"What do you want to know for?"

Now if you are wise, you will not bother to explain to your "assistant" that Correggio is indexed under the C's, not in the K's; but you will smile sweetly and 5 say, "Never mind"; and go look it up yourself. And this incapacity for independent action, this moral stupidity, this infirmity of the will, this unwillingness to catch hold cheerfully and lift, these are the things that put pure socialism so far into the future. 10 If men will not act for themselves, what will they do when the benefit of their effort is for all?

We have recently been hearing much sympathy expressed for the "downtrodden worker of the sweatshop" and the "homeless wanderer searching for 15 honest employment," and with it all, often go many hard words for the men in power. Nothing is said about the employer who grows old before his time in a vain attempt to get frowsy ne'er-do-wells to do intelligent work; and his long, patient striving with 20 "help" that do nothing but loaf when his back is turned. In every store and factory, there is a constant weeding-out process going on. No matter how good times are, this sorting continues; only if times are hard and work is scarce, the sorting is done more 25 finely; but out and forever out the incompetent and unworthy go. It is the survival of the fittest. Selfinterest prompts every employer to keep the best, those who can carry a message to Garcia. Have I put the matter too strongly? Possibly I have; but

when all the world has gone a-slumming, I wish to speak a word of sympathy for the man who succeeds, -the man who, against great odds, has directed the efforts of others, and who, having succeeded, finds there's nothing in it, — nothing but bare board and 5 clothes. I have carried a dinner pail and worked for day's wages, and I have also been an employer of labor, and I know there is something to be said on both sides. There is no excellence in poverty; rags are no recommendation; and all employers are not 10 grasping and high-handed, any more than all poor men are virtuous. My heart goes out to the man who does his work when the "boss" is away, as well as when he is at home; and to the man, who, when given a letter for Garcia, quietly takes the missive, without 15 asking any idiotic questions, and with no lurking intention of chucking it into the nearest sewer, or of doing aught else but deliver it; who never gets "laid off" nor has to go on a strike for higher wages. Civilization is one long, anxious search for just such individuals. 20 Anything such a man asks shall be granted. He is wanted in every city, town, and village, in every office, shop, store, and factory. The world cries out for such; he is needed, and needed badly, the man who can carry a message to Garcia.

He who is good at making excuses is seldom good for anything else. FRANKLIN

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QUESTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

1. For what purpose did President McKinley need a messenger in the Spanish War? To whom was the messenger to go? How did Rowan perform his duty? What is remarkable about Rowan's way of doing it?

2. What great life lesson did Mr. Hubbard see in

sympathy? Why is the word "help" quoted in

the story? Does this class of person "help"? 5. Why does Mr. Hubbard sympathize with certain employers?

6. Why are SO many employees dismissed?

7. What kind of man never gets" laid off "?

Rowan's able performance 8. What is meant by " carrying

No; the two kinds of people on earth I mean
Are the people who lift and the people who lean.

Wherever you go you will find the world's masses
Are always divided in just these two classes.

And oddly enough, you will find, too, I ween,
There is only one lifter to twenty who lean.

ELLA WHEELER WILCOX

THE MAKING OF A MAN

JOHN WHITE CHADWICK

This superb little poem contains the same idea as the poems on opportunity by Walter Malone and Edward Rowland Sill. (See pages 228-230.) It is a well-known poem and deserves its fame.

It tells us that hardship alone, and not ease, can make a man. It is only by practice and hard knocks at football that one can ever become a good player. It is only by practicing any activity under the most difficult conditions that a man can fit himself to meet and overcome great difficulties. Nothing was ever truer than this. There is no other way to make a man. Even the Indians knew this, and they made every boy undergo hardship and pain and hunger to make a warrior out of him.

In this poem, Mr. Chadwick tells us that,

The insect becomes like that which surrounds it;

The great rock, resisting for ages the assault of ocean waves, becomes more perfect and more calm of front ;

The shell gets its lovely colors from its fight with wind and

wave;

The poets learn deep feeling from pain and suffering.

And then he shows that only " things that hurt and things that mar" can "shape a man for perfect praise."

Whoever thinks that he can succeed in any other way, in school, at play, or in life, is surely foredoomed to fail.

THE MAKING OF A MAN

As the insect from the rock
Takes the color of its wing;

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As the bowlder from the shock
Of the ocean's rhythmic swing
Makes itself a perfect form,

Learns a calmer front to raise ;
As the shell, enameled warm

With the prism's mystic rays,
Praises wind and wave that make
All its chambers fair and strong;
As the mighty poets take

Grief and pain to build their song:
Even so for every soul,

Whatsoe'er its lot may be,
Building, as the heavens roll,

Something large and strong and free,
Things that hurt and things that mar
Shape a man for perfect praise;
Shock and strain and ruin are

Friendlier than the smiling days.