The Washington herald., 1911-11-23
IDEALS ARE IDEAS
BASED ON REALITY
They Beckon You On and
Inspire You.
By THOMAS TAPER.

1t is a great thing to sail the sea with
clear idea of the direction you are
going.
| If you know the coast line is to the
east, you can choose your port for land
| ing, or You can choose many ports, but
you must know whether you are going
| east or west or north or south; other
,, wise you can know nothing about the
landing places.
Or, another way. it pays to live in the
| world of reality with a port of landing
| ahead.
This is generally called having an ideal
And an ideal. like landing on the
coast, is a place ahead in the direction
you are travelling. Thu main thing is the
| travel. If, however you are sitting still
and waiting, incoming. dreaming expect
| ing something to turn up, as Micawber
| did, you are not entertaining an ideal
You are dreaming or having a night
| mare.
An ideal is that vision of greater and
better things toward which you travel
| every day, and which you never reach,
because 1t keeps on moving on just ahead
of you.
Every one who has persistently kept
after her ideal in life has, in her own
mind, never fully succeeded, however
! much success others may think she has
won. That is because the nearer she
approaches her ideal the farther away
it moves and the greater 1t becomes.
Is It a fool game, then, this chasing
ideals?
In his last days Victor Hugo declared
| that he had not begun to touch upon
! the great world of poetry and romance
that he knew to be within himself. Now,
| he pursued an ideal, but If one had inti-
mated that he had come up with 1t he
would have turned away in despair. His
| ideal had been growing, and he knew the
size OF It,
Mary Lyon, who received very little
school education, had an ideal for other
girls. namely, to provide them with
school as good as any school for boys.
Beginning without money and without
experience, she founded Mount Holyoke
Seminary for Girls.
Was the work Of her ideal school ever
finished?
Not as long as she lived.
Another Example.
DR.. James Hutton, the Scotch ply
slcian, chemist, and farmer, began to
study the structure OF the earth. Begin
ming with little OF no construction of the
infinite number of years the earth has
swung in space, he gradually had to let
go of a mental picture OF II and con-
struct an ideal one, or one that to him
and the men of his time was ideal. He
built up his mental, or ideal, picture and
proceeded to work toward it for fifty
years. Many people combated his theory
of the great age Of the earth, because 1t
was not according to sacred history. But
the earth tells its own history to one
who has learned TO read. and Hutton was
tireless reader OF natures story. And
the more he read, the more wonderfully
plain was the story.
An ideal Is a great idea that leads you
on and on and keeps reckoning you far
Their and farther from the starting point.
II II could come to an end the ideal
would vanish.
All these people-Victor Hugo, Mary
Lyon. and DR.. Hutton-were not chasers
of dreams, or dreamers of things impos-
sible.
Based on Real World.
They based their ideals on the real
world about them.
Then they began their journey.
In their cases, and in all cases of great
ideals. the desire is found to be not some
thing to have, but something to do and
to be.
And the logical basis on which the
American girl should found her ideals is
that which shows how by doing she may