Kingsbury County independent. (DeSmet, Kingsbury County, S.D.) 1894-1929, 1910-05-20

in the multitudinous variety of it's ac-
tivities; the immense increase in the
velocity of the world movement-are all
these to mean merely that the crash
rible that the answer will be in the
negative? But of this we can be
certain, that we shall not go down in
ruiz unless we deserve and earn our
end. There is no necessity for US to
fall; we can hew out our destiny for
ourselves, if only we have the wit and
the courage and the honesty.
World Growing Better.
Personally, l do not believe that our
civilization will fall. 1 think that IN
the whole we have grown better n
not worse. l think that on the whole
the future holds more for US than even
the great past has held. But, assured
ly, the dreams Of golden glory in the
future will not come true unless, high
Of heart and strong of hand, by our
own mighty deeds we make them come
true. We cannot afford to develop any
one set of qualities, any one set of ac-
t~ivities, at the cost of seeing others,
equally necessary, atrophied. Neither
the military efficiency of the Mongol,
the extraordinary business ability of
the Phoenician, nor the subtle and pol
ished intellect of the Greek availed to
avert destruction.
I'VE, the men of today and of the
future, need many qualities II we are
to do our work well. We need, first of
all and most important of all, the quail
tiles which stand at the base of indi-
vidual, of family life, the fundamental
and essential qualities-the homely,
every day, all important virtues. If
the average man will not work, if he
has not in him the will and the power
to be q good husband and father; if
the average oma is not a good house
! wife, a good mother Of many healthy
children, then the state will tOpple, will
go down, no matter what may be its
brilliance of artistic development or
material achievement. But these home
ly qualities are not enough. There
must, in addition, be hat power Of or
ganiZatiOn, that power of working In
common for a common end, which the
German people have shown in such sig
nal fashion during the last half CEN
fury.
Moreover, the things OF the spirit
are even more important than the
things of the body. We a well do
| without the hard intolerance and arid
intellectual barrenness Of what was
worst in the theological systems or the
past, but there has never been greater
iced of a high and fine religious spirit
h at the present time. So, While we
can laugh good humOredly at some of
the pretensiOns of modern philosophy
in it's various branches, it would be
worse than folly on our part to ignore
our need of intellectual leadership.
Your own great Frederick once said
that if he wished to punish a province
he would leave it to be governed by
philosophers; the sneer a in 1t an
element Of justice; and yet no n
better than the great Frederick knew
the value Of philosophers, the value
of men of science, men of letters, men
of art.
1T would be a bad thing indeed to
accept TolstOy as a guide in social
and moral matters; but it would also
be Q bad thing not to nave Tolstoy.
not to profit by the lofty side of his
teachings. There are plenty of sCien-
tifc men whose hard arrogance, whose
cynical materialism, whose dogmatic
intolerance put them on a level with
the bigoted medieval ecclesiastiCism
which they denOunce. Yet our debt to
scientific men is incalculable, and our
civilization of today would have reft
from it all that which most highly dis
tinguishes it If the work of the great
masters of science during the past
four centuries were now undOne or
forgotten. Never has philanthropy,
humanitarianism. seen such develop
ment as now; and though we must all
beware Of the folly, and the vicious
ness no worse han folly, which marks
the believer in the perfeCtibility Of
mar when his heart runs away with
his head, or when vanity usurps the
place of conscience, yet we must re-
member also that it is only by working
along the lines laid down by the
philanthropists, by the lovers of man.
kind, thai we can be sure Of lifting
our civilization to a higher and more
permanent plane of we'll being than
was ever attained by any preceding
civilization. Unjust war is to be alb
horred: but VOC to the nation that does
not make ready to hold its own in time
Of need against all who would harm
it; and woe thrice over to the nation
in which the average man loses the
fighting edge, loses the power to serve
as a soldier If the day of need should
arise.
1T is no impossible dream to build
up a civilization in which morality,
ethical development, n a true feeling
Of brotherhood shall all alike be di-
vorced from false sentimentality, and
from the ranCorous and evil passions,
which, curiously enough, so often ac-
company professions Of sentimental at
tachment to the rights of man; in
which a high material development
in the things of the body shall be
achieved without subordination of the
things of the soul; in which there shall
be a genuine desire for peace and JUS
t!ce without loss Of those virile quail
ties without which no love of peace or
justice shall avail any race; in which
the fullest development OF scientific
research, the great distinguishing
feature of our present civilization,
shall yet not imply a belief hat in
tellect can ever take the place of char
acter-for, from the standpoint of the
nation as of the individual, it is char
acter that is the one vital possession.
Finally, this world movement of
civilization, this movement which Is
now felt ~throbbing in every corner OF
the globe, should Dir the nations of
the world together while yet leaving
unimpaired that love of country in
the individual citizen which in h
present stage of the worlds progress
is essential to the worlds we'll being.
You. my hearers, n / who speak to
you, belong to different nations. Under
modern conditions the books we read,
the news sent by telegraph to our
newspapers, the strangers we meet,
half of the things we hear and do each
day, all tend to bring US into touch
with other peoples. Each people can
do Justice to itself only II IN does