The Brookings register. [volume] (Brookings, Brookings County, S.D.) 1903-1971, 1914-10-08
him. He is a man, genuine in his ac

NAM - ~ - AcA 5NH1AAi III Il dc
complishments.
In China at n time there was much
base coin current. A certain Chinese
banker was very anxious that when
they grew up his children should be
able to tell base coin from true. Sc
every day for a regular enterval he
used to cover the table with genuine
coins. He made his children play with
them, finger them, pile them up, cast
them down, weigh them in their tiny
hands. Well" said he to himself
when my children go out into the
wicked world rogues will assuredly
offer false coins to them. | cannot
help that. But at all events-I have
taught them the feel Of the genuine
Maybe the Chinese are wiser than
we and we might profit by the sugges
ton and learn to know and appreciate
the feel of the genuine.
Every householder knows that the
best way of protecting his property is
to have it carefully inspected from
time to time, to have all damages re
paired at once, and to take opportune
precautions against impending risks
by the introduction of improvements.
These simple statements apply in a
greater degree to our civic and social
institutions and especially to our edu.
cational and religious institutions. A
large amount of the thinking is given
instead of constructive agencies. 1t is
a truism among philosophers that it is
our attitude toward a situation and
not the conditions themselves that de.
termine the effect of the situation upon
us. In u attitude toward the situa-
ton in the schools and in our society
or community nothing will help so
much as an honest, fearless, open
minded examination of facts, and look
beneath the surface of this apparent
race for power, greed of gain and re-
cogniZe the working Of hat great
democratic ideal of equal opportunity
for all, to preserve which a common
interest among our citizens must be
made the stepping stone to peace and
accomplishments.
There can be no true citizenship
in the highest and most developed
sense of the term SO long as n large
class of the social body manifest a con-
slant antagonism toward another large
class of that same body. The organ
iZation of society-or of the state de
ponds fundamentally on the willingness
of each individual to surrender some
rights and some liberties for the sake
of the general public good. Were man
c%ontented to live alone and apart from
all his fellows there should be no need
for self sacrifice, there should be no
necessity hat one should give up this
right and another that privilege in
order that a community of men should
exist as a compact body. But man is
not so constituted that he can live
entirely alone. Man was formed for
society, and society, or state there
must be If a man is properly to enjoy
the privilege of existence. Community
there must be if man is to enjoy life,
liberty, and the persuits of happiness,
for without community and state the
weak must perish before the onslaught
of the strong, the fittest must always
triumph through the determination of
the less fit. If there Is n particular
thing that all men who study the Ques-
ton of citizenship understand, it is
that individuals can be true citizens
only in the proportion that they are
useful citizens, and no man or woman
can be altogether useful who has not
had all his faculties developed.
Why is it that when a war comes
on there is no lack of military heroes,
and why in these more perilous battles
of international peace that the labors
of man shall be for the healing of the
nations, in these struggles with var
ious social problems, there are hardly
men enough to mar the guns. 1t Is
not because we write the names of our
military heroes in the headlines of
our newspapers, and on the pages of
literature and history, while the men
who are conducting the large enter
prises for the ameleration of the hard
conditions Of mankind receive not a
line. Inestimable wrong has been
done to the human race by teaching
in literature and history from the days
of the old testament down, that the
heroic man. the great man, is neces-
sarily he who fights. and wounds, and
Stays. But each particular age has it's
peculiar mission, and what constitutes
a good citizen changes as hat mission
changes. Our Puritan forefathers
stood for something valuable in the