The Lee County journal. (Leesburg, Ga.) 1904-19??, 1910-05-19
E4omely Qualities Needed.

We Lub men Cl bO0dy ana OF the
future, need many qualities II we are
TO do our work well. We need, first
Of all and the most important Of all,
the qualities which stand at the base
Of individual, of family life, the fun
damentaI and essential qualities the
homeIy, everyday, aIl-important viz
tues. If the average man will not
work, If he has not In him the will
and the power to be good husband
and father; II the average woman Is
not good housewife, a good mother
of many healthy children, then the
state will topple, will go down. no
matter what may be its brilIiance Of
artistic development or material
achievement But these homely quail
tiles are not enough There must, in
addition, be that power of organiza-
tion, that power of working in COM
mon 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 important than
the things OF the body, We can well
do without the hard intolerance and
arid intellectual barrenness Of what
was worst in the theological systems
of the past, but there has never been
greater need of a high and fine re-
ligious spirit than at the present
time. So, while we can laugh good
humoredly at some Of the pretensions
OF modern philosophy in its 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 philoso-
pliers; the sneer had in it an element
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 a bad thing indeed to ac-
cept Tolstoy as 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 scien-
tific men whose hard arrogance,
whose cynical materialism, whose
dogmatic intolerance, put them on
level with the bigoted medieval &C.
clesiasticism which they denounce,
Yet our debt to scientific men is in
calculable, and our civilization of to-
day would have reft from it all that
which most highly distinguishes it If
the work of the great masters of
science during the past four centuries
we're now undone or forgotten. Never
has philanthropy, humanitarianism,
seen such development as now; and
though we must all beware 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 CON
science, yet we must remember also
that it is only by working along the
lines laid down by philanthropists, by
the lovers of mankind, that we can be
sure of lifting our civilization to a
higher and more permanent plane OF
well-being than was ever attained by
any preceding civilization. Unjust
war is to be abhorred; but woe 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
soldier if the day Of need should ever
arise.