Saint Mary's beacon. [volume] (Leonard Town, Md.) 1867-1983, 1894-06-21
TRYING 20 BE SMART.

a person who Is really and truly
bright does not try to be smart,
they are just SO and cannot help it.
This natural brightness is often ex-
hibited in a marked degree by those
who have had no scholarly training
20 speak of, bat in the most humble
walks of life have won loving friends,
and sometimes even high positions,
simply by modest common sense
and a polite and unpretentious use
of the Fathers gifts.
There are scores, | might say tens
of thousands of people in this day
and generation trying to be smart
trying to stun the world with
studied wit and thus climb up to
elevations where they can look down
on their fellowmen. But, "pygmies
are pygmies still though perched on
Alps" and the lilliputs who attain
undeserved eminence cannot main
tain their high positions when they
get them. like those who edo good
by stealth and blush to find it fame"
Every city and country town has
young lawyers without clients who
had better be spading the garden or
milking the cows for q livelihood;
and every college and high school
has students in them who are not
students, but who have been placed
there by ambitious and maybe
wealthy parents, anxious to make
something more of their children
than nature designed. Pedantry
crops out on the street, in the par
lor, and in the most unexpected
places; while modest worth quietly
and unobstrusively fills up life's
measure Of requirements as ability
has been there given, coming to the
front only when called there by
fitness or the needs Of the situation.
was called 10 these reflections by
the recent unexpected visit Of a
fallen aspirant to the worlds hon
ors, young lawyer, who called at
our house and desired q nights
lodging and entertainment. He
had studied law as a means to
mount the ladder of fame. Had
been admitted to the bar, but his
sounding brass" and general lack
of judgment and merit had driven
him from the profession for lack of
clients. Now he is wondering up
and down, getting his living by
visiting and in almost any way he
can but by taking up the shovel and
the hoe, which implements are the
only ones he was ever really quail
fed by nature to use, and earning
his bread in good old orthodox sweat
of the brow.
GLOW are the mighty fallen"
and how they must continue to fall
while they build on such shaky
foundations, while they set ambi-
ton and the worlds favor above
duty and its requirements.
We knew this young man when
he was boy. He seemed to be
bright boy and pleasing in appear
ance; could "speak a piece" at an
entertainment and win applause
from the audience as well as the
best of them.
"Some for renown on scraps of Learnt, z
dote,
And think they grow immortal as th,y
quote"
His father was persuaded that he
was unusually talented and expect
cd him to make mark in the
world, and to this end encouraged
him to try the great highway. law
When will parents learn to know
that reciting other peoples thoughts
will not stand for brains and that
good looks are not Of the avail that
hard work is in securing positions:
When will mr. schools acd S.ats ~
learning pay less attention to elocu-
ton and the showing-off processes,
and give more to those solid ac-
quirements that aid business, and
turn the mind into storehouse of
historic facts from which to draw
rs the years roll by?
1t seems to me that We have had