Chapter 51

THE PEDIGREE OF ACHIEVEMENT

Man may breed up all animals but himself. Strive as he may, the laws of heredity are hidden. "Like produces like or the likeness of an ancestor" is the unalterable law of the lower animal. Not so with man--he is a strange anomaly. Breed him up--up--and then from his high breeding will come reversion. From pedigrees and plumed hats and ruffled shirts come not men, but pygmies--things which in the real fight of life are but mice to the eagles which have come up from the soil with the grit of it in their craws and the strength of it in their talons.

We stop in wonder--balked. Then we see that we cannot breed men--they are born; not in castles, but in cabins.

And why in cabins? For therein must be the solution. And the solution is plain: It is work--work that does it.

We cannot breed men unless work--achievement--goes with it.

From the loins of great horses come greater horses; for the pedigree of work--achievement--is there. Unlike man, the race-horse is kept from degeneracy by work. Each colt that comes must add achievement to pedigree when he faces the starter, or he goes to the shambles or the surgeon.

Why may not man learn this simple lesson--the lesson of work--of pedigree, but the pedigree of achievement?

The son who would surpass his father must do more than his father