The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-05-23
GRADUATES HEAR
 DR, PHILLIPS
Birmingham Man Addresses
 Class At Meridian
DEMAND OF THE CENTURY
Doctor Phillips Tells In Simple But Forceful Language Just What Is Needed to Fight the Bat
 ties of Life.

Meridian. Miss. May 22-The following address was made by Dr. J. H. Phillips of Birmingham before the graduating class of the Meridian High school last night
 The demand of the present century Is efficiency In business and professional life the cry of the age is for men and women who can do something and do it we'll The world is full of people who profess to know and who pretend to do. Honestly sincerity and thoroughness are traits of character that are needed in business and professional life The es- sential conditions of efficiency are few and simple The individual must have first, physical health. Without a sound body there can be no mental sanity, moral integrity nor individual efficiency. To physical wholeness must be added ina tellectual training and moral develop ment, based upon sound principles of eth ical, economic, social and religious cul- ture. There is danger to the individual and to the state tn one-sided develop ment. Man must be treated as an in- teger, not as a fraction. The highest efficiency requires the culture of the mental powers as well as the physical; the religious faculty as well as the eco- homie and the industrial.
 Human life is unit. We too often di- vide life into segments, and treat each segment as if it had no relation to life as a whole. Youth and age, childhood and manhood, are inseparably related. The school is not merely preparation for life; it is life itself. The great laws of human life, ethical, moral, economic and reli- gious, are as all-controllng in youth as in maturity. There is no separate code of ethics for youth and another for man. hood; there is but one decalogue and but one gospel for all of life. There is no double standard In the moral world.
 Architects Plans.
 The architect does not plan the fdunda- ton without regard to the superstruc- ture. From foundation to turret there must be unity, symmetry and interde- pendence. The foundation is the proph- ecy of life's superstructure.
 The efficient life requires til ideal as well as the practical. In the higher pro- cesses of human life the ideal IS always the mold of the actual. In the strenuous life of today there is danger of overesti- mating the practical and ignoring the ideal. Both are essential to the unity and completeness of life. The dream is as important az the reality. Ths idealist has always been the prophet of his gen eration, the seer of better things to come In every age the leaders of human thought and activity have been men of creative imagination; they have been the poets and the philosophers, the moral and social reformers, the prophets and seers of their time., The man who has no ideals is incapable of noble action; the man who has lost the power to dr cam by day and to see visions by night has lost the power of achis yement. One houi spent tn speechless revcfie is not alto- gether an idle hour; one hour spent in splendid dreaming lifts the so Il to the realms of splendid possibilities. Suea excursions into the unseen possess ines timable educational value.
 "The thing we long for, that we are
 For one transcendant moment"
 Who can estimate the influence of childhood's dreams upon the worlds his- tory? Without them we would have no literature or art, science or invention.
 Dreams Worth While.
 It is better to dream the impossible than never to dream at all. The quest for the unattainable is not always fruit less Some of the greatest attainments in life have been individual discoveries on the road to the ideal sometimes the actual realization exceeds in value the anticipated ideal.
 But it is not enough to dream. The fseul that sleeps and dreams and never wal1es to action has no place in the cat egory of life. We must not be disobedi- ent to the heavenly vision. The efficient life In age is that of the man who goes to work to make his dreams come true The ideal must find concrete expression. Here lies the value of manual training as an element in the school work. So long as we have one class trained for thinking without doing, and another class for doing without thinking, society is in danger of disintegration. Thinking and doing, the dream and the reality, the ideal and the practical, constitute one harmonious entity essential to the eff cient life.
 The efficient life regards the struggle of conflict and the sacrifice of effort as no less important than the joy of vic- toy. Success does not come by chance. ''The gods have set price upon every good thing" and the powers that con tro success in human life are exacting Opportunity calls at every mans door; "the readiness is all." ''Be ye also ready"
 Spur to Effort.
 The spur to effort and selfmastery may be the consciousness of an over towering need it may be shame, humili- ation and suffering; it may be the whip of discipline or the lash of necessity.
 It Is the law of life that two parts make a whole. each experience has it's complement. Trial, severe as the storm may be, has its complementary action; like the sturdy oak in the storm. the roots of life strike deeper into our being and take hol% upon the eternal founda- ton. Sorrow, dark and starless as the night. will be followed by the dawn and the sunshine. Sacrifice and achievement are inseparable elements in the efficient life
 The test of efficiency is character and character is reflected by our work The efficient life abhors shoddy workman ship, crafty strategems, cunning evasions, shrewd deceptions and cheap subterfuges. Every mans work is his public confes- sion, his revelation of himself. All la bor is self-expression, self-realization.
 The efficient life is also self-reliant and self-dependent. We must recognize the