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HINTS no.'l HISTORY:
Unwise Saws and Ancient Instances.
EBSTER says a proverb is “An old
and common saying.” I hazard the
assertion that a thing is not true simp
ly because it is old, and is not excel
lent merely because it is common. I’ll
warrant there are thousands of men
today sitting down in despair on the
fragments of some old proverb that is
not true, and never was. The wheels
00
of the car of investigation have been locked a thou
sand times by applying the brake of some old
proverb that never was true. A thousand times
the march of progress has been halted by some
old, hoary, hirsute adage that was conceived in ig
norance and brought forth in superstition and fed
on inertia.
The laws of nature (which are the laws of God)
are violated; the penalty follows, and some lugu
brious voice lifts itself up and insults the circum
ambient atmosphere with the mournful mention of
some old miserable maxim that was manufactured,
in the first place, under the same conditions that
the fig-leaf garments were.
We slam the door in the face of Truth and leave
her shivering on the outside in the dark, because
one winter night in the long ago some disordered
imagination clothed her in a different garb of
words from that she now has on. For instance:
“In Time of Peace Prepare for War.’’
The maxim’s a good one. It was coined at a
time when war was the leading occupation. Ihe
people invoked to prepare for war meant to have
one. They were not people fearfully apprehend
ing and dreading a war. They were people who
already had their minds made up to have one. So
I say, for them, it was a good motto, and it is a
good motto yet for a people bent on having a wa.r.
But the amazing doctrine is put forth nowadays
that getting ready for war is the way to prevent
it. That is to say, storing dynamite in your cel
lar is the way to prevent an explosion under your
dwelling. Scattering tacks on the floor is the
surest way for keeping your temper sweet when
Oft in the stilly night
You rise to strike a light.
Do you want the statement of a motto that will
involve you in war? I’ll write it for you: Pre
pare for War.’’
Be Sure You Are Right, Then Go Ahead.
It takes a school man to know how pernicious
this old nugget is. Who was it that dug this one
up, anyway? Was it Davy Crockett? Well, Davy
was a good fighter and, I’m told, a good coon hunt
er, but he was a failure at proverbs. There are a
million boys and girls in the schools of this coun
try now failing to get an education because they
stand trembling, waiting to be sure they are right
before they go forward. The men who have builded
homes for the nations of earth are those who
“Went out, not knowing whither they went.”
“Consistency, Thou Art A Jewel.”
And who wants to be a jewel? Who wants to be
an inorganic thing, evermore the same?
The fruit on the tree of this old adage is the
man who swore the horse was sixteen feet high.
The Herods who “For the oath’s sake, and them
which sat with them at meat” behead the har
bingers of truth.
The limbs of it are loaded not with men alone,
but with withering nations as well. China, with
its backward look, gazing across the graves of
twenty-six dynasties, to the golden days of Yao
and of Shun. Spain, sleeping serenely in the con
sciousness of her consistency. Ignorant, but con
sistent —ignorant, because consistent. Helpless,
but consistent —helpless because consistent.
When the Japanese broke the shell of his con
sistency he then, for the first time, became a na
tion to be reckoned with.
“Consistency, thou art a jewel.” The maxim is
literally true. It’s a jewel. Jewels belong to the
Sy A. H. TLllett.
inorganic world. A jewel is dead. When you find
a person who prides himself on his consistency,
send word to the tomb-stone agent. He’s a dead
one.
‘ ‘ The evil that men do lives after them,
The good is oft interred with their bones.”
The reverse of it is tine. The good men do, is
the thing that lives. The man who offered the ac
ceptable sacrifice is the one who, being dead, yet
speaketh. Evil has in it the bacilli of its own de
struction. Good has in itself the seed of its own
propagation,
“Though the earth
Forget her empires with a just decay,
The enslaver and the enslaved,
Their death and birth —
The high, the mountain, majesty of worth
Should be, and shall, survivor of its woe,
And from its immortality look forth
Imperisbably pure above all things below.”
“Let Justice Be Dene, Though the Heavens Fall.”
It’s a foolish exhortation. Let justice be done,
and the heavens will never fall. When the heavens
fall ’twill be because of injustice done. The Psalm
ist declares that the establishment of God’s throne
is justice and judgment.
While justice is done, not alone will the heavens
stand, but the institutions of earth also will re
main.
I am told that our fleet in the harbor at Rio
Janeiro hung out on the muzzle of a 13-inch gun
a plank adorned with this inscription: “Peace on
earth, good will toward men”!
Do you know what I would do? 1 would bring
that gun home, recast it into plows, sell the 1,000-
pound projecticle that it is meant to shoot, and with
the proceeds buy a narrow-gauge mule and a set of
gear. The man, erstwhile behind the gun, I’d put
behind the gear, and across the bending sky above
them —the man and the mule —I’d write for all the
sons of men to see: “Equal and exact justice to all
nations; entangling alliances with none.”
Then I’d go to sleep, and sleep with never a
dream of the heavens falling—sleep with less fear
of being awakened by the angry voices of foreign
guns than if we had set a thousand ships afloat
upon the sea.
Finally.
This gemini of glaring falsehoods, hoary with
age and awe.
“There is a tide in the affairs of men which,
taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. Omitted,
all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows
, . I
and in miseries,” and,
“The mill will never turn again with the water
that has past.”
If you did not get out on the first tide, there
will be another one going out inside of twelve
lours. You may float out then.
The same water that is turning the mill now will
be back again bye-and-bye, just as clear, just as
joyous, and just as strong as it is today, throw
in your grist, it will grind it for you all right.
The vovage of y.our life may be bound in shal
lows and in miseries, because of unavailing tears,
it will not be because there are no available tides.
You may fail to get your corn ground because
you decline to revisit the mill; it will not be be
cause the water never came back.
Here is the true voice of Opportunity:
“They do me wrong who say I come no more,
When once I knock and fail to find you in;
For every day I stand outside your door,
And bid you wake, and ride to tight and win.
“Wail not for precious chances passed away,
Weep not for golden ages on the wane;
Each night I burn the records of the day,
At sunrise every soul is born again.
44 Laugh like a boy at splendors that have sped,
To vanquished joys be blind and deaf and dumb,
Aly judgments seal the dead past with its dead,
But never bind a moment yet to come.
The Golden Age for February 6, 1908.
“Though deep in mire, wring not your hands and
weep;
I lend my arm to all who say ‘I can,’
No shame-faced outcast ever sank so deep
But yet might rise and be again a man!
“Dost thou behold thy lost youth all aghast?
Dost reel from righteous retribution’s blow?
Then turn from bloated archives of the past
And find the future’s pages white as snow.
“Art thou a mourner? Rouse thee from thy spell!
Art thou a sinner? Sins may be forgiven!
Each morning gives the wings to flee from hell,
Each night a star to guide thy feet to heaven.”
*
A Moro School.
Mrs. Florence Kimball Russell, the author of “A
Woman’s Journey in the Philippines,” has given
in her book an account of a school in the island of
Sulu. It was of the original pattern of native
schools. These institutions, while under Moham
medan management, are all of one stamp. The
methods of teaching and of study are the same in
Sulu and in Arabia.
Long before reaching the Moro school for boys
we could hear the voices of the pupils in a treble
uproar, for they all and individually studied aloud,
rocking back and forth in their seats; so that at
first the sound was an unintelligible jumble, which
finally resolved itself into bits of the multiplication
table, detached letters of the alphabet, and pages
from geography and history.
As we entered the door, the pupils looked up ex
pectantly from their work, glad of an interrup
tion, and at a sign from one of the Mohammedan
teachers, they sprang to their feet with the uni
formity of a machine, fairly yelling their “Good
morning!” at us. Fine little fellows they were, all
being of Moro, Chinese or Filipino stock, with here
and there a fascinating combination of the three
nationalities in one.
Os course, the children were put through their
paces for us, and as each in turn recited, he would
preface his remarks by a profound bow and a lit
tle speech, the words of these formal introductions
being exactly alike, as if ground out by a phono
graph, and beginning, “Ladies and Gentlemen,”
until I wondered if perhaps the children saw us
double.
They were not in the least abashed, these little
savages, and in their quaint English they recited
selections from Eugene Field and James Whitcomb
Riley. Some of these efforts were in dialect, which
must have been a trifle puzzling to one not ac
quainted with the vagaries of the language.
Finally an arithmetical problem on the board
caught my eye, and it was surreptitiously trans
ferred to my note-book for future reference. It
ran something like this.: “A poor old lady owns
one thousand cents. She loses one hundred and
eighty-nine of the cents. How many left has she?”
The master, observing ray interest in the financial
difficulties of the aged and destitute lady, had
the little slates brought up that I might see that
there were still eight hundred and eleven pennies
left to her credit. I inquired of some of the boys
how much the eight hundred and eleven pennies
would amount to put into dollars and cents, but
all were so visibly embarrassed that I, remember
ing my own mathematically tortured childhood, de
sisted before the schoolmaster could hear.
On our leaving, the boys again jumped up as
one, and shouted their unanimous “Good-bye!”
and long after we were out of sight we could hear
their high young voices studying aloud, each for
himself, and apparently undisturbed by the schol
astic outburst of his neighbor.—The Youth’s Com
panion.
H *
If the Democrats adopt a platform declaring in
favor of aiding the states in their prohibition ef
forts, pledging the party to national prohibition
as rapidly as possible, and then, if they name a
candidate of such character that the people will
know that he can be trusted, that man will get well
nigh the solid prohibition vote of all parties, and
he will be elected.
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