The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1903-06-11

Ition. TO buttonhole fenow American and
talk to him about the superiority of New
| York hotels. He is talking his holiday too
| late He has no longer any oil in his
lamp. Curiosity Imagination, sympathy.
lzest. have been burned out of him in that
fierce competitive struggle where his life
forces have been spent He is the victim
| of a system-of the cumulative rather
than the qualitative test of excellence.
None Of our contemporary Authorizations
leads more certainly to ultimate WEAKNESS
and indifferentsm than the eouficatlon
of men who do things We worship size,
noise, efficiency tangible results With
Mr.. Henley in his recent automobile poem,
we cry:
Speed and a world of new havings."
II is fascinating, record breaking SEIZED
ule for the road race for success. but /
confess that am afraid Of it. One sees
too many broken down machines III the
roadside ditch. Study the faces of the
Men who do un.Ags," of the Men Of to-
morrow" as you find them presented in
the illustrated periodicals, high geared
bodily mechanism. These men are the
winners in the game which our generation
has set itself to play But many of the
faces seem to me singuarly hard, insensi-
tive, untouched by meditation. If we have
purchased speed and power at the cost of
nobler qualities if the men who do things
are bred at Inc expense of the men who
think and feel, surely the present Ameri-
can model needs notifications
eve cannot rest, mediate, dream, with
out missing our train, breaking our en-
gagement. We hurry on through the
crowded, absorbing, splendidly rich and
varied life of contemporary America,
race of a few athletes and millions of ner-
vous dispeptics. We are restless people,
hypnotized with transient enthusiasts.
Today we plan marble archway for
hero, build it tomorrow in plaster, and the
day after tear it down. We idolize the
phrases of the Declaration of Independ
ence for two or three generations. and
then suddenly make the discovery that
they are mere genera'ities, good for the
library but in applicable to practical affairs
All the wealth of our physical resources,
all the marvels of our tangible success,
are not enough it appears, to save US
from the old world vice of indifferentism,
from the swift relapse into discussionism.
Is there any remedy for it?
"The road to happiness Is not through
caring little, but through caring much
and continuing to care much. 1t is the
eager, ardent mind, not the jaded, hyper
critical mind, which has the truer sense
OF values The disillusionized man is not
necessarily the wise man.
"In actual human intercourse, further
more your disllusionized man is,
| to put it plainly, himself a bore. 1t is
amusing enough for awhile to hear
some melancholy Jacques rail and sheer,
but it is soon tiresome. The most whole
some and agreea bic companion in the game
of life is what golfers call the cheerful
duffer, who plays shockingly, it is true
but who is always hoping and struggling
/ to beat DOGGY on the next hole. He is an
idealist, and it Is the mood of the idealist
and most of the pococurantist that most
of the good work of the world is done
Your academic training in this pace
/ has, / doubt not helped you to feel the
potential value of human life 1t has
taught you some spiritual Interpretation
of your own function in the world You
care more about the joys of living, there
/
beat in your pulses for having attended
an American college. You have been
taught to aim at the things that are ex-
cellent and permanent; and rarely do these
things revea. their fair proportions more
clearly than in the daily discipline, the
constantly widening horizon, of the col
/ lege classroom . A college education has
helped you, l am sure, not only to care
greatly, to enjoy more fully, to face life
more eagerly, but to care for the best
things. 1t has taught you how to use the
body and mind which are your weapons
for conquest They are the only body and
mind you viii ever have. Take care of
them. Both will grow more supple and
powerful with use. The bow is meant to
shoot with, not to hang on the wall. 1t
improves with age; and so should men and
women.
Thus trained and equipped you are
henceforth to take new position in this
old familiar world. You enter upon its
activities at a period Of swift changes. of
fascinating experiences, of gigantic ma
terial accomplishment. BY virtue of the
degree which is now granted you, you
become, as it were, citizens Of the great
world of scholars, conscious of the unity
of knowledge and effort that makes
throughout our country and among all
countries, for the brotherhood of educated
men. You are to be congratulated upon
this new citizenship, but as you gradual
/ ly become acquainted with your com
rades of the wider world, you will mark
in them and in yourself the special temp
tation to certain worldly faults
IF you would avoid the cold paralysing
touch of indifferentism, Give simply. A
quiet mind that recalls the lessons of his
tory, meditative mind that perceives the
secret of vitanty in true books and true
men, sane mind which sees life whole
some and humanity That is what you must
cultivate if you would share the mex
Ihaustible freshness, the unceasing energy
that make the daily gladness Of the world
How persistent, how indestructible, is
idealism, even in the breast of professed
Iindifferentism This idealism is an in
tegral art of our inheritance. Though
baffled and beaten at every point, it I'M
denies and corrects our transient moods
|of respondent criticism. Indifferentism
should be studied. controlled. counteract-