The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1910-04-23

one fraught with greatest possibilities
alike for good and for evil. The sue
cess of republics like yours and like
ours means the glory, and our failure
the despair, of mankind; and for you
and for us the question of the quality
of the individual citizen is supreme.
Under other forms of government, un-
der the rule of one man or of a very
few men, the quality of the rulers is
all-important If, under such govern
ments, the quality of the rulers is high
enough, then the nation may for gen
erations lead brilliant career, and
add substantially to the sum of world
achievement, no matter how low the
quality of the average citizen; because
the average citizen is an almost neg
lligible quantity in working out the
final results of that type of national
greatness.
But with you and with us the case
is different With you here and with
us in my own home, in the long run,
success or failure will be conditioned
upon the way in which the average
man, the average woman, does his or
her duty, first in the ordinary every.
day affairs of life, and next in those
great occasional crises which call for
the heroic virtues. The average citi.
zen must be good citizen if our re-
public are o succeed. The stream
will not permanently rise higher than
the main source; and the main source
of national power and national great
mess is found in the average citizen
ship of the nation. Therefore it be
hooves us to do our best to see that
the standard of the average citizen is
kept high; and the average cannot
be kept high unless the standard OF
the leaders is very much higher.
1t is we'll if large proportion OF
the leaders in any republic, in any
democracy, are, as matter of course
drawn from the classes represented
in this audience today; but only pro
vided that those classes possess the
gifts of sympathy with plain people
and of devotion to great ideals. You
and those like you have received spe
cial advantages; you have all of you
, had the opportunity for mental train
ing; many of you have had leisure;
&C fn,
the enjoyment of life far greater thar
comes to the majority of your fellows
To you and your kind much has beer
given, and from you much should be
expected Yet there are certain fail
ings against which it is especially
Incumbent that both men of trained
and cultivated intellect, and men o
inherited wealth and position, should
especially guard themselves, because
to these failings they are especial!
liable; and if yielded to, their-your-
: chances of useful service are a
an end.
BEWARE OF cYNIcISM.
Let the man of learning, the MAI
of lettered leisure, beware of tha
, queer and cheap temptation to pose
to himself and to others as the cynic
as the man who has outgrown emo
lions and beliefs, the man to whom
good and evil are as one. The poor
est way to face life is to face it will
sheer. There are many men who
feel a kind of twisted pride in cynic
ism; there are many who cOnfint
themselves to criticism of the way
others do what they themselves dare
unhealthy being, no man less worthy
of respect than ne who either really
holds, or feigns to hold, an attitude
of sneering disbelief towards ell thai
is great and lofty, whether in achieve
ment or in that noble effort which
even if it fail comes second to ACHE
vement. A cynical habit of though
and speech, a readiness to criticist
work which the critic himself never
tries to perform, an intellectual aloof
ness which will not accept contact
with lifes realities-all these are
marks, not, as the possessor would
fain think, of superiority, but o.
weakness. They mark the men un
fit to bear their part manfully in the
stern strife of living, who seek, il
: the affectation of contempt for the
achievements of others, to hide from
others and from themselves theil
own weakness. The role is easy