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Page Twenty-six
THE MAROON TIGER
Special Articles
The Ultimate Result of Labor
H. Eugene Finley, ’28
Inspiration and genius are terms that are often
used to hide the faults and failures of the shiftless
and indolent. “Inspiration is one of the most worth
less commodities in the world,” says one writer. It
is not inspiration that wins in the battle of life, but
preparation plus labor. A man who rises to an
emergency is one who has prepared himself to do
so by years of hard study and work.
Genius is supposed to be some peculiar capacity
for spontaneous accomplishment. If it is 1 think
it one of the rarest things in the universe.
Independence and self-respect are essential to
happiness; these are never to be attained without
earnest work. It is impossible that a man shall be a
drone and go through life without a definite pur
pose which contemplates worthy results, and, at the
same time maintain self-respect. No idle man how
ever rich, can feel the genuine independence of him
who earns his daily bread honestly and manfully.
The idle man stands outside the universal
scheme of modern things. The truest self-respect,
the noblest independence, and the most genuine dig
nity, are. not to be found there. The man who does
his part in life, who purposes a worthy end, and
who takes care of himself, is a happy man. Labor
has a dignity and a joy which attaches to little else
that is human.
To labor rightly and honestly is to adopt the
regime of manhood and womanhood. It is to come
into sympathy with the great struggle of humanity
toward perfection. It is to adopt the fellowship of
all the good, the great and noble, that the world
has ever known.
Man is a wonderful being when viewed in the
light of achievements. It is in the record of these
that we find the evidence of his power, and the
credentials of his glory. Into the results of arduous
labor, each generation pours its life; and as the re
sults grow in excellence, with broader forms and
richer tints, and nobler meanings; they become the
indices of the world’s progress. We estimate the life
of a generation by what it does, and the results of
its work stand out in advance to its successor, to
show what it can do, in order to reach a firmer
consummation.
Hence, work in its final results lifts each gen
eration in the scale of the world’s progress, from
step to step, shortening the ladder upon which men
ascend and descend, and climbing by ever brighter
and broader gradations toward the ultimate per
fection. A new and more glorious gift of power
compensates for each worthy expenditure, so it is
by labor that man carves his way to that measure
of power which will best fit him for his destiny and
leave him nearest his Creator.
The path that leads to eminence is marked by
honest toil. Hence, there is no excellence without a
vast amount of labor.
Men go to college that they might get better
tools with which to work. If one needs a great arm
he cannot buy it. No one can give it to him. He
must make his arm a great servant through the proc
ess of labor. If one wants a great mind he must
develop it.
“Hammer away thou sturdy smith at thy bar
of iron, for thou art bravely forging thy own des
tiny. Weave on in glad content industrious work
of the mill, for thou art weaving cloth of gold,
thou seest not its luster. Plow, and plant and rear
and reap, ye tillers of the soil; for those brown
acres are pregnant with nobler fruitage than that
which hung in Eden. Let commerce send out her
ships, for there is a haven where they will arrive
at last, with freighted wealth below, and flying
streamers above, and jubilant crefs between.”
He who works well for the minor good and the
chief good of life, shall win his way to the great
consummation and find in his hand the golden key
to the archives of the great universal shrine.
The Well-Read College Man
C. L. Bryant, ’29
There is a saying that he who readeth well
knoweth well. This saying is obviously true and if
not taken literally is a decided reflection on the
knowledge acquiring and ability of the average col
lege student. This deficiency is to be deplored for
it means a corresponding lack of poise, conversa
tional power, etc., as a minimizing of the ease with
which associated subjects might be grasped. Libra
ries are more widespread than ever before and there
is no logical reason for the student of today not
being familiar, at least with contemporary litera
ture. The following is a list of books that every
Freshman should have read:
Defoe: Robinson Crusoe; Scott: Ivanhoe, Stev
enson: Treasure Island, Travel Sketches; Bunyan:
Pilgrim’s Progress; Eliot: Silas Marner; Shakspere:
Hamlet, Othello, Julius Ceasar, Macbeth; Van Dyke:
Three Wise Men; Hugo: Les Miserables; the Bible,
especially the Psalms, Proverbs, Ruth, Job and Mat
thew; Chaucer: Canterbury Tales; Bacon: Essays—
Truth, Loves, Studies, Superstition; Coleridge: The
Ancient Mariner, Kubla Kahn, Christabel; Lamb:
Dream Children, Dissertation on a Roast Pig; Khay
yam: Rubaiyat and essays on same; Galsworthy:
Tranquility; at least five each of the short stories by
Poe, De Maupassant, A France, Ruskin, Daudet,
Kipling: Soldiers Three, Barrack Room Ballads;
Keats: The Eve of St. Agnes, La Belle Dame Sans
Mercie; Tennyson: Death of Authur; Dumas: Three
Musketeers; Spencer: Faerie Queen, Longfellow:
Evangeline; Hawthorne: Scarlet Letter; Moran: Ba-
touala; DuBois: Dark Water, Souls of Black Folks;
Emerson: Essays; Dickens: Christmas Carol; Da
vid Copperfield; Mark Twain: Tom Sawyer, Huckle
berry Finn, etc.; popular novels, as, Main Street,
Nigger Heaven, If Winter Comes, There Is Confu-