Now where does the essential error lie in this loosely hung together bunch of foolishness? In the first place separate “pain” from difficulty. Pain is merely a message; it is a telegram to headquarters to say that something is wrong. It always means that. Normal action does not hurt. It may be “good,” as the sentinel is good who gives the alarm so that you may save yourself; but his alarm is a warning of evil. It may accompany a “good” process, like that of resuscitating the drowning; but that is not a normal process, the pain is conditioned upon water in the lungs. If a person is so situated that he must bear pain, then it is good to get used to it, if possible. On this basis the early savage used self-torture to help him bear the incidental miseries of life, and from that practice dated our views on the subject. The most unblushing survival of this gross savagery is seen in our practice of hazing, calmly defended by its perpetrators as “it makes boys manly,” “it develops character.” The savage had at least the grace _to do it to himself_, and it was not practised upon children. Our imperfectly educated children maintain in this the customs of the lowest savages, in a rudimentary form. There are times in life when pain has to be borne for a greater good, but that does not make the pain good. As to the other and a little more legitimate branch—difficulty. Here we feel more assurance. We do see the poor boy making tremendous struggles, and rising above his difficulties hardened, bruised, belated, but triumphant. We do see the rich boy making no struggle at all, and rising above nothing. Hence—but wait a bit. Do _all_ poor boys thus struggle and rise? Do the slums produce the best citizens? Is a well-bred, well-fed, well-educated boy so hopelessly handicapped in life by those advantages? Is our ceaseless attempt to provide for our children the best advantages all folly? We may not be logical, but have horse sense enough to know better than that. We know that poverty coarsens, weakens, stunts, degrades; that under its evil influence “the dregs of society” are steadily and inevitably produced. We know that where one person of phenomenal capacity can rise _in spite of it_, thousands of ordinary capacity are ruined _because of it_. Abraham Lincoln was a rail-splitter. Yes. Were there no others? There were and are many poor boys splitting rails, and yet the crop of Abraham Lincolns remains limited to one. Our error is a very simple one. We confuse a coincidence with a cause. Most people are poor. Therefore most great people have risen from poverty. How many more great people we might have had under better conditions we shall never know.