The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1905-09-24

behind the mastery of decimal frac-
tons or the perfervid defamation OF
the Declaration of Independence!
Surely boy would not be gifted with
such powers unless he was marked or
Time. All things were relative; mas
terry of a school room or of a class
argued a pre-eminence in a larger
sphere which sooner or later would
inevitable be discovered. Equally did
lack of interest in affairs historical
or the portraits of statesmen argue a
mind which was set above the low
routine of child-like duties. Wait
till he struck his proper field, and
the boy would be wonder. Did he
not fight at the drop of a hat like
Andrew Jackson? or was he not retir-
ing and studious like the immortal
Jefferson? or wasn't he wild over cleo
trio batteries like Benjamin Frank
lin? You'd hear from that boy yet
mark the prediction! In the mean
time he should work-didn't Abe Lin
coin maui fence rails! This is free
country, and lightning is just as apt
to strike the corn-field as the UnlVer-
sity, President? Even in the aweo
breath with which we were wont to
pronounce the word did we say with
perhaps a too rampant but still nom
est independence: Huh! ANYBODY
can be President.
Whereas. now there is so much to
do to be President that no one mas
time to do the necessary under-study
business to obtain the job. We are all
too well acquainted with the require
ments and the individual is so famil-
lar to the multitude that it can be
seen at a. glance that he is apparent
ly Just like anybody else. Conse-
uuently it is plain that he is paying
a big price for his Importance ana
that he must have had lot
of schooling in order to qualify. Since
the war has been over so long there
is no chance for a man to pailooli
himself into the chair by his abilities
as q smasher of heads, they have done
away with duellng as a training school
and the whole matter is resolved INTO
the alternatives of money or educa-
ton. In the time when the average
parent could foster his dreams while
the boy was cutting cheese at the
store, the fact that they did not come
true was merely an evidence or the
blindness of chance from which no
one-not even the boy himself-suffer-
ed: in these days, even if one has
money, one must learn the higher
mathematics. But above all. If the
ambition be indeed in the soul must
one hug it tight and hush its cries.
Else-and in this pompous day is that
the last misfortune-will one be laugh
ed at for being natural. That Is
an indulgence permitted TO no man
who has not reached the top-ac-
corded to Roosevelt, even, who became
President in a manner something &C
cording to the old hit-or-mlss ideals
with a reluctance which was swallow
ed at the end like medicine from a
spoon in the mouth with the nose
held.
Boys of today, enjoying an actual
freedom of volition which would have
astounded the old fathers are yet de-
MED that greater freedom of dreams
through which amid the drudgery OF
work, the paucity of pleasures and the
pinch of poverty they found the
source of their pride and founded the
prosperity of their offspring.
Only in the country, in the smaller
towns, where the telegraph and the ex-
press train and the Sunday supple
ment have not come to educate the
mass until the individual perceives
himself as a chip upon the still dead
ness of a common level, does the hope
Of the father and the fancy of the son
survive the weight of useless knoWl-
ode