The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1907-02-26
The President to College
Men.
Continued from Page One.)

is quite as great as that of wholly un-
educated men: and no people could be
less trustworthy as critics and advis-
ers. The educated man who seeks 10
console himself for his own lack of the
robust qualities necessary to bring sue
cess in American politics by moaning
over the degeneracy of the times in
stead of trying to better them, by rali-
ing at the men who do the actual
work Of political life instead of trying
himself to do the work. Is a poor crea-
'ture, and so far as his feeble powers
avail, is a damage and not a help TO
the countrv You may come far short
Of this disagreeable standard and still
be a rather useless of society.
Your education, your cultivation. VIII
not help you if you make the mistake
of thinking that it is a substitute for
ties which in the struggle of life bring
success to the ordinary man without
your advantages. Your college train
ing %confers no privilege upon you save
as tested by the use you make of 1t. 1t
puts upon you the obligation to show
yourselves better able to do certain
things than our fellows who have not
had you advantages. If it has served
merely to make you believe that you
are to be excused from effort in after
life. that you are to be excuse from
contact with the actual world Of men
and events, then it will prove a curse
and not a blessing. If on the other
hand you treat your education as a
weapon the more in your hands, a
weapon to fit you TO do better in the
hard struggle of effort, and not as ex-
cusing you in any way from taking
! part in practical fashion in that strug-
gle, then it will be a benefit to you.
Let each of YOU college mon remem-
Der in after life that in the fundamen-
tails he is very much like his fellows
h nave not been to college. and that
if he is to achieve results. instead of
combining himself exclusively to dis
| paragement of other men who have
achieved them. he must manage to
| come to some kind of working agree
ment Will these fellows of his. There
are times Of course when it may be the
highest duty of a citizen to stand alone
or practically alone. But if this is a
mans normal attitude-ff normally he
is unable to work in combination with
a considerable body of his fellows-it
IS safe to set him down as unfit for
useful service in a democracy. In pop
| ular government results worth having
can only be achieved by men who COM
b1ne worthy ideals with practical good
sense; who are resolute to accomplish
good purposes. but who can
date themselves to the give and take
necessary where work has to be done.
as almost all important work must
necessarily be done, by combination.
Moreover. remember that normally the
prime object of political life should be
TO achieve results and not merely to
issue ma~nlfeStOS--SaVe of course where
the issuance of such manifestOes help
TO achieve the results. 1t is a very
bad thing to be morally c~allous, for
moral ~callousness is disease. But in
flammatiOn of the conscience may be
just as unhealthy s o far as the public
is concerned; and if a mans conscience
is always telling him to do something
foolish he viii do we'll to mistrust its
1 xt-n rl-f, e~ II
most useful is not he whose sole care
is to save his own soul, but the man
whose religion bids him strive to adj
vance decency and clean living and to
make he world a better place for his
fellows to live in: and all this is Just
as true of the ordinary citizen in the
performance of the ordinary duties of
political life.
During the last few years much
good has been done to the people of
the Philippines: but this has been done
not by those who merely INDUCED in
the personal luxury of advocating for
the islands a doctrinaire liberty which
would have meant their immediate
and irretrievable ruin, but by those
who have faced facts as they actually
We're: remembering the proverb that
teaches US that in the long run even
the most uncomfortab BILE truth is a
safer compaion than the pleasantest
falsehoOd. 1t is these men. the men
who with shortcomings and stumb-
lings yet did the duty of the moment.
though that duty was hard and often
disagreeabie. and not the men who
confined themselves to idle talk of no
matter how Understanding a nature,
who nave done real good to the
islands. These are the men Who have
brought justice as between man and
man.: who are building roads; who
have introduced schools; who. grad
ually, with patience and firmness. are
L really fitfipr ~, frJo v,In~r &c. lie
government.
So it is with the great questions
which group themselves round the
control of corporations in the interest
lof the public. There has been a Gu
srious revival of the doctrine of Stato