The Advocate and news., 1899-01-25
S0sS,sSsSsSSSS0SSS0S0SSSSsS
> THE POWER OF THE IDEAL.
Prof. Frank Parsons, in The Coming Age.
OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES

We frequently hear men dispose Of
book, a movement or a proposed re-
form, by saying 1T is too ideal 1t is
not practical" OF one who proposes
change they do not like they say He is
a dreamer, an idealist, builder Of pretty
castles in the air. but his thought Is i'm
practicable" This Is a very common
mode of setting aside uncomfortable
criticisms exposing the faults of existing
institutions, and indefinitely postpOning
consideration Of the plans proposed to
remedy those faults. Yet this dispar-
agement of the ideal philosophically
considered, is bit Of shallow sOphistry,
and ethically considered is a sin against
progress.
AS matter Of fact nothing is SO truly
practical as the ideal The ideal is the
basis of the practical, the prophecy of
the practical, the creator of the practical.
The ideal has moulded the world from
barbarism to standardization and will
mould it to a civilization worthy the
name. 1t is the power that moulds men
and women and institutions and nations,
as potter mOulds his clay. II 1t had
not been for the power of the ideal we
should still be savages living on nuts
and uncOoked roots and fish. Our fine
houses and palace hotels, our railroads
and factories, all our wonderful electri-
cal devices, our libraries, schools and
museums, our governments and insti-
tutiOns, were ideals before they were
realities, and become realities because
they were ideals. Every book and every
nation was an ideal before it was fact,
and became fact because Of the creative
power of the ideal.
After Mayor JOnes's magnificent ad.
dress at Detroit last August, l heard
some business men and city officials
make such remarks as these: eyes, the
address was very good, it sounded well,
but it was not practical. Jones is good
fellow, but he's up in the clouds. 1t will
do to talk about brotherhood and pa
triOtism in business when we get within
sight Of the millennium, but It's waste
time to speculate on that sort Of thing
! to-day" I have heard similar senti-
ments expressed many times about such
books as Bellamy's Looking Backward
mot merely concerning the details Of
the plan, which certainly are objection
able in many respects, but concerning
the underlying principle Of the book, the
realization OF brotherhood in business
life. Such sentiments almost always
meet with approval expressed or implied
on the part Of most of those who are
known as hard-headed business men.
And yet / believe a little consideration
will show that Jones and Bellamy are
really more practical than their critics,
for they deal with forces by the side Of
which the stock exchange and the rail-
road, finance, laws and governments are
but as feathers in the gale or leaves upon
the stream Al these are what the ideals
Of the people make them. He that
changes the ideals of men changes the
men themselves ana all their institutions
Let the ideals OF Our youth have more
Of love and service and devotion In them
than the ideals of their fathers, and less
of self-interest and desire for mastery
on the low plane of monetary advantage,
and see what would become Of the stock
exchange and watered railroads, sweat
shops, city sltlms competitive wages, po-
litical corruption, class legislation, and
all the mighty compost OF conflicts and
frauds and masteries which we call the
competitive system. The man who runs
an engine or controls dynamo may be
practical man. But the man who ar
ranges the wires, or changes them, or
marks out a new plan by which they are
to be laid is no less practical. The man
who works in an electric power house,
manages a railroad system, or admins
ters a department Of government, may be
practical man; but the one who works
in the power house among the moral and
intellectual dynamOs that light the world
and run all its machinery, is working
with forces that can turn the railroad
system and the government inside out in
spite Of the resistance of Railroad Man
ayers" and Politicians" and is as much
more deeply and truly practical than
they, as the man who builds the loco
motive Is more deeply practical than he