Norwich bulletin., 1920-08-06

more pay and more chance for amuse- ments
 And it's just that very ambition, so
 utterly unworthy of true men and wo-
 men, that ambition and it's widespread
 accordance, which is the most sinister
 fact to be retlsoned with ill any fore
 casting of the country's future. It isn't
 so much the school-houses which need tl- dying up and modernizing it isn't so much the farms which need more mod
 ern management; it isn't so mulch the roads which need macadamizing it isn't So much anything material or physical which needs iinproving--though all these things count in some fractional degree
 The real trouble is in the men and wo- men. the boys and girls, themselves. It is spiritual and mental disease, not physical one, which is sapping the country's strength and poisoning it's cir culation.
 It is the widespread and constantly
 wider-spreading desire to shirk the hard | things of life the ambition to live in some lazy Land of Lollypop the craze
 to get something for nothing that is al
 the bottom of it all.
 | frequently find admirable texts ir 1 the snappy paragraphs of newspaper
 'colyumists" Here is one scissored out
 only last night:
 "A seIf-made man has to work mort
 than eight hours a day on the job" 1 There used to be a time when lots o1 boys wanted to be second Napoleons | have read that this greatest of all sol
 diers, who rose from a Corsican peasants 1 hut to the dominion of all Europe, nevel l took over four hours sleep when en i gagged in 8 campaign. The other twen 1 ty hours he spent pacing among hif
 out-posts or riding his lines of com munication of planning. while his ad versaries slept. the tactics which should 1 defeat them and scatter their armies.
 Later. I have known boys who were 1 all agog- over the wonderful achieve ments of Edison, and who cherished al 1 ambition to rival his wizardry. Yet Ed I ison is reported to sleep half the time on an improvised couch ill his laborai tory, so that he needn't waste any of 1 his eighteen waking and working houf' going to and from it. And it was, I be l lieve, this same Edison who once pooh ; poohed the idea. of his having any ex- l ceptional genius by remarking that i genius" was two per cent. inspiration
 and ninety eight per cent. perspiration. l Lincoln, the great president. spent hi boyhood doing the hardest kind of physi cal work as long as daylight lasted, an{ l then sacrificed hours of his sleep, lyin,
 on his stomach before the log-fire ant studying by It's f1ickering light. 1 There is, indeed. no eisht.hour limi
 for all it's 5000 years with the wreck
 It is. perhaps, true that few men at ] tain wealth and power by trickery ant 1 chicane. and that a few reach them D! exceptional ability. and that a still small 1 CT number stumble on them by luck 1 But for ninety-nine per cent. of us com
 mon mortals the only way to obtain sue 1 cess is to earn it; earn it by the hard ! est kind of hard work and without an! regard to hours or any yielding to "tha | tired feeling" about which We hear st
 much.
 1 The history of humanity is mile-stones
 for all it's 5000 years with the wreck' 1 of nations which have risen to dominion 1 by the virility and energy of their found 1 CTS. only to slump into oblivion through 1 the cffeminancy of their descendants. | Are We fated for the same disaster i The optimist hopes not; the pessimist i l certain We are.
 One thing is sure; neither individua
 nor nation can long withstand the ordel of the universe, nor defy the laws of be 1 ing. That order is a command to work 1 those laws compel men to earn their sue
 cess before they get it. The admitted fact that some few earn it by the sale
 of their souls does not invalidate the | general truth that the vast majorit!