To-day we sit in our office and audibly speak with persons a thousand miles distant, recognizing their voices as distinctly as though in the same room. If the idea of the electric current for conveying sound had never been put into practical use, what a loss the world would have sustained!

James Watt little realized the value of an idea as he was experimenting with his mother's teakettle. Had the power of steam never been developed, we should doubtless still be traveling by the old stage coach and on horseback. What a blessing has come to our homes, and to the world through the idea of the sewing machine, conceived by Elias Howe! Although he became almost swamped in the mire of difficulties and discouragements, he was possessed of a wonderful tenacity of purpose; every obstacle was trampled under the ponderous foot of determination, and the result is known to the civilized world.

The wonderful advances made in mechanical devices and in science are the result of ideas. Men have studied, wrought, and labored diligently to reduce these ideas to practical use. As a result we see on every hand the gigantic strides of improvement and progress. Nowhere on the face of the earth is there greater incentive for the development of ideas and their application to practical use than in our own country.

The opportunities for advancement and improvement are by no means exhausted. We have scarcely read through the primer of inventive genius. In every department of life's activities large rewards are offered for ideas.

What is your occupation or particular line of work? Is there not some part of your daily toil which could be simplified and its accomplishment facilitated by the introduction of an idea?

The worth of an idea should be apprehended by every young man and woman, as an appreciation of its value will exert a strongly beneficial influence upon the choice of occupation, companions, and books.

Seek to gain ideas from others and to develop them from your own resources. Their possession and use will make you wise to know and to do.

Put Your Ideas into Practice.

BENJAMIN IDE WHEELER, PH.D., Cornell University, Ithaca, N. Y.

"W"

HAT does, what knows, what is; three souls, one man," so the doctrine of John reads in the words of Browning. Doing, knowing, being; action, intelligence, character; these three are the trinity of life, and how can either be spared? The mere knowing of things does not make character, any more than the rules and canons of an art make skill. Acquaintance with the conventionalities of society does not make a gentleman. On the other hand, mere busyness is not being. Bare locomotion does not generate soul power. The restlessness of the house fly yields, we suspect, no fruit, either in knowledge or wisdom. Character is begotten of intelligent acts. It is the resultant of choices. What we are at any time is the product of all our deliberate acts. We are what we have done. Every single act of the will yields its insensible but none the less certain contribution to the sum of character. Elevation of moral character comes only through the furnace fires of moral testing and struggle. The half-reformed pickpocket, who, on seeing a handy purse in the outside pocket of his neighbor on a street car, prayed for strength, and changed his seat, made a gain of strength thereby. He could have made greater by sitting it out.

The supreme end of life is not found in knowing or in being. That were selfishness. The possession of character or knowledge is no end in itself. Character that does not act is dead. Action is its oxygen. The death is by asphyxiation. Knowledge that does not take shape in deeds, that does not apply itself to life, that does not take the life-form, is rubbish. Be

tween true learning and pedantry there is a deep gulf fixed. The one has a purpose with reference to the life of man, and is transmutable into acts; the other is an end to itself, is selfish, and takes hold on death.

The supreme end of life is not found in knowing or in being, but in putting knowledge and being into action. Personality is the active form of being. Herein lies the contrast between Christianity and the great Hindoo religions. Christianity looks to the development of personalities,-personalities that live and act the beneficent life of God, and so become the sons of God. The Hindoo religions look to the annulment of personality. Life is all sorrow. Desire, effort, action, is the great sin. Release from personality and absorption into the world-all is the true salvation. The one is the religion of optimism and action, the other of pessimism and quietism.

How natural it is to convince one's self that this is a perverse and hopeless world, and to shrink back into quiet with one's self, and let things drift. The dubious man is seldom a man of action. He will criticise the action of other people freely, but he will not take the responsibility of action upon himself. In council he will evolve a dozen reasons against a proposed plan, but will not formulate a substitute. His work all goes into the breeching and not into the traces. It is preeminently the men of hope, of outlook,—the optimists,-who act. Action is creative, and the motive power of creation is faith.

Distrust, then, is the first ground of inaction, and the second is like unto it, cowardice. How we stand shivering and dawdling before the bath, afraid to take the plunge. Action involves responsibility. Assuming responsibility is bravery. The heroes, the great leaders of men, are the men who take upon themselves the responsibility of action. The world is always waiting for men to lead it, men who have the courage of their convictions, are willing to select a course of action, take the risk, and start upon it. The men who forever stand counting the cost and estimating the disgrace of failure, they cannot be leaders. They are cowards.

Cowardice is the second ground of inaction, and the third i akin to it,-moral laziness. The will is weak. The fuse goes out before it reaches the charge. The case was clear, the opportunity apparent, but the will would not act. Knowledge would not transmute itself into action. "A little more sleep, a little more slumber, a little more folding of the hands to sleep." Half the sloth is moral sloth. More men fail through debility of will than through intellectual or physical debility. Force and energy are largely matters of the will.

Another ground of inaction is confusion of purpose. Men do not think the matter through. They do not grasp the essentials of the situation. They wallow in its details. They fail to gather all the conditions within a single field of vision, so that perspective is possible. Various possibilities of action stand in confused conflict. The mind is a jumble. Now one course, now another, seems good. It is a great thing for a man to know what he wants. A house divided against itself cannot stand. Conflicting and unsteady purposes throttle action.

Elaborate theorizing often proves in practical life a check upon action. Theorizing becomes an end to itself. It affords in itself a distinct satisfaction, especially when the theorizer is not troubled with any responsibility for their enactment, or with any relation to the actual vulgar state of things in life. Some minds are natural generators of schemes and theories. There is steam enough in the boiler, but it never goes to the cylinder. It never makes the wheels go round. So it becomes merely a question of explosion and ruin or of the safetyvalve and waste. Generally it is the latter.

Thought that is to go into action must know life. Theologies that are constructed in seclusion from life are not likely to touch life. They can be rehearsed and defended and subscribed to, but men do not usually live by them or die by them.

The best test of a theory or an idea is to put it into practice. If you are convinced that political conditions are not what they should be, and have an ideal of a better way in mind, do not think you are justified in hiding your ideal in a napkin and

yourself in a monastery. Do something. Attend the caucuses. Go there with a plan of action. Organize support for your idea. Push for nomination and election men who represent your idea. Secure a place on a political committee. Propose a definite plan. Do not spend yourself in criticism of what other people are doing. Do something. One chief reason why politics are what they are is that the people who have the higher ideals prefer to put them into laments rather than into action, and people who have low ideals put them into action rather than into laments.

Put your ideas into practice. It is better for the ideas. That is what they were intended for. Exercise is their hygiene.