Children play about the blocks of lava--and all their lives, no matter where they may go, those children will think of that far-off island as the only real home, and of black lava blocks as the only REAL kind of stone. From your passing boat you cannot see these children. Their little lives, lost in the far-off sea, seem as unimportant as the lives of the fish that swim below you. But some child playing there to-day may be like that other island child, Napoleon, and live to make the rest of the world talk about the island that bred him. Or, better still, some one of those children, with a brain made powerful by solitude and noble thought, may have the idea that shall help us all, teach us more and more to think kindly of each other and help each other, instead of passing each other coldly and indifferently as the big ship passes the little, far-off island. NO NAPOLEONIC CHESS PLAYER ON AN AIR CUSHION ZANGWILL'S IDEA IS FALSE--WHY CHESS PLAYING STUNTS GENIUS Mr. Zangwill's keen intellect, straining hard for striking pictures and word effects, sees falsely the great general of the future. He says: "The Napoleon of the future will be an epileptic chess player, carried about the field of battle on an air cushion." In this condensed, picturesque fashion Mr. Zangwill expresses sententiously a number of mistaken ideas. He thinks that the game of war is like the game of chess, and that the future world conqueror will be a great chess player, using men as pawns and the world as his chess-board. He observes the curious and interesting historical fact that of the world's great conquerors many, including the two greatest, Napoleon and Alexander, were afflicted with that mysterious disease, epilepsy. He concludes that the great general of the future will probably be a confirmed epileptic. The ability of a fighting man to-day resides largely, of course, in the brain. The general's MUSCLES no longer count as a fighting factor. His battles are won or lost inside of his SKULL. Mr. Zangwill concludes that the future great general will have a mind developed to an abnormal extent at the expense of the body--he sees in the future world conqueror an abnormal creature, a giant brain perched on a miserable, wasted body, so feeble and delicate that it must be carried about the field of battle on an air cushion to prevent shocks. ---- The quotation from Zangwill which we print above contains only twenty-one words. Rarely have so many errors, so many fundamental yet plausible errors, been crowded into so little space. The Napoleon of the future, the great conqueror, will NOT be a chess player. The real Napoleon whom we know had no love for chess or any other waste of time, or any other form of self- indulgence. Chess is no game for a Napoleon, or for any other man who wants to embody real accomplishment in the story of his life. CHESS IS A WEAK GAME, FOR IT ADMITS ALL KINDS OF RULES AND ALL KINDS OF FOREORDAINED IMPOSSIBILITIES.