PATER'S CHATS WITH THE BOYS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2690, 4 October 1905, Page 84

PATER'S CHATS WITH THE BOYS.

THE CENTENARY OF TRAFALGAR.

What preparations are you making to celebrate this event? I suppose I shall have something to say on Nelson in a week or two, but I should like the centenary to be well observed in country districts. We in Dunedin are hoping to have a gala day — one that will be remembered for many a year to come, — and I want" you all to join in ■ and make I'he celebration a- great success wherever the Witness is read. I don't know if the Navy League has a set of lantern slides or not ; but if it % has you ought to make early arrangements to get it. If you do have any entertainments to commemorate the event I hope that prominence will not be given to the bloodshed war is responsible for : * rather have it pointed out that an efficient navy means peace, and therefore an absence of bloodshed. A strong navy has three times during late years prevented a fearful war. The Fashoda incident and the Siani crisis are almost forgotten • and the fact that our navy . made it possible to keep communications open 'between the members of the British Empire j s and South Africa is not sufficiently recognised. I carinot emphasise it too strongly that a perfect British navy means a worldwide peace for some years to come..

THE SUEZ CANAL.

The cables this week show how precarious a thing it would be for us. to depend upon this route to the East in time of war ; and at the same time slioavs the value of the Cape of Good Hope route, the protection and securing of which was one of the objects of our South African war. To show how little, a hundred years ogo, the Cape was valued at, it is interesting to note that Nelson spoke of it with contempt. -We know differently now.

THE ANGLO:\MP;AiNESE ALLIANCE,

Perhaps no treaty since the Treaty of Paris, following Waterloo, has had such world-wide significance as fhe one we have just conchided with Japan. It is a check upon Russia, Germany, and France in the East ; it keeps China intact ; it gives an open door, as opposed' to the protective policies of France, Germany, and Russia; and it appears to give us Japanese troops for the defence of India and our interests in Persia. As a by the "way, readers -may remember Lord Charles Beresford's mission to the East as a "commercial agent" about three years ago. and they will now see that his presence I&ere must have had something to do with subsequent events.

The following is taken from Success, an American periodical, and I think it well worth reading : —

—Grasping at Too Many Things: — William Ma thews. —

One of the most frequent causes of failure in life is excessive ambition — that greediness which leads a man to grasp at too mauy of its prizes. There are some things

the acquisition of whioh is incompatible with that of others, and the sooner that truth is acted upon the better for an

aspirant. Much material good must be resigned, if one would attain to the highest degree of moral excellence, and many spiritual joys must be foregone if he would win great material advantages. To strive

for a high professional position, and yet expect to enjoy all the delights of social intercourse or of leisure; to toil after great riches, and yet to asft for freedom from anxiety and caTe; to live luxuriously, and yet to expect the ' love and esteem of one's fellow beings, or the delights of generosity and self-sacrifice-— to do these things is to seek for contradictory and mutually destructive advantages; in short, for impossibilities. The world is

a market, where everything is marked at an invariable price. Choose whatever i good you deeru most d«s ; raWe— wealth,

knowledge, fame, ease, or the promotion of other men's happiness: but, having inside a choice, stand by it, and make the most of it — extract from it ali the satisfaction you can, and not, like a pettinh child, fret ancT complain because, wh-pn you have purchased one- thing, you do not posses something entirely different from it, which cannot coexist with it.

It has been justly said that a great deal of a man's wisdom is shown to-day in leaving things unknown, and a great deal of his°practical sense in leaving things undone-. The horizon of knowledge has so wicencd, and such vast territories, nnkr.own before, have been discovered in the drina'n of mind, that the attempt at universality has become futile. A man must daro to be ignorant of many things, to avoid the disgrace of not really knowing anything. The pre?s is delugfng the world with books and periodicals, and they are so cheap to-day that thousands of persons, by try ins; to cope with too many branches of luiowledge, master none. They do not socm to recognise that, as the famous physician, Dr John Abernethy, said of himself,- " there may be a point of starvation in the mind where, if one takes into it more than it can hold, the only effect will Ye to push something else out." It was fii-ely &aid of the literary universalist, Edouard Fournier : "That man knows everything: true, ho know* only that, but he knows it well" ; yet how many persons to-day are familial with his writings?

Authors, as well as readers, often make the mistake of attempting too much. "There are writers,*' says Macaulay, in one of his letters, "who can carry on 20 books ab a time. Southey would write the ' History of Brazil ' before breakfast, an ode after breakfast, then the ' History of the Peninsular War' 1 ill dinner, and an article for the Quarterly Review in the evening; but I am of a different temper. I never write {o please myself until my subject has driven every other out of my head." What is the result? Macaulay's works still delight, and will long continue to delight, thousands ; but who now reads the ombitious histories and ponderous epics of the many-tomed historian, biographer, essayist, reviewer, and poet of Koswick? Sir Joshua Reynolds used to say that a. painber should sew up his mouth. Why? Because he must not try tp shine as a talker, if he would excel in his art.

Guard, therefore, young mam, against cultivating too rnaaiy talents ; only one can you hope to bring to perfection. Be "ai whole man" at one thing, and not split into two or three middling ones Thus, and thus only, may you hope to succeed in an age of merciless competition, when success taxes all one's powers.

Poverty is uncomfortable, as I can testify; but, nine times out of ten, the best tiling that can happen to a young man is to be tossed overboard and eomnelled to sink or swim for himself. In all my aoouaintanee I never knew a man to be drowned who was worth saving.— James A. Garfield.

VERB AND THE. PREPOSITION.

This is iv a lighter vein : —

English is said to be one of the most difficult languages in the world for a foreigner to learn. The verbs and prepositions are, particularly puzzling. A professor in Columbia School of Mines tells of the troubles of a Frenchman with the verb "to break." " I begin to understand your language better," said my French friend, M. De Eeauviir, to me, " but yotir verbs trouble me still- You mix them up so with .prepositions. " I saw your friend, Mrs Berky, jusfc now," he continued. " She says she intends to break down her school earlier than usual. Am I right there?' 5 " Break up her school, she must have said." " Oh, yes, I remember; break up school." "Why does she do that/ I asked. " Because Her health is broken into." ' ' Broken down. ' ' "Broken down? Oh. yes! .And, indeed, since fever has broken up in lier town — — " " Broken out." " She thinks she will leave it for a few weeks." "Will she leave her house alone?" "No, no; she is afraid it will be broken — broken — how do I say that?" " Broken into." "Oertainly; it is what I meant to say.'* "Is her son to be married soon?" . "No; that engagement is brokenbroken " ' "Broken off?" " Yes, broken off." , '■' Ah, I had not heard that !" " She is very sorry about it. Her son only broke the news to her last week. Am I right? lam anxious to sneak English, well." - ■ . • "He merely broke the news; no preposition this time." "It is hard to understanEl. That young man, her so'i, is a fine young fellow— a breaker, I think." '• A broker, and a fine fellow. Good day !'' So much for the verb " break."' — Xew York Times. ODDS AND ENDS. And so are these — all taken 'from educational journals : — A High School girl said to hor father the"other night: "Daddy, I've got a sentence here I'd like you to punctuate. You know something about punctuation, don't yem?" " A little," said her cautious parent, os he took the slip of paper she handed him. - This is what foe read : " A five-dollar bill flew around the corner." He studied it carefully. "Well," he finally said. "I simply put 3 period after it, like this." "I wouldn't," said the High School girl;i "I'd make a dash after it." A little maid had been taught to say "double c" and "double «." So one day, •when the teacher asked her to read from the board the sentence, "Up, up, the kite goes," she said confidently. "Double up the kite goes." "Mother, I can never win the medal for good behaviour,"' exclaimed a boy just in from school ; "I've tried and tried, but some other pupil always gets it." "But you must keep on trying," said his mother, encouragingly. "Its no use,'' replied tha boy; "I shan't try any more. It's ai clean waste of goodness." It was in a country school, and the teacher had been explaining that fliea rubbed their faces with tteir feet to keep them clean. "There is one lesson that boys and girls might I*arn from them," she »aicL "Who can tell me what it is 2*

Only one small boy ventured an answer. "To wash our faces with our feet, teacher," lie 'said. The master had just taken his class of little boys in a French lesson, and in order to see. how much they knew about it he was • asking them the French for various English nouns. Turning to the smallest boy in tho class, he sard, "Now tell me, Johnny, what do you say for ' bread and V.n feer'?" The little boy's eyes brightened, "Thank you, sir!" he replied, and looked expectantly at the master. . . Two little boys were one night singing the opening lines of the hymn beginning, "Ere another Sabbath's close, Ere again ■we seek repoee." Their mother suggested that this was a hymn more suitable for Sunday than Saturday night, to their evident astonishment. "'But, mother, they protested, "on Saturday night you air our clothes for Sunday, and we seek repose"—the words as they rendered them being, "Air another Sabbath's clothes, Air again, we seek, repose." Little Lucy had been listening to a lecture from her. father on the folly of being afraid to be alone in the dark and of various other nervousnesses to which timid childhood is a prey. "Father," she said, when he had finished', " when you see 3 cow" -aren't you afraid?" "No, Lucy; certainly not."- "JNor when you see a black sweep with a great' sooty . bag?" *'Of, course not!" — with assumed scorn. "Not even when it thunders?" • "No, no, ycu silly little girl !" The little one looked at' her big-bearded - parent in an ecstacy of ■hero-worship.- "Father, "eshe eaid, solemnly, "aren't you afoaid of nothing in Jhe world •i-excep' mother?" - -

" THE FAMILY. Tie family is like a book, The, children are the. leaves, The parents are the cover, that Protective beauty gives. At first th© pages of the book Are blank and purely fair, But Time soon writeth memories -And paints the pictures there. Love is the little golden clasp That bindeth up the trust; Oh, break it not, lest' all the leaves Shall scatter and be lost. te —Selected. WHAT'S THE "USE?

"What's th« use of folks a-frowning When the way's a little rough? Frowns lay out tJie way for wrinkles— You'll be wrinkled soon enough. What's the use? !What's,th« use of folks a-sighm' ?, It's an awful waste o' breath, An' a body can't stand wastin' What he ..needs so much in death. What's the use? What's the use o' ever weepin'? "• Might .as well go 'long and smile, Life, our longest, strongest sorrow, Only lasts a little while. What's the use? —Paul L. Dunba*.