Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1921-07-12
OUR PREDECESSORS
By H. Arlington Bruce

| Copyright, 1921, by The Associated News
papers)
~ NOE I went to- hear celebrated but &C.
J centric lecturer discourse on Macaulay
~ He began by suddenly looking up at his
audience and, in "a dry, cynical way, demand
| ing:
What do you know about your great
grandfathers?"
Then:
What do you care about your great-grand-
fathers?"
This brought loud laughter, as the lecturer
had doubtless intended it should. Few of his
hearers, quite evidently, did know or care
much about their great-grandfathers And
| the fact seemed to them highly amusing, not
| anything reprehensible.
| Yet in otehr parts of the world there are
people-ben: GIFTED we deem them-who care
| so much about their vanished great-grand-
fathers that they actually pay them the
tribute of ancestor Worship Are they ut
| terly absurd in so doing?
Ponder this passage from THE Group
Mind" book written by the Harvard
psychologist Professor William McDougall
Each man is an individual only in an in
complete sense; he is but unit in vast
system of vital and spiritual forces which,
expressing themselves in the form of human
societies, are working toward ends which
no man can foresee..
"And the play of this system of forces at
any moment of history is predominantly de-
tormlneQ by CONDITIONS WHICH, We
been produced by the mental activities OF
countless generations, and which are but
very little modified by the members of So
ciety living at any one time.
$50 that society consists of the dead as
we'll as the living and the part of the living
in determining it's life is but insignificant as
compared with the part of the dead"
. You have certain ideals and principles and
traditions which you have found helpful in
life and which you are conscientio1sly en-
deavoring to inculcate in your children.
Whence did you derive these ideals and
principles and traditions? From your elders,
and more especially, in all likelihood, from
your parents.
Whence did your parents derive them?
From their parents. And the latter from
theirs. Each generation, that is to say, has
been a torch-bearer for the generation fol-
lowing.
And just as your unique personal expert
ences have enabled you, in teaching your
children, to add a little something to the
teachings you derived from your father and
mother, so the personal experiences of your
father and mother enabled them to give you
a little more than they had derived from
their parents. Thus has there been progress
from generation TO generation.
But the contribution of each generation
has indeed been scant compared with the &C
cumulated contributions of the generations
that have gone before. And had not these
by-gOne generations, one after the other,
faithfully transmitted their gainings from
the past, what would be the plight of the
generation of today?
Try for moment to visualize your great
grandfathers.
Try for moment to visualize your great
passing through each cycle from boyhood to
old age. Try to picture them to yourself,
first as learners of truths at their parents
knees, then as teachers of truths to their own
children.
After you have done this I do not think
you will be inclined to laugh at mention of
your great grandfathers. You will be more
inclined to worship.