The citizen. (Frederick City, Md.) 1895-1923, 1901-05-31
THE MN OF ABILITY.
Is He Under n Handicap In the Dat
tie of Life:


tie of Life:
With reference to ability. experience
hourly confirms TWO CONGRATULATIONS: A
man Of ability will sooner or later make
his way. There never was 50 urgent and
SO general a demand for every form of
ability as there is now.
Unfortunately the relations of these
two facts To certain other facts are little
understood. 1t is generally assumed. for
instance, that ability is u distinct advan-
tage to a man. Is it not, instead, a hand
leap?
Let it be stated again, and with en-
phasis, that ability is very much in de-
mand. The market groans for it. But
this does not mean that ability will be
recognized. Capacity to discern ability
In others, as distinguished from capacity
to discern ability in ourselves, is the rar.
est of all capacities. Unerring acumen,
exquisite discrimination. can alone meas
ure ability, sft it, choose one form and
adapt another No one would value a
clodhopper's opinion of Plato, but every
Tom, Dick and Harry feels qualified t.
sit in judgment upon ability. If |
could only get hold of a man with abil-
lty. cries the fatuous employer, to whom
1t never occurs that capacity to distin-
guiSh ability from its semblance is the
most exquisite of the faculties.
For over $500 years one man has
stood pre-eminent as a judge of human
ability. That man was Pericles His
gift in this direction was little less than
divine. 1t enabled him to lift the Athe-
mans to heights Of achievement above
which the intellect has never reached.
That was ahlity's golden age, for it then
had a patron who not only sought it, but
discerned it.
Washington possessed this heavenly
endowment. At the risk of seeming pa
triotically partial we may say that he
equaled pericles in his unerring percep-
ton In those years of ordeal from 177G
to lIS5. and again from 1888 to 1897, we
never find Washington astray in his esti-
mate of ability. He could choose men-a
thing infinitely harder to do than TO
choose pictures or pianos or potatoes
and in choosing them he was in very
truth a father to his country
Ability's first handicap, therefore, is
the rarity of capacity trained to discern
It, The absence of this capacity in the
man who chooses men ruins great enter
prises every day. But the man who
makes a hotch of choosing men never
dreams that the fault is his own. "There
never was such a demand for ability as
there is today" Say rather there never
was such uccd of men capable Of esti-
mating ability.
There is 40 such thing as ordinary abil-
ity. All ability is extraordinary; hence
when it diScI">es itself Observation-Disclosures
in the majority-combines against it.
This is ahilry's most mortifying handi-
cap. Mediocrity does not dctest ability.
1t simply has no use for it. There is the
same natural antipathy between mcdi-
ocrity and ability that there is between
truth and vested interests or between a
dog and cat.
Bourgvt kecnly remarks that when sew
cral suitors WOO a maid he who loves hel
most will lose her. The very excess of
true love throws the unfortunate into Il
fever. He loses his self command in the
crisis of the game. a cooler rival. with
out sentiment. controls his faculties and
wins. The same phenomenon is witness
ed when ability completes for favor with
mediocrity. Ability loves to work and is
excited by 4 prospect. Mediocrity re-
CARDS all prospects coldly. Ability per.
fects itself in seclusion Medocrity pulls
wires Ability breaks its heart in the
pride of conscious capacity and is not
even asked to the wedding when meli-
ocrity mailies the only child of the head
of the firm. Ability is compelled to ere
ate its own environment This means
long obscurity of hunger and humiliation.
Think of Columbus, obliged to pass
decade in teaching that the earth is
round before he could begin his life work
There is one sweet that mpdocrity new
er tastes Soon or late ability comes by
its own. Columbus climbs to the deck in
the gray dawn, and his heart leaps at the
cry of Land" If mcdiocrity be without
tragedies, it is also without ecStaSies.
Certainly. ability is too often handi.
cap. The only consolation we can Sug.
gest is that it handicaps very. very few
of us.-New York Journal.