Ladysmith news-budget. [volume] (Ladysmith, Rusk County, Wis.) 1907-1927, 1915-03-19
PHILOSOPHICAL BUT POPULAR
The "Sprine of Happiness" Proves
Eloquent and Entertaining to
Large Audience

The lecture of Prof. William H.
Kiekhoefer, of the State University
at the Congregationalist church Fri
day night, upon the subject OF the
Springs of Happiness" was one OF
the clearest, most adequate presenta-
tions imaginable of the optimistic
philosophy, as distinguished from
Schopenhauer' despairing school OF
pessimism although what the speak
er had to say upon his subject was
as logically developed, and expressed
with as little excess of verbiage as
a text-book-and, for ought the wri-
ter knows, may have constituted a
chapter or so from the professors
work on Sociology was so ell
| livened with human interest" and
anecdote, that the attention of the
large audience seemed never to flag.
Life, said the speaker, had been
variously thought of, as Journey" ="
game" a battle" etc.; he had
conceived of ones ideal in life as a
| fountain And while Ponce de Icons
| fancied Fountain of Youth was q
chimera, it was possible to find that
| from which, if one drank, it would
satisfy the yearnings of the human
| soul.
| 1t is not to be found, however, in
| sensuOus pleasure, riches nor powe.,
any one of which, sought merely for
that within itself, and not as a
means to some end higher than self
ishness, is Disappointing. Which is
because the things that are beyond
price are so much greater than those
which can be bought. Money, for in
stance, can not buy health, at least
not when constitutional vigor is gone,
nor mental capacity, nor love. ''Who-
soever, therefore," said the profes-
sor, comes to sensuous pleasure,
riches or power, as the supposed
Springs of Happiness, to drink, shall
thirst again.
The key, he said, to the true Sc
cret of the permanently satisfying
ideal of life is to be found in the
apparently paradoxical words Of the
Master of Life, 'he that drinketh of
the water that l shall give him, shall
never thirst" and "He that loseth
his life shall find it, That is, a
life of self-expression, as opposed to
a life self-centered; of altruism
rather than egoism-a life devoted
to social service, along such lines as
the achievement of equal opportun-
ity for all.
Interesting and striking utterances
of the speaker were his opinion, un
equivocally expressed, that, judging
from present accomplishments, il
ten years national prohibition and
woman suffrage would be realized
Also, that the animosities and strife
among the nations were due to the
reigning ideas of the inequalities OF
men, and that peace would only be
ushered in with the day, as the poet
Burns expressed it, when sense and
WORTH DER all the worth, would
brothers be, for a that" On this
point he seemed to approximate the
doctrine of the great Tolstoi, that
war would only be abolished when
patriotism ceased to be bounded by
geographical lines, when human SO
ciety became generally imbued with
the sentiment of somebody-who was
it, Tom Paino-who said, ''The worlC
is my country, and to do good my re
ligion.''
The speakers peoration, word
painting of the moral grandeur o1
Jean Val Jean, the ex-convict hero
of Victor Hugo's great story-and as
character, perhaps the greatest i'm
perSOnation of self-renunciatiOn in al
fictional writing-was delivered will
pronounced dramatic effectiveness.
Prof. Kiekhoefer, by way of intro
: duction to his lecture, took occasion
to remark that he was agreeably sur
prised to find the advancement il
Ladysmith which was betokened b,