Part 7
The person of disciplined will has learned to respect the rights of others. English people often comment on the lack of discipline in a certain type of American home, with its self-asserting children who ignore the rights of their elders. These children, grown up into young men and women, trample on the rights and on the feelings of others. The spoiled girl who goes away from home to live the community life in school or college can quickly be distinguished from her more fortunate fellow students who have behind them years of the firm and kindly discipline of a wise home. She is obliged to adjust herself to the new conditions, where her rights are of no more importance than those of any one else. She must put herself under prompt and severe discipline if she is to win for herself any place in the school or college world. If she fails to do this, she must pay the penalty. Until she can be an acceptable member of the community, she can have but small share in its life. One of the best reasons why every girl should receive a part of her schooling away from home is because of the wholesome discipline sure to be administered by her fellow students.
The athletic field is one of the best places in the world for discipline. Self-subordination to the good of the whole forms the basis of success in every game. Good "team-work" admits of no bumptiousness on the part of any player. No good, clean game is ever played without its lessons in self-restraint and self-control.
A trained and disciplined will you will find to be your most valuable resource, enabling you to do the thing that ought to be done and to do it when it ought to be done, whether you like it or not. Is not this power the greatest asset possessed by those who have achieved true success in every age? In these days, when learning is so often sugar-coated and made attractive by every possible device, it is well to emphasize this point. It seems to be the aim of some teachers--indeed, of some schools of education--to administer the greatest amount of knowledge with the least amount of effort on the part of the pupil. Every device and every method which deprives a pupil of doing his own thinking is harmful. The more genuine effort put forth the better. We all know that the quick pupil who learns without effort is often surpassed later in life by the plodding, hard-working pupil. One reason is that the latter was forced to acquire while young those habits of industry and perseverance which are the price of success.
A wise sprinkling of electives is a great improvement upon the iron-clad course of study of a generation ago. I certainly would not be understood as saying that it is better to study without enjoyment than with enjoyment, for I strongly believe the opposite. There is a tendency among students, however, in selecting a course of study to follow the lines of least resistance. I would almost advise a student to go to the other extreme. Remembering my own student days and the feeling of joy and mastery that came from conquering some particularly difficult subject in an inflexible course of study, I should give every student the opportunity occasionally to measure himself against a subject that is especially hard for him. It strengthens the sinews of the mind. It breeds confidence and power. Can you not remember some occasion when you mastered some especially difficult problem or subject, and can you not still feel the exhilaration that came with that mastery? You became suddenly conscious of new power, you could feel yourself grow. Then how can you believe that you are being educated if your work is not of such a nature as to call forth your highest powers? In regard to the tendency of students in schools and colleges to choose "snap courses," Dean Briggs says, "For any responsible work we want men of character--not men who from childhood up have been personally conducted and have had their education warped to the indolence of their minds." The attitude of mind which is satisfied merely with a passing grade is most unscholarly and betrays low ideals. One who is so satisfied has missed the conception of what education really is.
In life, as most of us quickly find out, one of the most important things we have to do is to overcome obstacles. They beset every path and either they must yield or we must. Life is not intended to be easy for any of us. Sometimes we meet persons who give us the impression of being able to conquer any situation or any combination of circumstances in which they may be placed. Whatever they undertake, we know they will carry it through in spite of obstacles. Such people inspire confidence wherever they go. We instinctively feel that they may safely be entrusted with large things. Julia Ward Howe used to say that she never dared to remark to her husband, Dr. Howe, that anything was impossible, for he would go straight off and do it!
I wonder if it was not the discipline in the soldier's life which made the early apostles speak so often of the Christian life in terms of warfare. Certainly there is nothing else in war that could have appealed to them. The soldier is the embodiment of discipline. He who would command others must first learn to obey. It is through obedience, discipline, that we come to authority. The first claim to a position of leadership in the world is complete mastery of one's self.
XI
THE SUCCESSFUL LIFE
We may not all agree upon a definition of success, but we shall all agree that whatever it is, we want it; that, indeed, we want it more than anything else in the world. How to secure it is what all the colleges and schools are trying to teach and what all the ministers in all the churches are preaching. If you knew you would sometime have to look back, realizing that you had made a failure of life, you would hardly care to go on living. Many do have this experience. Such a person seems like a disabled vessel being towed into port with broken mast and damaged rigging. Yet that person was once young and hopeful, with life all before him, and he looked forward to something so different! Sometimes we fail to realize that the very purpose of our school days is to get us ready for the voyage; that we are day by day being taught the use of chart and compass; that we are being shown where the danger lies and where the safe paths are to be found.
If you want to know how you can secure for your own life and character those qualities which you most covet, study the lives of those who have these qualities and try to compel them to yield you their secret. As I think, one after another, of the most successful lives of which I have read in history, I find that there are certain characteristics that all seem to have possessed in common. Take a dozen or a score of really successful lives chosen at random and make them a subject of earnest study and comparison. In outward circumstances and conditions of life you will find these lives widely at variance. One person has been a child of fortune and another has had the severest struggle with poverty. One bears an honored name with generations of culture, character, and achievement behind it; another is of obscure origin, with little help from family or early environment. The ends accomplished in life have been as different as the means of accomplishing them; yet in all worthy lives there are certain clearly defined and common characteristics.
In the first place, I think that all the successful people whom I have known or known of have had a definite purpose in life. I see them keeping right on, striving for a certain goal, regardless of enticements by the way. The able mariner knows to what port he is bound. He does not keep changing his course, he does not become disheartened and drift with every chance wind. Unswervingly he steers toward the goal he has in view. Many of the failures in life are caused by purposelessness.
None of these persons whom I have classed among the successful seem to have been seeking pleasure. They have been possessed by great ideas, they have been occupied with large thoughts, they have been devoted to the good of others, to the advancement of mankind. Can you imagine a Lincoln or a Phillips Brooks wrapped up in his own petty concerns, even for a day? The self-centered life is a failure. "He that is greatest among you, let him be the servant of all." All really successful lives have been moulded on that principle. Such men and women have not cared especially about being great or famous, but how they have longed to serve! There are thousands of unhappy persons who might find happiness and the beginning of success if they would only stop asking whether they are happy and would go and do something for somebody.
All really successful people have _faith_. They have faith in themselves, faith in their fellow men, and faith in God. It is difficult to see how any life can be strong without such faith.
We must have faith in ourselves because we are likely never to accomplish more than we believe we can accomplish. It is not always modesty on our part to shrink from an undertaking because of our unworthiness; sometimes it is weakness. "Self-trust is the essence of heroism," said Carlyle. This does not mean that there is no such thing as over-confidence in self. We have all known people who over-estimated their own powers. The conceited person is rightly considered a nuisance and a subject of ridicule. The person who is always attempting some great project which ends in a fiasco is deserving of the condemnation which he receives. Yet most failures are caused by too little confidence in self rather than too much. Our consciousness of weakness ought to be accompanied by a belief in our power to overcome that weakness. The self-distrust which hinders growth becomes a moral wrong. Those who accomplish large things usually have a splendid self-confidence which is as far removed as possible from self-conceit. It is said of Mary Lyon, by one of her biographers, that she had "the rare power of distinguishing between the impossible and the merely difficult." That is a power we should all cultivate.
One thing that should be impressed upon young people, who have not yet had sufficient experience to make the discovery for themselves, is that we have a right to judge ourselves by the best of which we are capable, not by the worst. There is an ebb and flow of the tides of the spirit. We have our moods of depression and of exaltation. One of sensitive conscience is quite likely to believe that his worst self is his real self. That is not true. This conflict among the many selves that each of us feels crowding for utterance within him is well expressed by one of our minor poets:--
"Within my earthly temple there's a crowd; There's one of us that's humble, one that's proud. There's one that loves his neighbor as himself And one that cares for naught but fame and pelf. There's one that's broken-hearted for his sins And one that unrepentant sits and grins. From much corroding care I should be free If once I could determine which is me."
In seeking to determine which of this motley crowd is really you, one thing should be clear, your real self is what you are in your highest moments. Do not accept as yourself the one who cares for fame and pelf, but the one who loves his neighbor as himself; not the unrepentant one, but the one who is broken-hearted for his sins. Life really is what it looks to us to be when we are on the heights, not when we are in the valley. When belief in our own possibilities is greatest, that is the time when our vision is truest; for the first step in realizing those possibilities is to believe in them. The vision of our best selves, of our highest possibilities, which we had on the heights, must be carried down into the valleys, there to furnish us inspiration and impetus.
"But tasks in hours of insight willed Can be through hours of gloom fulfilled."
If you would be really successful you must have faith in your fellow men. No doubtful or suspicious person was ever a benefactor of his race. The person who can help you most is the one who has most faith in you. So if you would help others, you must have faith in them. The power to see the best in a person in spite of his faults is a precious power. If you have it not, cultivate it. Never look for a mean motive in another. Always recognize the germ of goodness, small though it be, and always help it to grow. Nothing inspires us like the knowledge that some one expects good things of us.
By believing in people we make them believe in themselves. There is no greater service we can render our fellow men than to increase their faith in themselves and in their own powers. To be a faith-inspirer is a privilege we should all earnestly covet. We all know people from whose presence we come away feeling that all things are possible. They encourage us, they stimulate us, they compel us to believe in ourselves. This rare and precious power belongs only to those whose lives are fed from deep spiritual sources. To be a faith-inspirer one's own attitude toward life must be right; one must be in tune with one's self. The very atmosphere about such a person is charged with hope and cheer. No pessimist, no cynic, no misanthrope was ever a faith-inspirer. The possession of this quality depends not upon what we _do_, but upon what we _are_.
Some people, as they grow older and meet with more or less selfishness and deceit, as we all do, grow cynical. They conclude that there is no such thing as honor or constancy or disinterested kindness. Cling with undying faith to your belief in the goodness of human nature. Has some one deceived you? In spite of that, be just as ready to trust again.
"Better trust all and be deceived, And weep that trust and that deceiving. Than doubt one heart that, if believed, Had blessed one's life with true believing."
It would be difficult to find any one who has had real success in life and yet does not believe in God. How can I keep my own life serene and hopeful if I believe that the world is ruled only by blind chance, that there is no meaning or purpose in life, that wrong may eventually triumph over right? But belief in a wise and beneficent Ruler of the universe should be the greatest element of strength in my own life; it should give me assurance that the forces of the universe are in league with righteousness and that good will finally triumph over evil.
What a comfort it is to believe, when the forces of evil seem to be in the ascendant, that it is only for a moment! Perhaps you are troubled because justice does not always seem to be done in the world. You know that the wicked often prosper and the righteous suffer, and perhaps you are troubled to understand why. Doubtless this is not easy to comprehend fully, but far better than comprehension is the acceptance of it in the right spirit and as a part of the divine plan. We all need a working theory of life, a philosophy of life, if you will, or we cannot live strong lives. One who has faith in "that Power not ourselves that makes for righteousness" can be optimistic and serene, and can believe that things everywhere are gradually working themselves out for good. No matter what happens, such persons never believe that the world is going to destruction. Even the most cruel and needless war since time began cannot shake their faith that the world is gradually getting better and that it will continue to grow better. When they stand for the right, it is in the confidence that they are fighting on God's side and that in the end He is always victorious.
I believe there is such a thing as a habit of success. Some people have the habit, and you can hardly imagine them anywhere in this world or any other where they would not be winning successes. Why? Because of two things, high purpose and an indomitable will. Given both, what can defeat us? "The day is his who works in it with serenity and great aims."
Failure will come sometimes, to be sure, as it comes to all. But what of that? The indomitable spirit will still urge us on. Browning held that "we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better." So holds every brave, strong soul. This is what I call _the habit of success_. That attitude toward life, which in a failure or a defeat finds only a lesson for the next time, is sure to win.
My definition of success, you will see, does not take large account of wealth or position or fame, or of many other things some people foolishly think spell success. One who has mastered the fine art of living has had real success, whether or not the world ever hears of him. Do not think that the success of one's life is to be measured by the amount of pleasure in it. Some are fortunate all the days of their lives, with good health, sufficient means, and kind friends. Others have trouble after trouble heaped upon them, poverty, ill-health, and grief. We are likely, if we are not discerning, to think that one has failed of success when he has only been roughly buffeted by fate. We have to know the soul to know whether or not one has been a success. We have to know what God thinks of him.
What are the school days for unless they are to teach you values, to show you which things are of most worth? The same qualities which bring success in after life are needed in one's preparation for life. Opportunities lie all about, unnoticed and neglected by some, by others seized and employed to their full. Side by side sit two students, one dull and listless or dissipating the energies of the mind in a thousand ways; the other earnest, alert to seize every opportunity for self-improvement. Later in life the two move on, one failing in everything he undertakes because of these same habits of indifference and indolence; the other applying his concentrated powers to the task in hand and winning victory. Success in life is not greatly a matter of opportunity, it is rather a matter of character.
"Still o'er the earth hastes Opportunity, Seeking the hardy soul that seeks for her."
XII
THE PROGRESS OF WOMAN
Of all the wonders which the history of civilization presents to us, especially during the past century, by far the most remarkable is the progress of woman. Just as we teach the story of political and religious freedom to the rising generation, in order that the blessings of civil and religious liberty may be more fully prized and guarded, so all girls and women should be taught something of the long, arduous struggle which women have had in order to reach the position which they now occupy in the most enlightened parts of the earth. Though a painful struggle, its history is instructive and stimulating. If we know what public opinion has been in the past regarding woman's place in the world, we can more truly decide whether or not present-day tendencies are to persist.
It is so easy for the unthinking to assume that the world is as it was intended to be and that the customs and conventionalities of society are divinely ordained. This is one of the reasons why we should be careful students of history. No one who has the wide point of view which such study gives can fail to recognize the fact that ours is by no means a completed world, but that evolution is as surely in progress now as ever it was, and that human society is still in the making. Each generation is in duty bound to know the accumulated wisdom of past ages and to add something to it for future generations.
There are many phases of the so-called "woman-question," the enfranchisement of woman being only one of them, though the one we are hearing most about to-day. All the questions which have arisen, and all which are likely to arise in the future, may be summed up in one or two all-important questions: Is there any freedom, privilege, or opportunity accounted good for men that should be denied to women? If so, to whom belongs the right to deny it?
Within the last few years many conventional ideas regarding woman's sphere have been swept away and still others are disappearing. While the discussion is going on, sometimes with heat and bitterness, but sometimes calmly and sanely, a generation of girls is growing up, each one of whom is vitally concerned. In what sort of a world are these girls soon to take their places? To what extent are the duties and responsibilities of woman to be different from what they have been? The girl of to-day, who is to be the woman of to-morrow, should come into this new world open-eyed and intelligent.
Only a few hundred years ago philosophers were seriously debating the question whether or not women have souls. With the passing of the centuries an attitude of mind so extraordinary was no longer possible, but other ideas, which are not much less amazing in the light of to-day, long persisted.
The literature of any age reflects current public opinion, and if we would know how women were regarded and what qualities were thought most desirable in them, all we need do is read the literature of that period. Euripides reflects Greek sentiment when he makes Iphigenia say to Achilles, "Better a thousand women should perish than one man cease to see the light." The Latin motto, _Bene vixit qui bene latuit_ ("She has lived well who has kept well concealed"), speaks eloquently of woman's place in the days of the Roman Empire. In the metrical romances of the mediæval period, women seem to live only to grace a tournament or to furnish opportunity for a feat of chivalry on the part of some knight-errant. In Chaucer's time such stories as that of Patient Griselda force us to the conclusion that she was the most highly esteemed woman who patiently endured the grossest injustice and the most cruel wrong. The weak and sentimental women of Fielding, Richardson, and other eighteenth-century novelists call forth our pity when we realize the purposeless lives they were expected to lead. We must not overlook the fact, however, that in every age there have been marked exceptions to the general rule. From the time of Deborah, or long before, each age has had its "new women," its nonconformists, who insisted upon doing their own thinking. Most of Shakespeare's heroines are of this type.
From time immemorial laws have rested heavily upon women. This is true of the Roman law, so just and fair in most respects. Woman was not a citizen with the rights and privileges of a citizen; she was in a state of perpetual tutelage. We do not, however, have to go back to Roman times to find unjust discrimination against women. In this country Connecticut was the first State to give women the power to make a will, which it did only one hundred years ago. It is not long since a law was enacted in Massachusetts giving women a legal right to their own clothing. It took a terrible tragedy only a few years ago, the killing of a number of innocent children by their half-crazed mother lest they fall into the hands of their unworthy father, to cause the Massachusetts Legislature to abolish the law which made the father the sole guardian of his children.