Evening star., 1928-06-06
THIS AND THAT
ny CHARLES Z. TRACEWELL

Neither men nor automobiles, how
eve are made by any such shortcuts
It would be positively inhuman. Life
is progression along the invisible road
OF the years, leading from place un-
known to one even more hidden, with
stopping points chartered on the map.
but new to every generation.
Just as the --latest" in automobile de-
sign cannot be evolved at the Begin
ming. SO the best in life scarcely can be
realized In youth. This Is the happi-
ness of growing older which Brown
ing tried to tell the world Of in his
poem containing the immortal lines,
"Grow old along with me. the b"st Is
yet to be, the last of life for which the
first was made"
Character. the most precious posses
sion of humanity, does not come ready
made from the factory OF life. but must
be worked out by the human being
upon his own chassis. using the I'M
mortal gas" OF the centuries and the
we'll known oil Of healthy cndeavor.
This is why 1t is so important to rec
ognize the unneccssar..' as soon as pos
sible, so that the builder may go on
to better things, each In its season.
The great brake on human progress is
often little suspected. Perhaps 1t would
be better to say that there are two
| brakes the one the check that Is likely
to come in mental acquisition after a
certain age, and the other the ordinary
desire to ne SATISFIED with The old and
! the familiar
! These mental inhibitions, II they may
be called that. lead men and women 10
refuse to question what is just because
| it is. Like animals in the Zoo. which
are said to be content with their food
and shelter (althougl1 personally we
have never believed this) men and
women are lured into becoming sta
tionary simply because they resent
| learning anything new and refuse
! to consider the likelihood of certain ac-
tions being nuisances, not necessary.
Hence one may come 10 see the need
for the progressive spirit In everyday
life To be at its best, however 1t must
be finely balanced by the appreciation
for the best of the old To be merely
progressive is nothing If 1t Is not COM
bined with common sense.
The French, as a result of their sue
cessful revolution of 1889, went into a
veritablc orgy of change. They changed
everything, not because many existing
customs we're bad. but simply because
they were customs. They wrecked the
| habitual calendar changing the names
of the months to others supposed to be
more in keeping with actuality and the
appearances of the world at the seasons
named.
The merry month of May became the
Floreal. and all the new republicans
congratulated themselves on having ef-
| fected a wonderful change. Time. how
ever, showed that the progress in this
case was more imaginative than real.
| thousand like instances might be
brought up from this same strange, aw-
| ful. glorious spasm Of outraged human
! ity foaming at the mouth against abuses
and their outward signs. the attack
| often being more against the signs than
| the abuses.
| Now this is the danger the individual
| still runs. of mistaking the appearances
Of things for their essences. and work.
| ing himself into a stew over reform.
| when all along the thing was perfectly
| good as 1t was. This is the danger. but
the counter danger of being too SNUG
and satisfied is even worse. because IL
makes the spirit of man fat, even as il
does his body.
I And a fat spirit. which is puffed up
with itself, is the most absurd and
/ ugly thing in the world, not only un-
| necessary but terrible nuisance to
every one. It was to avoid this that
| the ancients INDUCED in fasting and
! prayer. Perhaps they were right, after
| all. Those old fellows came to every
1 thing with fresh minds: you would
never have caught Greek instructing
| his servants TO say fife" for five.