Commendation is due regardless of whether the good is really done or not. It is praise for the altruistic motive. It is the same quality that leads men to war, to various kinds of martyrdom, from the days of torturing of religious martyrs to the present day, when men must be either martyrs or cuckoos. It is more comfortable to be a cuckoo; to always endorse the medium popular views on all subjects. But some men are so constituted that they must speak out as they feel, particularly if it seems to involve a sacrifice of this or that one's esteem. The man who goes contrary to the medium view is generally partly wrong, but he must be given credit for having used his brain and lived according to his view. His view may have been only a half view, wholly one-sided, but his conclusions may have been true to his sight. The same man with the whole view might find reasons for endorsing the popular notions, but if he did endorse them he would do so not because they were popular but because they seemed right to him. Nearly every man holding extreme views on any subject will be found at heart all right, if we have a chance to understand his reasons for his position.

More than one-third of the day is spent in the works and it averages to be more than one-half of our conscious hours, or in other words, more than one-half of our life when awake. If we disregard the advancement made possible by industrious attention, and if we only consider our daily comfort during the hours spent in the works, we shall find that a keen interest in the game of work is desirable, for it cuts out the pain and discomfiture of clock watching. It also results in our learning many facts that would never have been known if we should only strike a pole-horse gait.

The first twenty or thirty years of shop experience should be the progressive years; after that the fruits of experience should be enjoyed by a comparatively peaceful following of the work as it develops. But at all times each one should keep up to date by close observation of new development.

Many a man with a good position has been led to discontent and loss of position by impractical preaching of ambition and enterprise. A good, reliable, comfortable position should not be given up without some fairly definite knowledge of what is to be gained by the risk. If all is true that has been written on the subject of advancement as the result of study, we all can fit into the greatest positions in the country simply by studying. But we know well enough that the requirements of some of the greater positions would make us decidedly ill at ease and that we should be entirely out of place in them.

Labels: Alternate universe, Experiential education

¶ 8:30 AM