The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1912-12-04
says UNCLE CAV

After all, the old Sunday school
leaflets, with their nilk-and-water
moralities, were more than half right
It's the little things that count for a
happy world, and he that goes about
doing good is the fine flower of the
ages. That's a fact that we have
known, but haven't felt. The trouble
has been that it has been preached by
thin-b1ooded impracticals, who have
taken the sanctified view of the situa-
ton rather than the red-bloOded one
The sturdy knights of chivalry got at
the situation from the proper angle,
and the world lost something when the
last of them laid aside his hardware
and went into the business of exploiting
the serfs he had formerly protected.
What the world needs is sunshine, not
candle light 1t needs a ed-blooded.
beef eating idealism, rather than a
bread-and-mi1k, Rollo-roll-your-h hoop
don't-get-your- clothes dirty notion of
what is proper conduct Youth is es-
sentially sane, though it glorify its
sanity with golden dreams beyond the
ken of disappointed manhood. Its ideas
naturally gravitate to that which is
strong and virile. Therein lies the safe
guard of the races future, and all eff
forts to educate admiration for strength
and self-reliance and vigorous self-as-
sertion out of children result in perver-
sion.
The so-called money madness with
which we are told Americans are af-
fiicted, is the direct result of the mis-
guided attempts to force upon the
young of the last generation molly
coddle view of ethics and morals. Our
good mothers and Sunday school teach
ers, failing to grasp the essential prin-
cipIes of the ideals they attempted to
inculcate, headed their charges toward
a state of habby, characterless useless
ness. The fault was not with what
they tried to teach. but the way in
which it was perverted.
The justice of the strong man armed
is the only justice in which the world
of men who do things can be interested.
The kindness of the physically and
mentally fit is the only kindness that
was ever worth a continental. He that
turns the left cheek after the right jowl
has been smitten must have that poise
and character that have met and COPIED
with opposition otherwise he is merely
a victim, and his example is lost. The
Weakness of weakness is a crime and
an abomination. Youth intuitively
realizes these things, and the boys of
yesterday, having had the natural
ideals of strong, healthy youth edu-
Gated out of them, experienced a revul-
sion and large proportion of the boys
who had the making of big, well-bal
anced men in them, found an outlet for
their depressed powers in mere money
making.
We are outgrowing that condition. in
spite of the welI-meant mischief of mis-
guided mothers, Miss Nancy, of the
smelling salts, and the goody goody
stories. Today we are training our chill
dren to be strong physically, to meet
the conditions as they exist, and not
as we believe they should exist. We
are getting down to the red-blooded,
sane and healthy principles of morals,
ethics and religion, and are producing,
in spite of a score or two of danger
Gus habits, a race that is making the
strong men of other years look like
pygmies. Tomorrow, even our Sunday
school leaflets are going to have in
them little of that variety that ap-
peals to youth.-(Copyright 1872 by
the Mcclure Newspaper Syndicate.)