Produced by David WidgerCERTAIN DIVERSITIES OF AMERICAN LIFEBy Charles Dudley WarnerThis is a very interesting age Within the memory of men not yet come tomiddle life the time of the trotting horse has been reduced from twominutes forty seconds to two minutes eight and a quarter seconds Duringthe past fifteen years a universal and wholesome pastime of boys has beendeveloped into a great national industry thoroughly organized and almostaltogether relegated to professional hands no longer the exercise of themillion but a spectacle for the million and a game which rivals theStock Exchange as a means of winning money on the difference of opinionas to the skill of contending operatorsThe newspapers of the countrypretty accurate and sad indicators of thepopular tastedevote more daily columns in a weeks time to chroniclingthe news about baseball than to any other topic that interests theAmerican mind and the most skillful player the pitcher often collegebred whose entire prowess is devoted to not doing what he seems to bedoing and who has become the hero of the American girl as the Olympianwrestler was of the Greek maiden and as the matador is of the Spanishsenorita receives a larger salary for a few hours exertion each weekthan any college president is paid for a years intellectual toil Suchhas been the progress in the interest in education during this periodthat the larger bulk of the news and that most looked for printed aboutthe colleges and universities is that relating to the training theprospects and achievements of the boat crews and the teams of baseballand football and the victory of any crew or team is a better means ofattracting students to its college a better advertisement than successin any scholastic contest A few years ago a tournament was organized inthe North between several colleges for competition in oratory andscholarship it had a couple of contests and then died of inanition andwant of public interestDuring the period I am speaking of there has been an enormous advance intechnical education resulting in the establishment of splendid specialschools essential to the development of our national resources a growthof the popular idea that education should be practicalthat is such aneducation as can be immediately applied to earning a living and acquiringwealth speedilyand an increasing extension of the elective system incollegesbased almost solely on the notion having in view of coursethe practical education that the inclinations of a young man of eighteenare a better guide as to what is best for his mental development andequipment for life than all the experience of his predecessorsIn this period which you will note is more distinguished by the desirefor the accumulation of money than far the general production of wealththe standard of a fortune has shifted from a fair competence to that ofmillions of money so that he is no longer rich who has a hundredthousand dollars but he only who possesses property valued at manymillions and the men most widely known the country through most talkedabout whose doings and sayings are most chronicled in the journalswhose example is most attractive and stimulating to the minds of youthare not the scholars the scientists the men of letters not even theorators and statesmen but those who by any means have amassed enormousfortunes We judge the future of a generation by its idealsRegarding education from the point of view of its equipment of a man tomake money and enjoy the luxury which money can command it must be moreand more practical that is it must be adapted not even to the higheraim of increasing the general wealth of the world by increasingproduction and diminishing waste both of labor and capital but to thelower aim of getting personal possession of it so that a striking socialfeature of the period is that onehalfthat is hardly an overestimateonehalf of the activity in America of which we speak with so muchenthusiasm is not directed to the production of wealth to increasingits volume but to getting the money of other people away from them Inbarbarous ages this object was accomplished by violence it is nowattained by skill and adroitness We still punish those who gain propertyby violence those who get it by smartness and cleverness we try toimitate and sometimes we reward them with public officeIt appears therefore that speedthe ability to move rapidly from placeto placea disproportionate reward of physical over intellectualscience an intense desire to be rich which is strong enough to compeleven education to grind in the mill of the Philistines and an inordinateelevation in public consideration of rich men simply because they arerich are characteristics of this little point of time on which we standThey are not the only characteristics in a reasonably optimistic viewthe age is distinguished for unexampled achievements and foropportunities for the wellbeing of humanity never before in all historyattainable But these characteristics are so prominent as to beget thefear that we are losing the sense of the relative value of things in thislifeFew persons come to middle life without some conception of these relativevalues It is in the heat and struggle that we fail to appreciate what inthe attainment will be most satisfactory to us After it is over we areapt to see that our possessions do not bring the happiness we expectedor that we have neglected to cultivate the powers and tastes that canmake life enjoyable We come to know to use a truism that a personshighest satisfaction depends not upon his exterior acquisitions but uponwhat he himself is There is no escape from this conclusion The physicalsatisfactions are limited and fallacious the intellectual and moralsatisfactions are unlimited In the last analysis a man has to live withhimself to be his own companion and in the last resort the question iswhat can he get out of himself In the end his life is worth just whathe has become And I need not say that the mistake commonly made is as torelative valuesthat the things of sense are as important as the thingsof the mind You make that mistake when you devote your best energies toyour