Then what IS worth while? Let us look at some of the men who have come and gone, and whose lives inspire us. Take a few at random:
Columbus, Michael Angelo, Wilberforce, Shakespeare, Galileo, Fulton, Watt, Hargreaves--these will do.
Let us ask ourselves this question: "Was there any ONE THING that distinguished ALL their lives, that united all these men, active in fields so different?"
Yes. Every man among them, and every man whose life history is worth the telling, did something for THE GOOD OF OTHER MEN.
Hargreaves, the weaver, invented the spinning-jenny, and his invention clothes and employs hundreds of millions.
Galileo perfected the telescope, spread out before man"s intellect the grandeur of the universe. Wilberforce helped to awaken man"s conscience. He freed millions of slaves. Columbus gave a home to great nations. We thrive to-day because of his n.o.ble courage. Michael Angelo and Shakespeare stirred human genius to new efforts, and fed the human mind--a task more worthy than the feeding of the human stomach. We ride in Fulton"s steamboats, and Watt"s engine pulls us along.
Men who are truly great have DONE GOOD to their fellow-man. And the greatest Soul ever born on earth came to urge but one thing upon humanity, "Love one another." ----
Get money if you can. Get power if you can. Then, if you want to be more than the ten thousand million unknown mingled in the dust beneath you, see what good you can do with your money and your power.
If you are one of the many millions who have not and can"t get money or power, see what good you can do without either.
You can help carry a load for an old man. You can encourage and help a poor devil trying to reform. You can set a good example to children. You can stick to the men with whom you work, fighting honestly for their welfare.
Time was when the ablest man would rather kill ten men than feed a thousand children. That time has gone. We do not care much about feeding the children, but we care less about killing the men. To that extent we have improved already.
The day will come when we shall prefer helping our neighbor to robbing him--legally--of a million dollars.
Do what good you can NOW, while it is unusual, and have the satisfaction of being a pioneer and an eccentric.
CRUEL FRIGHTENING OF CHILDREN
The most acute suffering is that produced by FEAR, and those who suffer most acutely from fear are YOUNG children.
Who does not remember the intense agony in youth based upon the superst.i.tious teachings of some foolish older person?
And how many children are made miserable through the hideous fear that comes from threats and from punishment postponed?
If a man should be whipped incessantly for three or four hours he would think his tormentor a monster of brutality.
Yet you say to a child:
"I will whip you for that to-morrow."
You sentence that child to hours of the most acute mental suffering, and if the child be nervous and unusually sensitive, you may permanently injure its health. ----
Here is a scene unfortunately not rare in this country:
A thin, nervous little boy, perhaps ten years old, was walking along a suburban street. Suddenly, on turning a corner, he was confronted by a man, apparently his father.
The child stood trembling. The man, in a voice of cold, concentrated anger, said:
"Didn"t I tell you to come early. You go to the house and WAIT THERE TILL I COME BACK AND FIX YOU."
The man walked on, to get the drink of beer or whiskey that should add to his natural cruelty, and the poor child, without a word, started for home to await the coming punishment.
No more cruel treatment was ever endured by any human being than the punishment inflicted by that thoughtless man on the nervous, helpless child placed in his power.
Later, of course, there followed the punishment; a huge, powerful man striking repeatedly the delicate body of the child, emphasizing the brutality of his blows with more brutal words, and feeling when it was over that he had gloriously done his duty as a typical American father.
Of course, the actual brutal beating was only a small part of the child"s ordeal.
The most horrible part was the waiting for the punishment. No man in the death cell ever suffered more than thousands of children suffer every day waiting for the brutality which is to exemplify our savage notions concerning the education of children.
If such a monstrous parody on a father should be met in some lonely wood by a huge gorilla and treated as that father treats his own son, he would complain bitterly of the gorilla"s ferocity. Yet it would not equal in any way his own brutal and less excusable cruelty. ----
If a parent says that he cannot bring up his children and control them without beating them, you may say to that parent:
You never struck a child in your life except when you were angry, and you would not have dared to strike it if it had been of your own size.
Children born of decent parents can be brought up, and ARE brought up, without beatings, and if yours are a different kind of children it is a reflection on YOU, and on your whole brood and family.
The poor, ignorant hen can teach its young ones to scratch and hunt worms, and acquire whatever education they need without hurting them, and a human being should be able to do for his own as much as a hen can do.
IT IS NATURAL FOR CHILDREN TO BE CRUEL
You have perhaps read that Mrs. Isabelle Bailey, of Palmyra, N.J., was cruelly tortured by three little girls.
The unfortunate woman was eighty-five years old, paralyzed, and confined to her bed.
The three children, two of them eight and one eleven years old, tormented the poor woman in a brutal manner, of which details shall not be published here.
The helpless woman ultimately died, and the children were charged with murder. ----
This horrible story is mentioned in the hope of concentrating the minds of mothers and fathers on the fact that children are naturally more cruel, more vicious, than grown people.
The children mentioned in this case were, perhaps, abnormal and unusual monstrosities. But they serve to ill.u.s.trate the fact that infancy and childhood duplicate, in the individual, the primitive animal life on earth.
Many children are brutally punished and ruined for life because ignorant parents imagine that childhood is naturally pure and innocent and good, and that a child which misbehaves must be abnormally wicked.
If parents knew more about the physical and mental development of their children, they would be better fitted to have charge of them. ----
It is a fact taught by embryology that the human body before its birth pa.s.ses through numerous stages of development which correspond exactly with the lower forms of animal life.
After birth the child develops MENTALLY in the same way, pa.s.sing through inferior mental stages and reaching a state of benevolence, honesty, truthfulness and self-restraint only as a result of long education and wise control.
A perfectly truthful child probably never existed. All childish races of savages are incessant liars and thieves. All children pa.s.sing through the primitive stages of mental development are naturally given to deception, and even to theft, especially when they are frightened by the consequences of truth, and when things which they desire are denied them.
All children are cruel--and there is no greater brutality than confiding a helpless animal to the tender mercies of a young child.