Graham guardian., 1910-04-29
GRAFTON
Delivered by the Late John
{. Todd in 1908, at
Los Angeles, Cal.

The following grafton was deliv-
cred at the graduating exercises of
the Polytechnic High School, Los
Angeles, CAL, in 1908, by the late
John C. Todd
''The Spirit of the Twentieth
Century"
The Spirit of the Twentieth Cen
tury is theme that stirs the bound
less energy, the iron in the blood,
the manhood of every American
youth. He, who dwells upon this
subject, should give it the best there
is in him.
We are at the beginning of a
wonderful age and few, if any, of
us will live to see it end. This
awakening spirit, this enthusiasm of
progress will some time wane, for
history only repeats itself, but it
will not be in our day, so it be-
hooves you and me to enter into it
with all the force of our beings,
with every ounce of energy that
there is in us.
We have already done great
things in this age of accomplishment
and we will still do greater things.
The tenacious energy and persever-
ance of our times may we'll be
likened to the spirit that held the
Old Egyptians when they built those
mighty pyramids that stand in stolid
silence on the desert of the Nile,
except that now the constructive
elements are founded on the sound
and productive basis of manhood,
suffrage and universal freedom.
When we think of some of the
things that we have already done in
this age of invention, of industry,
of strenuosity, we cannot over esti-
mate what we shall be able to do
before the end of the century. We
have built palaces and floated them
across oceans which only little way
back in history were inhabited by
monstrous dragons. We have woven
a network of steel rails over the
lands of the earth; we have built
rolling hotels and sent them bound
ing across continents over three
thousand miles in breadth, in less
than five days. We have become
able to send a message around the
globe in less than twenty-four hours.
We are able to send our voices over
copper wires for over five hundred
miles. Yes, we may even send a
message through space itself for
nearly that distance. We have har-
messed Niagara Falls, and other
sources of water power, and made
them produce strong, invisible
force which is being sent out to the
neighboring cities of the land to do
work that it took thousands of bend
ing backs and sweating brows to dc
before. We are now able to travel
hundreds of miles on cars and wag-
ons without any visible evidence of
motor power. Yes, some of us have
even constructed machines by which
we may fly through air. We might
mention. many more things that
seem almost within our grasp.
There are many more things than
these that we anticipate now, that
we will learn to anticipate in the
future, and how many will we &C.
complish before the end of the
twentieth century?
This is, indeed, an age of progress.
There is stretching room, breathing
space on top of the ladder of sue
cess for all of us; there's standing
room on the way up, but there are
no lounging places by the wayside,
no resting places until the top is
reached, until life is finished. There
is way back, down to irretrievable
failure. Some have followed it; but
you and | know not what it is like,
for he who travels that road never
comes back to tell. A failure must,
indeed, be a great one if we do not
turn it into eventual victory. Knock
us down now, thwart US, seemingly
defeat us utterly, and with hope,
courage, youth and life, stronger
determination is awakened, greater
effort is inspired for sweeter tri-
umph in the future.
Life to every one is live wire,
one heavily charged. Its emblem
is speed. Hours, minutes, seconds,
these are the units by which we
reckon all things; how to accomplish
more in less time is a problem al
ways before us. Recreation and
rest enter into our system of living
only because some Unseen Power,
the doing of which we feel no right
to question, has made them neces-
sary. Life is full and hard, and we
drink of it to the very dregs. Every
available holr in the twentV-fOur is