And there are masters in the art of living as well as in other arts and
sciences. "A log with Mark Hopkins at one end and myself at the other."
That was Garfield's conception of a university. It was said of Eliphalet
Nott at Union College, that he "took the sweepings of other colleges and
sent them back to society pure gold." The older students of Stanford
will always show the traces of the master teacher Thoburn. "In terms of
life," thus he construed all problems of Science, of Philosophy, of
Religion. In terms of life, Thoburn's students will interpret all their
own various problems, for in terms of life all things we do must finally
be formulated. Every observation we make, every thought of our minds,
every act of our hands has in some degree an ethical basis. It involves
something of right or wrong, and without adhesion to right, all thought,
all action must end in folly. And there is no road to righteousness so
sure as that which has right living as a traveling companion.
The very humanity of men at large is in itself a source of inspiration.
Study men on the trains, at the ferry, on the road, in the jungles of
the forest or in the jungles of great cities,--"through the ages, every
human heart is human." Look for the best, and the best shall rise up
always to reward you. One who has traveled among simple-living people,
men and women we call savages, because they live in the woods and not in
cleared land or cities, will bear witness that a savage may be a perfect
gentleman. Now as I write their faces rise before me. Joyous, free
limbed, white toothed swimmers in Samoan surf, a Hawaiian eel-catcher, a
Mexican peon with his "sombrero trailing in the dust," a deferential
Japanese farm boy anticipating your every want, a sturdy Chinaman
without grace and without sensitiveness, but with the saving quality of
loyalty to his own word, herdsmen of the Pennine Alps, Aleuts, Indians
and Negroes, each race has its noblemen and through these humanity is
ennobled. It is worth while to go far from Boston to find that such
things are true.
And we may look not alone among primitive folk who have never envied us
our civilization or ever cared that we possessed it. Badalia Herodsfoot,
in Kipling's story, lived and died in darkest London. Gentle hearts and
pure souls exist among our own unfortunates, those to whom our society
has shown only its destroying side. All misery and failure as well as
all virtue has its degrees, and our social scheme is still far from the
demands of perfect justice.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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