The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1907-04-17

THE GOLDEN
We Are Living in II But Do Not
Know Ii.
Some Reflections on the Past, The
Present and the Future and Its

Lessons.
It has long been the fashion to
scold farmers for their disposition to
be dissatisfied. Every penny-a-liner
IN the line has denounced them as
chronic grumblers" On first thought
this may seem to be serious relec-
ton, but after closer analysis it does
not appear so formidable. BY the op-
Grafton Of a natural law 1t is impos-
sible for any of us to be entirely sat
isaed with present conditions. If
there is no discomfort there will be
no progress. 1t is dissatisfaction with
conditions which gives life to the
great reformers. It is because they
do not like things as they are that We
have the great reformers in religion
and politics.
The farmer who Is content to 80
as his ancestors did is certainly not
desirable acquisition to the world
of az. iculture. It IS that class who
wear out the land, who deteriorate
the stock, who never learn and never
forget anything. The Improvements
are brought about by those who sus
pect there is better way. He knows
that it has always been the custom to
DC so and so, but, like the iconoclas-
tic Hamlet, he bluntly declares that
the custom is better in the breach
than theo: servance. He determines
to change things and strike out on
new lines. In this resolve We have the
germs of reform, the vanguard Of
all improvement on the farm.
Without impatience with the state
in which we live it is manifest that
there would be no desire to improve.
This impatience, however, while 1t
generations, disposes US to overate
their happiness. 1t Is unreasonable
and ungrateful in us to be constantly
| disconted with condition which
is constantly improving. But in truth
there is constant improvement pre-
cisely because there Is constant dis
content. If we were perfectly salts
| fed with the present we should cease
to contriye, to labor and save with
a view to the future. Another curious
illustration Of the operations Of that
|
| mind if found in the fact that to our
| dissatisfaction with tine present is
due the tendency to form too favor
able estimate of the past.
Though the times in which We live
are infinitely superior to anything
ever known to the world, there is an
irresistible inclination to imagine
that our own period Is inferior to
others that have gone before. For the
life Of US, we cannot escape the ten
dency to place the golden age in the
past, whereas wisdom would suggest
| that 1t Is ESSENTIAL to progress that
this goal Of all our struggles should
be placed in the future Thus we
would look forward to it as prize
to be struggled for, an ideal to be
reached. instead of taking the dis
heartening view that the best had al
ready been accomplished.
In always imagining that times past
were superior to ticaes present we
are under deception similar to that
which misleads the traveller In the
Sahara desert. Beneath the caravan
all is dry and bare, but far in advance
and far in the rear Is the senblance
of refreshing waters. The pilgrims
hasten forward and find nothing but
sand where an hour before they had
seen a lake. They turn their eyes
and see lake where, an hour before,
they were toiling through sand. A
similar illusion seems to haunt ma
tions through every stage Of the long
progress from poverty and barbarism
to the highest degree Of opulence and
civilization. But If we resolutely chase
the mirage backward we shall find it
receede before us into the regions of
fabulous antiquity.
| George Washington, the richest
man of his day, did not have so good
a bed to sleep in as that now at the
service of every one of the thousands
Of farmers who read this. There were
no comforts In the kitchens Of Mad
| ison or Jefferson which would not
now be spurned by every farmer S
wife, with the latest range or cook
stove, her neatly arranged pantry,
| her ice box and her convenient pump
| that sends water through all the
house. A hundred years ago noble
men in England were destitute OF
comforts which millions OF modern
farmers now consider the common
places of existence. Depend upon it,
the golden age is all around US at
this moment, but this does not mill
tate against the proposition of this
article, that discomfort is the result
of natural law without which there
would be neither individual growth
nor national progress.