Norwich bulletin., 1918-04-19

(Written Specially for The Bulletin.)
 Don't apologize. Don't explain. Let 'em howl. Get the thing done!"
 What thing? Why, any thing which is laid on your hands to do. The thing which it happens to be your duty to do. "The Nexte Thyngg." as. it is written in a quaint old English inscription.
 That is the plain meaning of Jowett's famous advice to his Oxford students and disciples.
 It's simple, easily understandable, practical and effective rule of conduct Say nuthin' and saw wood is dia- lect paraphrase which means much the same thing. Do your bit and hold your jaw is another trenchant form of the same idea.
 It's an exhortation to do that which, it might seem, no real man should ever need exhortation to, without ex- plantation of why he does it, and without apologies for his failure to do ic. perfectly.
 It might be called the motto of democracy, democracy as opposed to that utterly contemptible dsrlagogy which everyone seeks to parade its wretched incompetency disguised in the raiment of the nobler cult
 It is the same thing which was in Tennyson's mind when he passionately cried out
 "For a still. strong man in blatant
 land,
 Who can rule. and who will not ie."
 There are plenty of men who can talk like angels and write like seraphs but who can't DO things: plenty such in government; plenty such in con gresses and legislatures; plenty sue :. in law courts and labor unions. too many such even on the farms. If you don't, believe it. go to the next half dozen Farmers Institutes held nearest you and take careful note of how much is said and how little is done. 1t is always easier to apologize for not doing ones work than to do it.
 It is usually simpler to explain why one didn't do it right than to learn how to do it right,-and then do it that way.
 It may always be expected, in any case, that those outside will howl. It is the nature of dogs to bark and of catamounts to yowl No especially good farming was ever done, so far as have heard. by either. It takes men,-men who can use their eyes and their brains and their muscles to ninety per cent. of capacity and their mouths to just about one and a quarter per cent.,-to accomplish anything really worth while at New England farming.
 long, in the past, trying to get returns of some sort off the stone-heaps and gravel banks and side-hills which make up most New England farms i We haven't, either one of us, suc- | ceeded to hearts. desire. Shall we | therefore, apologize?
 1 Not by long shot, 1 We have made mistakes. so many and so bad that our ears itch at every 1 mention, and our fingers twitch at every recollection. Shall we therefore explain why we made 'em? l Not on your life
 Passers- and other casual critics howl with laughter at some of oul failures. Shall we therefore drop oul ] work, rush out to the road and ioir 1 adding far6e to futility? Not if we know ourselves: ! mentally powerful agent which works in our behalf on soil and seed ant tender shoot and maturing fruit i. sunlight,
 The story is told of the immigran who, his steamship coming into New York harbor of morning. Wa; startled by the sudden roar of a bi, cannon from the fort off the bow.
 Whats that?' he gasped Only the sunrise gun." was th' answer of bystander
 Lord, does the sun come up with .
 bang in Ameriky?" he said. Not as a rule. This most ire
 mendous and~universally acting power
 on whose pervasive and irresistible
 energy we depend for every grain o
 wheat or blade of grass, comes as si
 lently as the slow fall of spider
 web to the ground. Nay, more si
 lently; for l suppose that instru
 ments could be devised so delicate a
 to catch and report the noise made b,
 the impact of the spiders filament ol
 the soil. But no marvel of inventio
 can enable US to hear the sound O
 the sunrise, for it makes none. It 1
 the i;ynonym of silence itself. W
 may, indeed, hear some of the ac
 tivities which it wakes to action. bu
 rjever the sunrise itself We may, ]
 alert, hear the soft stirrings in tn
 warming soil which it's radiance in cites. but not the fall of the ray
 themselves. We may perhaps hea
 the wheels go round, but never b chance a whisper from the almos omnipotent power which sets them i
 revolution.
 I , There may be some who wish tha the sun would make more of a racke about its work: that if ryo1,ld al1cau