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| THE MILESTONES OF LIFE I
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Very Different Milestones Are on Different Roads. Man Starts ‘ I
from the Cradle and Passes the Sign-posts That Tell Which Way Wf IH P
He Is Going, Up or Down. This Is a Good Picture for This
Time of Year, When Men Earnestly Think of Good Resolutions ral ’W ■
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HIFE is a journey, a
short one.
The doctor comes in
and says that it is a
boy or a girl. And the nurse comes in
a moment later and shows the baby to
the wondering, happy mother.
From that moment life begins and
the milestones fly past rapidly. You
iog up and down on your mother’s
arm, in the baby carriage, on th,e road
to school-after a while von pick out
the path for yourself and go YOUR
OWN WAY.
The ancestors behind you on both
sides, grandfathers and grandmoth
• crs stretching back to the cave dwell
ers of two hundred thousand years
ago or more, influence you greatly.
And early surroundings influence
you.
It is hard to tell how much we are
controlled by that which is outside
of us, and how much we can control
for ourselves the short life journey.
♦ # ,*
Certainly, every man CAN TRY to
make his life what it should be, and
turn in the right direction.
The real turn in life is taken usu
ally very early. The majority of hu
man beings, fortunately, are not very
bad: they are simply not very good.
NOTHING IN PARTICULAR IS
WRITTEN ON THE MILESTONES OF
THEIR LIFE'S ROAD.
. The artist, Mr. Coffman, young and
enthusiastic, who feels moral ques
tions strongly, shows you the cradle,
and the road that leads downward to
the pit of perdition and that which
leads upward to the palace of light and
success.
Fortunately, the baby does not start
out definitely in one direction or the
other. And, fortunately, he can al
ways turn round and go back IF HE
WILL. For the man can retrace his
steps, he CAN control himself, and
those that teach the contrary are
false teachers.
♦ * ♦
The milestones of life are not mile
stones outside of man. The real mile
stones are INSIDE OF THE BRAIN.
A play in New York called "Mile
stones” shows admirably how the
changing thought of man indicates
the distance that he has traveled and
the distance that he still has to go,
A dismal milestone is that which
marks the part of the road BEYOND
WHICH NO NEW TRUTHS ARE AC
CEPTED. However great the man.
however fine the mind, age sets a limit
to freshness of view, and the man who
was eager to try and believe in youth
tries new things and accepts new
truths no longer in old age.
Luckily, that which is old age for
one man is the prime of life for an
other. Goethe was finishing his
"Faust" when he was past seventy. ■
Titian was painting at ninety.
Moltke devised new plans of cam
paign when past eighty. And Glad
stone, a Tory and a proud aristocrat
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in youth, was savagely fighting for
justice when death found him over
eighty years of age. To the last “his
heart was with the weak and miser
able poor.”
* e .*
This picture, in its simple earnest
ness, is a good picture for fathers and
mothers to show to their boys and
otls - especially the boys, now with
the new year approaching.
Tell the children how short life is,
and what wonderful things*can be
done in the little journey.
Make them feel that every step is
important. Make them believe that
the milestones of life are real and that
that which is written on them actu
ally tells which way the traveler is
going.
Make the boys feel that gambling,
drinking and debts lead surely to the
milestone marked “Dishonesty” and
to the end without hope.
Make them understand that they
can pick their road. And teach them
the art of studying themselves, and
criticising themselves—without ego
tism.
* « $
What are the great milestones in
life, and how should the grown man
and woman consider them and recog
nize them?
Shakespeare divided life into seven
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ages~seven milestones of physical I
condition.
The great stones on the road are
really four—childhood, youth, matu
rity and old age. We live too quickly
and die too soon. Our various stand
ards hurry us too rapidly through the I
four periods of life. Childhood should
last at least until the sixteenth or I
seventeenth year, youth until the fif
tieth, the prime of life until the nine- I
tieth. And old age, still vigorous, but
contemplating the outside universe
and the great questions soon to be
answered, should last from ninety to a
hundred and forty at least.
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In your particular life which are
the milestones already past, and
which are those that stretch ahead?
The milestones that you have nnssed
tell which way you are going. Lucky
the man who realizes when he is on
the wrong road and turns back, no
matter how late.
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