The Washington herald., 1915-11-14
Happiness.

of bonus that may may not accompany the
Acquisition of certain commodities such health,
wealth, good reputation, tickets to the theater
or visit to the seaside. 1t suggests the boxes of
candy that old-fashioned merchants were in the
habit of bestowing on their steady customers. If
you regular patron at the general store of
Good Citizenship you expect to find an occasional
package of happiness gratuitously added to your
purchases.
The Epicurean philosophers aspired to build
up science of happiness. They did not succeed,
and posterity, enveloped in fog of Christian vir-
tue. persists in uisconstrung their motives The
Epicurean failed because like the Christian that
logically succeeded him he axiomatized virtue the
pursuit of which he maintained would necessarily
beget happiness. 1t did not occur to him that
Virtue and Duty are synonyms, that both postu-
late the unsuccessful pursuit of ideals and the
happiness resulting therefrom. 1t is true that the
attainment of an end carries with it a certain
happiness, usually of transient nature. But that
is equally true, whether the end is laudable
highly nefarious. Again it is generally supposed
that the possession of what is known as bad
conscience initiates against the enjoyment of
happiness But that is not really true. If we
are menaced by some sanction some retribu-
ton, whether it is a hanging only the re-
proaches of some we hold in esteem, Rappi-
ness is to that extent rendered impossible. 1t is
hard to escape from the standards OF right and
wrong set up by neghbors, but unhappiness in
such clearly arises from inability to re-
jeet virtue rather than from failure to live up
to it.
The seat of happiness lies not in the conscience
but in the imagination. There is no pleasure in
fnality. If there were we would not believe in a
hereafter the probability of which reason does not
support. There is pleasure in accomplishment
except that it usually presents and alluring
vistas of action. That is why the most successful
religion in the world-from the point of view of
morality-urges to practice virtue, not for its
own sake but because of rewards-new adventures
i'm the next world No can accomplish
very much in the short life at his disposal and the
completion of great life work is occasion for
pride, perhaps but not for happiness. The ris-
torian Gibbon was overcome by unutterable de-
preston upon completing the Decline and Fall
of the Roman Empire" That has been the ex-
perience of many. 1t is the same with death.
Only those fortunate souls whose fine magma
tions and corresponding lack OF reason enable
them to maintain resolute belief in satisfactory
immortality really meet death in cheerful spirit.
For the rest of US we maintain toward the coming
of the Bony One an attitude of resignation min
gled with disgust.
knowledge is not in itself a source Of happi-
ness except in so far as it suggests fields for
the imagination to wander in. Take boy with
a natural bias toward nature-and few children
lack this gift-but with knowledge. and give
him book birds He will be the happiest
thing in the world. You have opened for him the
gates of dream kingdom that is at the time
a reality. You make discoverer, an explorer out
of him at a stroke. Now eyes and combine
with imagination in doing him service. There are
only two things in the whole world that worth
bothering about Truth and Beauty, and you have J
set him in pursuit of both But do not for a !
moment believe that knowledge acquired
will satisfy him. While you showing him the
birds of the garden he is already exploring the
woods and the seashore. And by the time you
have taken him there he is deep in the forests of
South America and the Arctic SHOWS. And so it
goes. But nature has many kingdoms for young
Adventures to explore. many treasure houses for
little hearts to rejoice in. There need be stint.
But do not. in Gods name, present to his eyes and
mind rubbish that is neither Truth Beauty in |
the belief that you writing down to the level
of his intelligence. Remember that his mind is |
the cradle of the human race to come He is |
worthy of the best. If you give him something |
that he understands how can his most elastic |
mind extend itself You must give him something |
that he cannot understand a will o the wisp of
knowledge that invites pursuit. If the matter in
terests him his understanding will meet the de-
mands made upon it in wonderfully short time.
Most of our educators and those who pretend to |
cater to the child mind err in this respect. They
try to make knowledge easy for the children and
they make it tedious. In removing the supposed
difficulties of their subject they take away the al
lure. They wearisomely lombard the little ones
with misshapen colored Autographs of Dobbin
the Horse and Thomas the Cat when they would
do much more good by'handing them Hornaday
or Elliott Coues. Can there be any more noble |
or interesting occupation in the world than that
of playing the genius of the lamp, the guardian Of
the kingdoms of wonder and beauty, to the infant
mind, the infant heart? And yet how tedious are
the operations how trivial the scholastic minutiae
of the fretful pedagogues. To him Tor herr the
children are so many little devils. And why not, |
since being devilish SO easily appeals to the I'M
trained imagination? But the pedagogue, instead
of diverting their young imaginations into allur-
ing channels-how he when the place where
his own imagination should be is usually clogged
with mathematics or the shorter catechism-I
smites them on tender places and keeps them in
school