The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-05-09
Footr1otes To Life
We miss a deal of the un derstandins of lite because of lack of fcotnates.
Bx pR. FRANE CRANE

we miss T deal of the Iii, derstanding of life because of lack of footnotes.
 To be sure. there are some superior mindf who re0ard expianatieDgzsat the bottom of the page of Dante of Milton ss sr1 offensf to their intelligence, but most of us are very thankful for them, and without them we should fail to catch the meaning of many passage.
 And life lis a deep poem, as full of antique symbolism as the Divine Comedy, as fuii If bits of curious allusions ito be forgotten learning as Paradise Lost
 When I go to physician, as often as not it is for information and not for pins ana nowders; I simply want the expert to teii ne what my indispositipn means to add ms footnote to my bsfflins page of bodily ex- perience.
 f,f course. in these days of sll-wisdom ivre are all able to understand the uniyerss each for himself, but there are flew of us left who enjoy, the footnotes of the preacher lon the spiritual page we are tracing.
 So hardly think that books of philosophy and on the meaning of human emotions and instincts will ever go ontsof date.
 v Whether you understand or not, 1t is inter- estins to hear you tell what means my strange feeling or curious impulse, whence came this belief and that doubt, and why this joy or that grief came to me.
 The newspaper editorial writers are foot noters, pinning their solutions to the daly mysteries of political and social eyoiution as they appear. People want to know not only what happened, but why 1t happened.
 Tho dictionary and sencyciopaedia are wonderful footnotes. You never realize how many words you use of whose meanings you arc in ignorance until you go to look up some thing in the dictionary. nor how one s com nonest expressions run back to the oays of Chaucer or Paracelsus in their ancestry.
 We are forced to be very practical in our sfri,rele for bread nnd butter, and all prac- stlAal neople are superficial; that IS, they are content to know how to use things and have no time, even if they have the disposition, to search out what things mean
 If there were only business men, only the ss,ne1s rho do things" this world would be much more baffling than 1t is. The scientist in his research work, the philosopher in his speculations, the poet in bis visions and the nrophet in his ecstacies, all help to temper: fl,e Iisheartening pressure of the unknown. sThey may not write the history of deeda, but they add the illuminating foctnotes.
 1The foonotes are more influential than ra imagine. It was the footnotes of Rous- sean that, as much as any other one factor. brought on democracy in Europe. The foot. notes of Pestaiozzi and Eroebei changed aHd are get changing education- The footnotes of Emerson have affected the entire religious life 6f America. s6 ghw
 It is curious to note how the critics de- 3rnarid of every writer that he have a "sys. tein,p when all that is left of any of the sSstena makers are few footnotes. Yet how potent they have been
 Says Gerald Massey
 70 the prophets, baFds and seers!
 Tn the horoscope of nations.
 Like. ascending consultations,
 They control the coming years"