The independent-reporter., 1910-07-28
GREAT MASTERS INSPIRATION.
How the Study of Famous Men Helps
Develop Ones Character.

No more interesting human rela-
ton exists than that of teacher and
pupil, master and disciple. All our
lives we are following somebody, sit
ting at some ones feet, accepting the
most vital decisions without ques-
ton from one in whom for some
reason we believe.
We begin as school children. Those
who have taught school can say that
there is hardly a more pathetic mo-
ment than that where one stands for
the first time before group of little
faces looking up to him as from dis
tant depths for wisdom and guidance
which he knows only too well he sad
ly lacks From that teacher there
will come some spiritual essence that
is going to remain with those pupils
their life long.
When we grow up we are still at
one school or another. Our capacity
is limited; all we can do is to attend
to our business; we have no time nor
ability to think out great questions
for ourselves; hence in politics we
follow Smith, and in art Brown, and
in literature Jones, and In religion
Robinson. AS for ourselves, we have
to make a living.
A great deal that is written, there
fore, about our duty to do our own
thinking is impractical. We simply
cannot 1t will be much more sensi-
BILE to advise the average person to
select intelligently his own masters.
For masters we must have. Desert
ing Taft he takes up Bryan, and for
saking both of these, he follows some
Socialist, PTohibitionist or mugwump.
Leaving the parson, we fly to Ber-
nard Shaw or some one else.
How much do we get from a mas
ter? What do we owe him? When
should we obey and when disobey
him? These are important questions.
Beginning with the schoolroom we
should recognize serious fact; that
the sum of what one gets from a
teacher Is inspiration. The real teach
er is not he who imparts to us the
most information, but he who makes
us want to learn. Any one can get
the facts out of book, and bring
them to the boys and girls, but 1t
takes a genius to stir up in their
minds an appetite for knowledge
Even so the best paid priest or
preacher is not the one who gives
us the most information, but the one
who makes us want to be good.
The object of every moral or in
tellectual leader is to develop the in
nate powers of his followers. For this
reason the analogy of any purely
spiritual movement to an army is mis-
leading. This object of the military
to get that one thing done. Hence
in the army personality is suppressed
The individual sacrifices himself to
the end In view. In school room
church or any literary, scientific OF
intellectual cause, however, the op-
posite is true, the end here Is to i'm
prove the individual, to bring out his
personality and it's powers.
If the apprentice blindly initiates
the master, then the master is para
lying him, not leading him. To be
sure, the scholar is to be teachable
he Is to copy and to humbly submit
his own Judgment to the masters and
yet If he never does anything but
this he will be failure. There must
be something else, some divine spark
from the personality Of the wiser and
older man to fall upon the younger
soul and kindle 1t into his own blaze
Lorenzo di Credi worked In that won
derful shop of Verrochia, he of 1.-THE
true eyes," but the apprentices sur
passed their master.
The most essential characteristic oi
a master is his power to inspire love
He is to hand his disciple not book
but flame. It is this capacity In the
highest degree we flnd In such great
souls az Jesus, Buddha and Socrates
It was not what they said nor the
kuoWledfo they had. e Vas their tre-