THOUGHTS AT NINETY-TWO

Evening Star, Issue 19330, 17 August 1926, Page 4

THOUGHTS AT NINETY-TWO

DH ELICT SPEAKS “To all the young people of America; Don’t think too much about yourselves. Try to cultivate the habit o) thinking of others; this will reward you. '"'Nourish your minds by good reading, constant reading. Discover what your life work is, work in which you ran do most good, in which you can he happiest. Be unafraid in all things when you know you are in the right.”—Dr 0. W. Eliot. “Dr Charles W. Eliot, president emeritus of Harvard University, the accepted oracle of his country, looks at the world in his ninety-second year from a vista of four generations undistinguished service,” says ‘Collier’s Weekly. ’

“ Ho has seen the rise of the nation to pre-eminence in wealth, and be has seen side by side with that rise the growth of a genera) belief in the infallibility of the yardstick of money. “ We must restore our collapsed religious and moral ideals through a persistent will to culture. Our youth should read, rend, read. Science may facilitate the use of the senses in acquiring knowledge—through motion pictures and the radio. But T do not believe the.se will supplant the surest process of instruction—reading. _ I have never been interested in motion pictures, although I discern some value in them. I know that while science may improve the case and pleasure of life it can never replace flic will lo learn as an instrument; of culture.' “True ideas will fight their way through to the front and he accepted by men, no matter what stubborn opposition strives to repress them. That is the essence of the fun of life—contest without conflict. “1 have been physically and mentally tough, thank God, and I have always been active in the fight for the things 1 knew to be true and needed. In my early days on the faculty of Harvard University and later as president contest followed contest. I havo had the faculty arrayed against me, but I havo enjoyed the thrill of fighting for what I felt to bo the right idea, because that idea sprang from the right ideal; Selfishness is,” he adds, “ no loss fatal to national than to individual fulfilment. The minute you begin to think of yourself only you are in a had way. Yon cannot develop because you are choking the source of development, which is spiritual expansion through thought for others. “And so with the nation. If wo remain :n purse-proud isolation we may bo secure, but that security will be purchased at the cost of our souls. “ Selfishness always brings its own revenge. ""It cannot ho escaped. And the men and women—especially the women—who succumb to the fetish for self-expression, which is merely a nervous indulgence in self-exploitation—-will always find that in the long run they pay for their futile freedom with self-torture and remorse. “Bo unselfish. That is the first and the final commandment for those who would be useful and happy in their usefulness. Have no fear for the future. It will take care of itself if we take care of ourselves.”