The Donaldsonville chief. [volume] (Donaldsonville, La.) 1871-current, 1904-12-10


Better be born blind than not to see the
true glory of life"
MAKE living said the late Gov.
iVz Russell, of Massachusetts,, in
an address to young men, "but remem-
Der there is one thing better than
making living and that is making
Iife,''
In the rush and nervous tension OF
today the eager race for knowledge,
power, fame, Wea1th-Whateyer mans
ambition may be-the great work OF
making a life is often crowded out.
A youth who thirsts for education,
who is ambitious to be a king in what
ever line Of work he has chosen, who
struggles to develop his intellectual
and physical powers to their highest
possibilities, is worthy our admiration
But, unless in addition to this, he de-
Velops the spiritual and aesthetic sides
Of his nature, unless he cultivates the
qualities that distinguish noble man
hood, he will never win our love, he
can never make life.
Money-Getting Craze Deplored.
Speaking some time ago Of the
great peril of America the "all-
absorbing pursuit of money" ex-Presi-
dent Dwight. of Yale university, said:
THE young men of this generation are
in greater danger Of being led away in
the false path in this regard than
those who lived in former times were
The whole life of the coun-
try has greatly changed since then. We
have become a wealthy nation. We
have passed from the simple life of a
quiet town, as it were. to the luxury
and abundance Of a great city. The
devotion of the people to money-get-
ting has become so great as even to
be alarming, and the one desire which
seems to unite all men together is the
desire to make something, in this mat
ter Of money, out of nothing, There is
surely no worse sign of the times in
our day this this"
We cannot hide from ourselves the
fact that the pursuit of money has be-,
come a national characteristic. Not
that we love money for it's own sake
lions do, but the average American
who starts out to make success in
business becomes so absorbed in it that
he leaves no time for the cultivation of
the higher side of his nature. He
spends the best years of his life in ae-
cumulating money, in acquiring prop
erty-lands, houses, and stocks. He
gives no time to real living. He de-
ludes himself with the idea that he is
going to enjoy life tomorrow, next
week, next year, when he gets a little
further along. But tomorrow, next
week, next year, finds him no farther
than to-day. The very habit Of aceu-
upon him that he has become its slave.
He may go on deeeiving himself with
the fiction of tomorrow, building cas-
ties in the air, telling himself what he
will do to make life pleasant and prof
table, but all the time he is slowly
losing even the desire to enlarge his
horizon.
The Unfortunate Rich Man.
f. Hopkinson Smiths picture of this
type of man is not overdraWn. 81 do
not know he says, ga more melan-
choly example of the human race than
what is known as the highly success
full American business man; the sort
of man who "opens his daily life with
his Office key and closes it with let
ter for the late mail. He has, of course
secured what nine-tenths of the young
men of the country wish they had
business success, a large amount of Sc
eurities, ample provision for his family
and a certain power in the commercial
world. If he has escaped the pitfalls
and thus saved his character, he has
certainly incurred the envy of a large
portion of his fellow men differently
situated. To regain the good feeling
of his fellows he has one thing left,
and that is to become philanthropist.
In doing this he can recover a certain
portion of the respect of his fellow hui
man beings which is worth having, but
as far as he is concerned, there is no
other course left for him in life except
either to keep on in the same treadmilI
accumulating and perhaps dispensing,
or to give it all up and begin to learn
to live anew"
The danger of stunting life is not
confined to business pursuits alone No
matter what a mans occupation or
profession, if he allows himself to be-
come absorbed in it to the exclusion of
everything else he robs himself of the
81 70 To CHI =
to find that absorption in his re-
searches had stolen from him his taste
for music of which he had been very
fond when a youth. In his too close
attention to his great work he had, he
said, become !" mere machine for
weighing and analyzfng bugs"
Art of making a Life.n
Some one asked Garfield when boy
what he intended to be, and his reply
Was:5 First of all I must make my
self man; if / do not succeed in that,
can succeed in nothing"
To be man in the true sense, in the
sense that Garfield implied, does not
mean to be one-sided or ha1f-devel-
oped creature, with one set of faculties
oyercultivated to the detriment or To-
tai destruction of all the others. 1t
means to be a full-orbed human being.
whose physical, mental and spiritual
parts are fully unfoided. Unless a man
is SO developed on all sides he is inca
pable of making his life what the Crea-
tor intended it should be.
a fine art is this-making life. L
is comparatively easy to become pro
icient in law, in medicine, in husines
methods, in a trade or occupation O.