The Fargo forum and daily republican. [volume] (Fargo, N.D.) 1894-1957, 1910-05-12

I true We cannot afford to devotion any
one set Of qualities, any one set OF
! activities, at the cost Of seeing others
/ genuine desire for peace and Justice
without loss of those virile qualities
! equally necessary, atrophied. Neither
the military efficiency of the Mongol,
the extraordinary business ability OF
the Phoenician, nor the subtle and
polished intellect Of the Greek awaited
to avert destruction.
I'VE, the men OF today and OF the
future, need many qualities If we are
to do our work well. We need, first of
all and most important of all the
qualities which stand at the base of
individual, of family life, the fllnda-
mental and essential qualities--the
homely, every day, all-important vir-
tues. If the average man will not
work, II he had not in him the will and
| the power TO be a good husband and
father; If the average woman lis not a
good housewife, a good mother of
| many healthy children, then the state
will topple, will go down. no matter
what may be it's bril1iance of artistic
development Or material achievement.
enough. There must, i'm addition be
that power of organization, that power
of working in common for a common
end, which the German people have
shown in such signal fashion during
the last half century. Moreover, the
things of the spirit are even more i'm
portant than the things of the body.
We can well do without the hard in
tolerance and arid intellectual barren
ness of what was worst in the theolo-
gical systems of the past, but there
has never been greater need of a high
and fine religious spirit than at the
present time. SO, while we laugh
good humoredly at some of the pre-
tensions of modern philosophy in its
various branches, 1t 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 1t to be governed by phil
osophers; the sneer had in Il an ele-
ment of justice; and YET no one 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 bad thing indeed TO ac-
cept Tolstoy as a guide in social and
moral matters; but it would also be a
bad thing not to have Tolstoy, not to
profit by the lofty side of his teachings
There are plenty of scientific men
whose hard arrogance, whose cynical
materialism, whose dogmatic intoler-
ance put them on a level with the big
oted medieval ecclestiasticism which
they denounce. Yet our debt to scien-
tific man is incalculable, and our civiIi-
zation of today would have reft from
1t all that which most highly distlng-
uishes it if the work Of the great
masters of science during the past four
centuries were now undone or forgot
ten. Never has philanthrophy hu-
manitarianism, seen such development
as now; and though we must all be-
ware of the folly, and the viciousness
no worse than folly, which marks the
believer in the perfectibility of man
when his heart runs away with his
head, or when vanity usurps the place
OF conscience, yet we must remember
also that 1t is only by working along
the lines laid down by the phiian-
thropisrs, by the lovers OF mankind,
that we can be sure OF lifting our
civilization to higher and more per-
manent plane Of well-being than was
ever attained by any preceding civili-
cation. Unjust war is to be abtorred,
but woe to the nation that does not
make ready to hold its own in time
of need against all who would harm 1t;