their guiding star, the very
helm of the voyage of life.
The parents make great mistakes They
have an idea that to refuse this, that or the
other to their children is an unkindness As
| a matter of fact, it is the truest kindness
Nffn go a hflf
| tate to refuse favors to their children from
| the most selfish motives, unrecognized, but
existing, all the same. Discipline requires
strength of mind. 1t requires not only men,
tai strength, but moral strength and phys
ical endurance Very few of US are endowed
with all of these, and the great majority of
us have little of either 1t takes time and
patience to train dog, therefore it is very
much cheaper to pay trainer $40 month
| than it is TO bother ones self about it. Pre-
| cisely so with children. We spoil them at
home and send them TO school for their edu-
| cation There is so much in us that is un-
used, so much that might be made available,
| to put it selfishly, for our own comfort, for
our own happiness, for our own delight and
| appreciation of the bomteous gifts which
are showered upon our path, but which We
have not the sight To see.
A man who goes through life with no other
ambition than saving money is u mean man;
but after all he has an idea. He wants to
die a rich man, and he does die rich. Every
body laughs when he dies; but he has had the
solid satisfaction, all his life long, of pursu-
ing a course designedly and deliberately
marked out. The fact that it is an ignoble
aim has nothing to do with the case. He has
an aim and he follows it the end A man
who desires to become good public speaker
may fail in convincing others that he is a
good public speaker; but he, having marked
out that line of endeavor, educateS himself,
reads 6Doks, practices oratory, yells behind
the barn, shouts over the bounding billows,
talks in the seclusion of his study, speaks as
he walks the crowded streets. Do you mean to
tell me that he is not having a good timei
Do you mean TO tell me that he is beside him.
; self when he does that Can't you see that
he is a better man, a more useful man, even
if he never succeeds in reaching the goall
The very fact that the moment we begin
to consider the subject of aims, our mind.
divides them into classes, proves conclusively
first, that it is an interesting thought, and
second, that it is one which. outworked, will
do US good don't mean to intimate thai
the average man, the ditch dig5ers, the day
laborers. the slaves of capital, the Indians il
their forests, the vast hOrdes in Jungle
swamp or glade, need be expected ever I,
| stand upon mountain tops and view the pros
= pect DER, hoping by expert eye to detec
some glittering potnt toward which to shoe
the arrows of their desire, but do say, i
. ambition could be implanted in their breasts
lowlv. humble, poverty stricken though i
be, the man would be happier, more useful
more contented, and the race would b
elevated many points.
The ditch digger who means to have hi
ditch straighter and cleaner than that of an
other man has an object in life. The ma
who builds stone fence and regards il
neat, regular surface, its direct course, wit
satisfaction, and compares or contrasts
with the fences of others less careful abou
him. has an ambition, and be is a better ma
for the fact. The express clerk, whose tall
book is legible and whose crate list an
drivers books are neat, with readable al
dresses and decipherable figures, is bette
man, a better servant to his company,
more acceptable public worker, than his fe
lows who scribble the scrawls we ordinaril
Huu III press ucliNciy poOhS, AAp OAAAS itE
BILE feature about it being the cabalistic sig
of c. o. d. Go into any great printing esta
lishment and you will find that there are ce
tain clerks in the advertising departmel
I with whom the public prefer to deal. VIII,
Because they are desirous not only of ser
r. ing their employer by pleasing his patron
but of advancing themselves in their er
ploy. It is their aim to be civil, to be obi
ing, to be helpful and to be correct.
Go into the city editors room and ia
with him. If he will condescend, betwe,
his cigarette puffs, to open his oracular liz
he will tell you of the twenty or thirty I
porters under his control three or four a
the group upon whom he chiefly relic
Whyi Because they are ambitious alol
their line of work; because they are
ways on time; because they have qui
nose for news; because their copy is clea
because they don't spend an hour in revisit
and interlining and crossing out and chan
. ing expressions
/ went to school once to man who
10 finger nails were always dirty. He produc
profound impression on me, and don't
i, lieve l have ever had n dirty finger II
since. He little knew what his object in
IL was, but so far as am concerned, the OF
ire thing l ever learned from him was by
'of servation of his excessively dirty finger mai
rec Joe Howard in Boston Globe.