The comet. (Johnson City, Tenn.) 1884-1916, 1905-11-30
LIFE IS NOT WHAT WE MAKE 1T.
A Suggestion to Graduates.

During the next two months the
young men and women who expect to
graduate at the spring commenGements,
will be wrestling with the problem OF
what to choose as the subject for their
graduating essays. Despite the advan-
tages Of rate regulation-the urgent
necessity Of calling a check upon the
movement now being inaugurated, to
swamp The Sonth with millions of
ignorant, deprayed and degraded for
egn immigrants, and many other mat
ters OF vital interest-the old, worn-out
subjects threaten to be the major part
Of the crop produced.
1t is extremely probable that as
usual, graduates will discourse on the
subject, Life is What We Make 1t, :"
and as usual the bored auditors will
leave the hall convinced that the essay
ist did not know what he or she, as the
case may be, had written and then
talked about. The more experience
the auditors have had with the making
of life, the greater the disgust at the
subject.
The writer finds himself unable to
resist the impulse to give expression to
his horror over the probability of this
miserable routine being maintained
through an indefinite term of years.
This thing of making life according to
the plans and specifications of the
academy" graduate, is a beautiful
and easy john theory, but entirely
different in practice. Life-making is
a far more difficult task than house
building. The proof of this is to be
found in the many who have failed in
the former and the few failures in the
; latter. But no teacher will permit a
graduate to tell how house shonld be
built and if asked for a reason would
say that the graduate did not know
enough of the subject to talk intelli-
gently about it.
A few years of,school life, however,
entities them to tell just how life can
and should be made. Conviction on
the prima facie evidence of egotism and
want of knowledge is complete in the
minds of all who know that life is not
what we make it only in a limited
degree.
The farmer who has planted and cul-
tiyated a field of grain only to have q
drought, q fire, or some other agency
not of his making and beyond his con.
troll to prevent, sweep away the result
Of months Of toll and as a consequence
of that loss he and his family are
reduced to absolute want, finds life the
extreme opposite of what it would have
been had he made it. The man who
has labored hard, earnestly and stead
: lily for years, to lose health and earning
capacity by an accident or unayoidabl
illness, followed by the loss of position
: would have little patience in his pov
! erty with the argument that life i
| what we make it.
Not only in the loss of wealth an,
t earning capacity can examples be give
/ showing how false is the proverb tina
: life is what we make it, but in the los
Y of every other thing that makes lif
. worth living and which are used t
measure the volume of success or fail
: ure. Honor has been innrmerabl
t lost through the dishonorable action
: OF others; character has been lost b
+. mischieyous gossip; love and happines
have been lost through no fault of th
Q losers, and for thirty years the write
hereof has lived an unsatisfactory lif
from sheer inability to mould it to hi
liking. So it is all through the list
There is not thing that we possess to
day that may not be destroyed or take
IEOl 10 lOluOLiO" -bAlOuSA uOthlbS Y
our own making. 1t is so false-th
argument that life is what we make it.
that the only wonder is that schot
children have not long ago discovere
SO palpable a falsehood. If you ar
= called to sit through the ordeal of heal
! ing such essays delivered you wi
: agree with the negative side Of th
question, tor you will count the tim
> spent there as lost and you would nc
! have been there if you could hay
} helped it. Don't blame the graduates
: it is not altogether their fault.
= ORREN MILLER,
. Soldiers Home