The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1910-08-11

member Congress from the Fourth Louisiana District
subject to the action of the Democratic party. )
SELF-CONTROL AND WEAK WILL.
The real aim of education is not the ac-
emulation of facts, nor even the sharpen
ing of the wits, but the development of the
best that is in the pupil, the accumulation
of the strong points, the Strengthening Of
character. At the bottom as foundation or
sub stratum of the human character is the
power of self-control. Sir Henry Wotton
describes the fortunate man as
"Lord of himself, though not of lands;
And, having nothing, yet hath ALL"
All the poets of the nobler cast in their
didactic passages touch on the one thing
needful to make the complete man. Ten.
nyson annunciates his law thus:
"Self-reverence, self knowledge, self-control-
These three alone lead life to sovereign power"
He recurs to the subject again and again,
and his contemptuous denunciatory pas
sages relating to weakness of will are the
poets CURSE" Lowell, self contained,
intellectual man, inculcates self-control
and the allied virtues, and ventures to
prescribe recipe for the nurture of the
quality:
"In life's small things be resolute and great
Tokeep thy muscle trained; knowest thou when Fate
Thy measure takes, or when she'll say to thee,
Il find thee worthy; do this deed for me?'"
This is the heroic code of idealism in
terpreted by poesy. The poet cannot make
compromises; his morality must not abate;
his standards will not be lowered or WIDEN
ed; his goal is perfection.
Judges and lawyers acquainted with
criminal practice in that great everyday
world which is more substantial and more
repulsive than the real of the imagination
know, however, that the problem is more
difficult than might be supposed from the
poets fine exhortation, BE noble.''
A kindly man, who had given deep
thought to the subject of personal respon-
sibility and the influences of heredity, en-
vironment and the like, gave this as his
judgment:
'While actions are always to be judged
by the immutable standard of right and
wrong, the judgments we pass upon men
must be qualified by considerations of age,
country, station and other accidental cir
cumstances, and it will then be found that
he who is most charitable in his Judgment
is generally the least unjust
Many who stumble and fall are to be
pitied. They are apparently normal human
beings, but they should be patients rather
than defendants. The law. of the land
must be applied with rigor and without
much discrimination if there is to be safety,
and public opinion must be kept severe and
disciplinary to be effective; but every in
telligent man knows that there is an inn
mense field for the exercise of charity of
opinion for the person with weak will and
still greater field for the exercise of SUBJ
stantial aid, real sympathy and absolutely
invincibue patience in dealing with the
unfortunate.
The feeble of will and the hayward are
often the heritors of the faults of their
parents and their parents parents, and
many man is unfortunately largely
"what he is born" Carlyle suggests Bit
ingly that from the consequences of evil
there is really no escape:
"Foolishmen imagine that because judg-
ment for an evil thing is delayed there is
no justice, but only accident, here below.
Judgment for an evil thing is many times
delayed, some day or two, some century or
two, but it is as sure as life, it is as sure
as DEATH