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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-