Delaware gazette and state journal. (Wilmington, Del.) 1883-1902, 1899-12-14
LECTURE AT The NEw-oENTuRY CLUB

.
Before q large audience at the New
Century Club, DR.. Lyman Abbott leo
tured last Thursday on ideals, y saying
inpart: When this beautiful house in
which we meet was built it was neces-
sary that some one should see il before
il existed. What she saw, for am told
the architect was q woman, she put on
paper and that guided the builders.
This is true of all achievements. First,
there is something seen, then inter-
preted to those who do not see 1t, and
the INTERPRETATION more or less realized.
existed in the mind Of Morse he heard
the click in his brain. Imagination is
light; ideals are real +; life is In dis
covering these realities and translating
tholn into deeds. The tendency of the
times is away from idealism democracy
tends away from it 10 its efforts to suit
tho greatest number of average people
instead of thu few at the top. The best
thought is never that which is most
widely diffused and accepted. We are
educating men who can read, but not
think. / sometimes think our news
papers are made BY men who can write,
but not think. A great newspaper is
not considered to be the one that gives
birth to great ideals, but the one that
has the largest circulation, with sworn
affidavits as to how many copies have
been printed.
The practical and the democratic are
wrecking ideals in our country. The
greatest college in England takes only
100 students, but our universities are
measured by their position and numbers
that attend them. The material spirit
inyades even the church, A minister
remarked that his church was getting
on finely; they had Just spent $40, 600 in
improvements. We must keep our
ideals high and not let the dollar be
the sign of the spiritual.
Art is not imitation, merely painting
thing SO 1t will look like the original
is not art. Unless an artist sees what
other men do not see he is no artist.
He must interpret what he sees and
make others see it. Raphael said !:
Paint nature not as she is, but as she
ought to be-" His Madonnas are not
the mothers you see ON the steamboat
and trolley cars, but the world is
diviner because he saw such mothers
and made us see them. Most of US
having eyes, see not, and having ears,
hear not. 1t is the mission of art to
interpret and make plain to us of duller
vision. The best writer is not the one
who puts words together in the pretti-
st'mosaic, but tine one who sees the
aotualities of life and iDterprets for US
great ideas. The greatest authors deal
with universal humanity; what ID COM
mon to all the race. Homer, Dante and
| Shakespeare interpret no time nor
l,people, but the universal expei fence Of
humanity. There are those who inter
pref an epoch. Kipling throws strength
into all his interpretations, coarse,
sometimes. and vulgar, but our age has
something of ooarseness and vulgarity.
| Some one wrote to Horace Greeley
asking how to write for newspaper.
He replied: 9 Haveysomethingito say
and then say it, Respectfully, Horace
4 Greeley. . This would apply as we'll to
oratory. III the age Of oratory Is passed
1t is because high ideals have passed.
One cannot be eloquent on economic
questions. Only Gladstone could dc
that. But when question arises that
touches honor, when man who dis
lFhonors home and womanhood stands al
the door of Congress, asking admission,
the man who replies to him has 9
chance to DO an orator. Applause. A
man gets eloquence from an audience
when he can gather up what is in the
hearts of his hearers, when he sees
| what they only half see and makes il
clear to them.
| think the Puritan made mistake
1 in closing the door of the theati Q.
Though not what it should DO, yet the
stage presents pictures to unimagina
tive people, and when lacking the power
Of vision the play gives them an idea
ut least. Of all arts music is the ont
most absolutely pure, the universe
language.
| We need ideals in public and indus
trial life. BY them alone progress j.
Ymade. A statesman is politician
ri with an ideal; n politician without i
never looks further than the Office
within his own control. The states
man shapes his policy towards his idea
and tries to lead to it perhaps re
caIcitrant people. Bismarck had Away
before him the unification of German,
and the great monument remains to hi
memory. The statesman sees some
thing better for the future than tn
past has had. Ii man lives when thing
are done by steam and electricity, b
{ must think like lightning and worI
like steam, or be left behind in tn
, race, but steady. patient work is re
quired to realize the highest ideals.
Pre-eminently the church has to d
5 with ideals John Knox denounced sil
and Dean Swift satirized folly, Blu
! they were not the highest types Of min
listers. Persons often wonder VIII
people do not come to church. / ofte
wonder why they do, when we so ofte
fail to give them inspiring thoughts
( But the most pre-eminebt breedin
place of ideals is the home; the great
est idealist is woman; children 90
their ideals from the mother. We nee
homes to make ideals for us. see
e what you can, and keep what you get
Is that the ideal of home? ''TEe SUI
vival of the fittest.' Is that the idet
of the mother with the frail baby ]
b her arms that che would give her lif
for? See how much we can get an
how little give each other.' Is tina
: what the family thinks? Yet that
!, what political economists tell us to dc
to get labor In the cheapest market
: In the homes where all serve each othe
and are bound together with the bon
of perfectness are the ideals out @
which must grow our church and Stat,
= A. s.
:, SAMUEL JOHNSON HANGED