The Farmington times. (Farmington, St. Francois County, Mo.) 1905-1926, 1917-04-13
A TALK ON EFFICIENCY

We publish by request the follow
ing talk made by Theo. d. Fisher be-
fore the Pennington Literary Socie-
ty last Friday evening:
feel highly honored for this invi-
tation of your President to make q
short talk to you this evening, but
have accepted with considerable mis-
giving, as | am not a ready speaker
| find that can talk more confidently
and less haltingly from manuscript
At a banquet on one occasion attend
ed by the great American humorist
Mark Twain, he was called upon to
respond to a toast--as he knew he
would be-so he began something like
this: "Mr. Toast-master, this is a
great surprise TO me; | did not eX-
pect to be called upon to make a
speech, and find myself wholly I'M
prepared" He then shamelessly drew
a manuscript speech from his inside
coat pocket and proceeded to read
from it and CONFUSE his fellow ban
queters with flashes of his quaint hu-
NOR. AS | am neither a finished or
ator nor a great humorist, | trust
that you will pardon me for following
Mark Twain's eXample-barring his
bubbling humor.
Another thing that caused me to
hesitate over making this talk was
the question, what can say that may
interest or profit you. There are
many subjects that one may talk
about, but to keep the dullness out of
them and to say something worth
while, there's the rub" Now, my
young friends, that isn't slang-it's
a popular phrase from Hamlet's So
liloquy.
For some time we have been hear
ing a good deal about preparedness" f,
and just now the United States is
making every effort to perfect its
army and navy in anticipation of the
trouble that has been thrust upon US
by one of our oversee belicose nations.
The horrible war in which all Europe
has been so madly engaged for near
ly three years has awakened our coun-
try to a realization that we are poor
ly prepared even for defensive war
fare, if we were suddenly assaulted by
some well equipped, first class mill
tary power, much less for offensive
warfare. When the Mexican bandit
Villa made his murderous incursions
into Columbus, New Mexico, our non
preparedness to meet such a sporadic
invasion as that and capture the i'm
pudent ragged Greasers before they
could flee into hiding, was humiliating-
ly impressed upon us. But it is not
military preparedness that suggested
tn I1nn ut1l npt fnN "A
tie talk this evening, and to get that
idea out of our minds, let US just call
it Efficiency.
This is an age of efficiency. Eff
cheney in every line of work is in de-
mand, in the professions and business
callings, in mechanics and engineer
ing, in the counting room, on the
farm, or inwhatever industry the
energy of man is directed, and the in
efficient man must lag behind and fol-
low his more efficient competitors.
Efficiency is the key to success and
enables one to make a practical ap-
plication of his knowledge and skill
in arv calling that he may elect to
follow. But when | speak of success,
do not mean the one thing by which
Jne WOTlu is JOO HUGH ulSpOSSu 10
measure mans SUGGESTIVE accumu-
lation of great wealth. Not that
wealth is to be despised- from it
"a competency is greatly to be de-
sired, for the comforts which it may
buy and the good that one may ac-
complish with it; but to make its ac-
emulation the sole aim of life starves
the soul and impoverishes all the fin
er sentibility of ones nature. There
is a little allegory of a youth who,
starting out in life, found a silver
dollar in his pathway and picked it |
up. He was so dazzled and fascinat-
ed with its seductive charm that he !
continued the rest of his days to
keep his eyes and attention earth
ward looking for dollars. He found
them, many of them, but he missed |
the warmth of the golden sunlight,
the beauty Of the stars, and the per-
fume of life's flowers, which might
have been his if he had only looked |
around and up, looked heavenward
once in a while.
If mankind could divest itself of
the sordid idea that money is the only
thing worth striving for in life, there
would be more genuine success, peace
and good fellowship in the world, and